Optimize Your Communications Spend

The Media “C”scape is changing

The communications landscape is changing rapidly. Consumers have more control and choice in what they look at, listen to, say, and do. Historically communications research has focused on developing and tracking the impact/results of measured mass media – TV, Print, Radio. With so many choices today, traditional media does not fully capture the consumer’s brand experience in the ever changing communications landscape.

TNS is excited about the newly formed alliance with Integration Marketing Communications (IMC) to bring MarketContactAudit (MCA™) to the world. In a nutshell, MCA audits the effectiveness and cost efficiency of any brand’s marketing plan in a given category for both traditional measured media and non-traditional (e.g., Word-of-Mouth, Billboards, Blogs). It allows for accountability in marcom.

Through contacts or touchpoints, it quantifies how consumers experience brands beyond mass media to provide a holistic measurement of Brand Experience (BE) which is a critical factor of sales performance.

Where does Brand Experience fit with respect to Marketing and Sales?

The Demand Generation Equation

The factors in the numerator constitute the Persuasion Process: Who the prime prospects are, What are the attributes that build a strong brand positioning, and How to initiate brand activities through most appropriate contacts. Hence, MCA works best in conjunction with other tools measuring brand positioning and segmentation strategies like TNS’ NeedScope™, Conversion Model™, FutureView™, and your own custom segmentation. What and Who indicators tend to move slowly in time. Consumers first experience brands through contacts and MCA indicators are very sensitive to variations in marketing activation, hence the need to track Brand Experience regularly. Also, as most marketing costs are spent on contacts, the only way to achieve marketing accountability is to allocate costs to contacts: costs cannot be allocated to attributes.

Brand Experience Shares, as measured by MCA, consistently correlate with market shares at more than 80%. Brand Experience Shares could, therefore, act as an early warning indicator of market share movements, all else being equal in the Demand Generation Equation. Analyzing both measurements and performing a gap analysis is very valuable when identifying best practices and taking relevant corrective actions.

What are Brand Experience Points (BEPs)?

Consumers’ perceptions are quantified via Brand Experience Points (BEPs) which allows marketers to compare the brand’s performance across the spectrum of contacts, whether they are more attitudinal (brand consideration) or behavioral (brand usage or purchase) in function. BEPs are obtained by measuring the brand associations with contacts that are weighted by the influence of contacts on the category. BEPs reflect the effective reach, frequency and memorability of the brand encounters compared to the competition. As such, they capture the value of creativity and execution.

Why are BEPs a “Breakthrough”?

BEPs are a single currency in the complex universe of “holistic” marketing and they allow valuable comparisons across markets and time, enabling brand owners to build a comprehensive understanding of marcom best practices.

How do we Measure the Cost Efficiency of Marketing?

When costs are appropriately captured so that they are comparable across the range of contacts, the cost per BEP becomes a simple and powerful measurement of contact cost efficiency. Lowering the average cost per BEP or the cost of 1% of Brand Experience Share (BES) is expected to translate into an improvement in bottom-line performance.

What is the relationship between MCA^TM and Media or Marketing Mix Modeling?

Media efficiency and optimization can be addressed through Media or Marketing Mix Modeling. MCA compliments these approaches as follows:

• Uses survey data rather than secondary data which are often cheaper and easier to work with than complex, costly secondary data sources. Key MCA inputs can be refreshed quickly, and on a timely basis with survey data.

• Provides depth for audience/target level analysis for preference of contact point and efficiency using TNS’ NeedScope™, Conversion Model™, or custom client segmentations.

• Provides breadth of insights on contact points that clients have less information and control over (e.g., WOM, Blogs, Sports & Events)

If you do not currently use mix modelling, MCA provides a broad consumer based understanding of media efficiency at an affordable price, plus the depth and breadth described above.

Through the TNS/Integration alliance, TNS is the ONLY market research company that offers an “end to end” MCA package. This includes MCA combined with fieldwork and MCA “bundled” with other TNS custom and branded solutions (e.g., BPO™, Conversion Model™, FutureView™, NeedScope™, AdEval™).

For more information, please contact Melinda Smith at 513.345.2051, or email
tnsbcdinfo@tns-global.com.