Marketers and agency executives are convinced targeting makes a big difference in ad effectiveness. Trouble is, they’re wrong—at least to the extent they value it over creative quality and reach.
Those are the conclusions of Westwood One from a recent Advertiser Perceptions survey of 305 marketers and agency people, compared to results of a landmark 2017 study conducted by NCSolutions of what factors drove sales impact for 500 packaged goods campaigns.
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One caveat: The survey was done by a company that sells radio advertising. But Pierre Bouvard, chief insights officer of Cumulus Media and Westwood One, says the idea wasn’t to buttress the case for radio.
The NCS data support the relative value of reach across TV or digital too, he says. And, besides, creative quality, rather than any media planning and buying decisions, was the biggest success driver in the NC Solutions research Bouvard cites.
The other caveat is that the agency people surveyed were from media agencies, who are more likely to value media over creative. But Bouvard notes that the survey results were virtually identical among the marketer and agency sub-groups.
Overall, marketers and media agency folks gave targeting 2.5 times more credit than it deserves for ad effectiveness, Bouvard says, based on the NCS study, which used Nielsen media exposure and Catalina sales impact data.