THE EPHRON NEWSLETTER
We are very proud to be able to host the Ephron Newsletter. Erwin Ephron, of Ephron Papazian Ephron, New York, is well known in media planning circles as an incisive and witty commentator on the media research and planning scene as seen from the US, as well as a leading advocate of "recency planning". For back issues or other information, go to this website at www.ephrononmedia.com.
The most recent issue is at the top of the pile.
Two Plus Two Is Four? (April 2008). Describes the confusing mathematical world of the media buyer.
The So, So Sophists (March 2008). Those who argue that the ratings are out of date are like the ancient Greek sophists, asserting philosophical oversimplifications with little evidence.
The Sainthood of Engagement (February 2008). The search for 'engagement' has become an article of faith, unsupported by rational evidence or measurement or even a clear definition of what is meant.
The Brittle Bones of Media - why reach isn't reach any more (October 2007). The light viewer problem means that TV reach is always wasteful. A recent study shows that adding radio can improve light viewer coverage.
How People Sense Media (September 2007). Radio adds to TV effectiveness by involving another sense.
Lizard Brain Learning (July 2007). Even if inattentive viewers may still be affected by an ad, this is not relevant to media planning. We should not be paying for viewers who are not viewing the set, which is the main cause of disengagement.
Why isn't TV more...Upfront (June 2007). The Upfront system survives, even though TV demand has changed, because it benefits the seller. The buyer (the client) loses out, and would be better served by an open market.
We Are Not Alone (April 2007). Nobody has succeeded in defining engagement. This has made it useless for advertising effectiveness measurement or understanding, and a convenient 'bump-sticker' for anyone who has their own medium measurement to peddle.
The Minute That Took Most of a Year: TV argues over a grown-up approach to buying (March 2007). The elusive definition of the "commercial minute" (who is really watching?), and how wishful thinking (by the sellers) inflates it.
The Open Mind: why neuroscience may not save advertising. (February 2007). Very timely. Being able to measure emotional responses in the brain doesn't tell one anything about how the advertisers can bring about the desired emotion in the first place. In the hype about emotion and engagement, some traditional commonsense measures of advertising effectiveness are being neglected.
Who Watches the Watchers. (November 2006). Nielsen (in US) is offering `commercial minute ratings'. Many people think this will show how many people are watching each commercial - but they delude themselves. It is an over-promise: Erwin explains why.
Chaos isn't for sissies. (September 2006). As the media scene becomes increasingly chaotic, the need is to address it, not by putting faith in magical systems one can't understand, but by old-fashioned thinking the problem through - such as zero-based budgeting to produce accountability.
A Message from Cannes: it's time to watch the watchers. (August 2006). Increasing consumer control of the media was the talk of the industry at this year's Cannes festival. But rather than whether consumers will make commercials, shouldn't we all be worrying more about how easily they can avoid them - and start demanding more realistic ratings (and making more `engaging' ads)?
The Bent Acronym: scrambled letters from the internet (June 2006). More and more initialy letters nobody can understand.
Preventing Disengagement: isn't the obvious problem too many commercials? (May 2006). A timely thought with all the talk about 'engagement'. TV's problem is that programmes already engage - the difficulty is to stop disengagement, and the chief cause of that is clutter.
Floating High and Empty: do our words say what we mean? (April 2006). Too many of the terms media planners use are waffly-feely and lack measurable content. Examples: branding, engagement, optimse, touch-points, ROI.
A Reality Show of Research (March 2006) Ethnography (observing what people do with media) may fill in some of the gaps in conventional research.
A Handicapper's Dream (February 2006). Passive people meters (PPM) are producing data which is very helpful to radio. But are radio buyers getting the message?
What Engagement? Make a more engaging ad. (January 2006) The media are pushing measures of advertising engagement as a way to improve the rating. This isn't sensible.
Engagement Explained (December 2005). Engagement is a new buzzword (really a cry for help). But it must be translated into something measurable if we are to do anything with it. The idea in fact contains four different measurable concepts.
Sleeping with the Enemy (November 2005). Competitive clutter is a fact of
life. Why not take advantage of it?
The CPM Below (October 2005). How demographic profiling can be used to show whether higher television CPM is a better buy.
The Song of the Siren (September 2005) Why reach on its own doesn't work anymore, and how to boost it with targeting and synergy.
The Ivory-billed Nit Picker. (August 2005) Where have the media researchers gone? Their function in media planning seems to have been taken over by people who lack their objectivity.
Delivering the Message. (July 2005) Discuss the effect of relevance, content and involvement with magazines and how one should measure them.
