Seven months on from its initial launch and in light of the uncertainty caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, TV marketing body Thinkbox has updated its ‘Demand Generator’ optimisation tool to offer users greater flexibility over its output.
The free-to-use tool, developed by Gain Theory, MediaCom and Wavemaker, was released at the end of last year to help marketers choose the optimal media mix for their specific business objectives.
Created for medium-to-large advertisers without access to their own econometric analysis, the ‘Demand Generator’ also forecasts the likely business results of following its guidance in terms of incremental revenue and profit and ROI.
In response to feedback from early users, the tool now offers the option to deselect advertising channels from the optimisation, the option to choose different media spend budgets in years two and three, more detail on how the effects accumulate over three years, and a new data download format.
According to Thinkbox, it has been used over six thousand times by agencies and advertisers from 77 countries since launch.
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“The Demand Generator has seen fantastic take-up since launch. It seems to be filling a genuine gap in the market for those brands that don’t already do econometric analysis,” said Matt Hill, research and planning director at Thinkbox.
“Following its successful launch and welcome feedback from early users, we’re delighted to now build in greater flexibility and hopefully make it even more useful. In the current climate, with so much uncertainty, having a tool like this that offers such a well-informed place to start from is vital.”
Following a preview of the enhanced tool, Sam Gaunt, founder of The Working Fifty and former head of media at Lidl, said: “The ROI estimates and media channel weighting that this tool recommends for different categories are comparable with many econometric models I have worked with.
“The latest features provide greater insight and flexibility allowing the tool to be adapted for different scenarios. For brands without bespoke econometric insight, the Demand Generator tool is an excellent starting point for smarter media planning.”
The ‘Demand Generator’ was built based on the findings of the ‘Demand Generation’ study – an econometric analysis of £1.4bn of media spend over three years by 50 brands across 10 forms of advertising.
The study found that some forms of advertising are much riskier than others and that, although most channels boost the efficiency of others, the scale and consistency of the effect differs significantly.
