In AOL Chairman Tim Armstrong’s earnings call yesterday, he spoke of “One insertion order, all screens” which is an awfully bold idea. Continuity focused media planners aside, creating an ad and promotion that is arrayed across a number of media screen and types (not all media is screen-based) offers a media lab that will be tres helpful to marketers.
When advertising doesn’t work, who do we blame? “When the phone don’t ring,” the country song goes, “it’ll be me.” But with a number of ads in different media situations performing and measured by big data analytics, marketers have something tangible to work with. They won’t just be looking at the voids.
Let me vamp here. Say you go to AOL and buy 2 million impressions – all at a blended CPM rate. Some or on Huff Post, others on local editions of Patch, more on a video channel or mobile site. Perhaps a TV component or podcast. Measuring and managing that activity, by media, offer, and message will be cool dashboard stuff. Then overlay some demographic data on the performance and you have veritable marketing fun house. Of course there will be some mess, but big gains usually start messy. Como se the Affordable Healthcare Act? Peace.