Reach Trumps Frequency - how radio can build business in a ppm world. (June 2005). Radio should work well as a `reminding' (reach) medium. But its high-targeting selectivity seems to work against it. A different approach to radio buying is needed to turn it into an ideal reach medium.
Adding Prozac to the Media Mix (May 2005). The advertising industry may be changing, but not as apocalyptically as the flood of internet-based newsletters about it would suggest.
A New Ratings Model. (April 2005). You can't remove dissatisfactions with the basic media currency by changing it. The right approach is to add new measurements to fill the gaps.
It's the Other Guy's Commercial. (Mar 2005). Broadcast clutter is the medium's problem - advertisers and agencies can't measure it. But when the media do something to reduce it, advertisers only see the extra cost and not the possible saving.
The Law is an Ass, but Flowers might Help (Feb 2005). A recent conference reveals increasing irritations with Nielsen's monopoly of TV measurement in the US. The industry can't make them change without falling foul of the law. Should a different approach be tried?
The Uninvited: commercial avoidance and the media (Jan 2005). Irritation with intrusive advertising, and attempts to avoid it, are increasingly a concern for advertisers. The media are not a level playing field here: it is undoubtedly worse for TV and radio than for (say) print or outdoor. The reason is not just intrusiveness but duration. People want to be in control, not forced to watch.
Gentlemen, take off your Hats (Dec 2004). Camy (the Council on Alcohol Marketing and Youth) accuse the alcohol industry of over-advertising to young people - but their argument is biased as it ignores the sampling error in the cable figures.
Where the Rubber Meets the Sky (Nov 2004). A new single-source media-product panel is proposed in the US. What should it be used to study? How may it influence how media planning is done?
Deflating the Pumped-Up TV Plan (Oct 2004).The insistence of industry research in separating `exposure' from the communication value of what is exposed leads to a false impression of cost-effectiveness from using 15'' commercials as if they were as good as 30''.
Media Malpractice (Sep 2004). This is an important wake-up call. Traditional measures of media delivery such as OTS are no longer adequate. They overstate the actual probability that a stimulus has been put before the viewer. Outdoor measurement has done something to overcome this problem, with the VAI (Visibility Adjusted Impacts) probability measures (now adopted in the US following experience in the UK). The data are available to do something similar for TV, print etc. - it only needs the will. Erwin illustrates how. This Newsletter carries at the end an extensive list of useful notes.
The Broken Covenant (Aug 2004). The `contract between American viewers and TV (that it would be `free' in return for the commercials) has been broken, and it is not the viewers' fault. Viewers respond by avoiding the commercials. This may destroy the whole mass-market model.
And the Last shall be First (July 2004). Outdoor audience measurement appears to be doing a much better job than TV.
House Odds (June 2004). Advertisers rightly feel they get ripped off in TV buying, because they do not understand the market or know the price.
The Egoists (May 2004). Media tend to overstate the importance of the medium as opposed to the ad, and do not pay enough attention to getting the ad seen.
The Bureau of Weights and Measures (April 2004). Media CPMs are not self-explanatory: comparing them across different media is still comparing apples and oranges, and confusing to the media buyer.
Hard Rock (March 2004). A report from the recent 4As conference in Orlando, Florida. Advertising professionals looking for a direction.
Sunset Boulevard (February 2004). Huge money is wasted because TV buying still chases high rating programmes. Recent research shows that these are least likely to hold viewers' attention through the breaks, and most likely to be vide recorded (and thus fast-forwarded through the commercials). Live programmes, such as news and weather, may be a better bet.
Sauce for the Outdoor Goose (January 2004). Outdoor (poster) measurement as being developed in USA. OTS are higher than the actual probability of seeing - but doesn't that apply to other media too?
Fear and Trembling (Dec 2003). Television is already in its death throes.
Talking Paper (Nov 2003) A review of the five basic principles of media planning.
For October, Erwin considers multimedia, whether effects are `integrated' or not - what matters is performance: - Media mystery (Oct 2003)
Erwin's September letter discusses the problems of using and measuring outdoor media: An outdoor ratings manifesto (Sep 2003)
Finding the other half (July 2003). Erwin Ephron and Gerry Pollak look at MMA data which suggests that, if advertising seems to fail to pay back, it is because most of our evidence comes from consumer packaged goods (CPGs) and television: other products, and magazines, do better.
The Puzzling Passivity of Print (June 2003) - and why aren't they using magazines more?
The Paradox of Product Placement (May 2003). Product placement could help to overcome the clutter and churn of TV, but TV advertisers are imposing impossible rules---
History of the Upfront (April 2003). Each new TV season, there is the `upfront' market when buyers pay premium prices to secure the `best' deals. It is as old as television, and whatever happens to the economy, nothing kills it off.
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