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ARM Weekly Media News Update

2nd September 2015

Does X Factor still have the X Factor? By Aisling Cahill

Success through failure By Luigi Raw

The Ashes changes hands off the pitch By Oliver Bertwistle

PPC: How useful is phrase match type? By Martyna Karpinska

TV

Does X Factor still have the X Factor?

The X Factor returned to our screens on Saturday with its lowest series debut audience in almost a decade with 7.6 million viewers. The Thames and Syco Entertainment format lost almost 2 million of last year’s launch of 9.5 million, a 42.9% share of viewing, peaking with 8.5 million (41.2% share) over the five minutes from 8.45pm. ITV’s juggernaut singing contest got off to a rocky start, despite an injection of fresh faces with new judges Rita Ora and Nick Grimshaw, as well as Caroline Flack and Olly Murs replacing Dermot O’Leary. The 12th series of the programme performed to its lowest opening audience since 2006 when it entertained an average of 7 million, a 37.2% share of viewing. The ratings did not improve for its second outing on Sunday either. The X Factor’s audience slid by more than a million viewers to 6.5 million (30.1% share) over the 8pm hour and it was some way off last year’s second outing, which drew 8.2 million (34.8% share).

All Response Media Viewpoint

It’s been no secret that TV audiences have been on a decline for the past few years, therefore drops in viewing figures for ‘appointment to view’ shows such as the X Factor are inevitable. However, when we consider that bedfellow Britain’s Got Talent secured 10.1 million (45.7% share of all viewing) for its opening audience on 11th April 2015, it shows that there are still the viewers out there. With ITV spending the money it does on its flagship programming, and the well-known discrepancies with BARB and its reporting accuracies possibly limiting the ad spend these programmes can generate, could this be what we need for ITV to finally join the debate? Time will tell, but it would surely accelerate improvements should the likes of ITV get involved.

By Aisling Cahill, Account Director

BBC should pause before putting Strictly against X Factor, says C4's Hunt Channel 4’s chief creative officer Jay Hunt said the BBC should think twice before scheduling Strictly Come Dancing against ITV’s The X Factor, saying the commercial network ‘really needs it to do well’ this year. Hunt, a former controller of BBC1, said ITV needed the ratings more than the BBC in the simmering feud between the two broadcasters over their Saturday night schedules.

The Ashes changes hands off the pitch

BT Sport has claimed the television rights to the next Ashes series, bettering the bid of rivals BSkyB by a reported £20 million. This will make the 2017/18 series – which will be contested in Australia – the first England tour to be broadcast by anyone other than Sky for 27 years. Having secured the exclusive rights to air the Indian Premier League for the 2015 competition, BSkyB has actively looked to consolidate their stranglehold over live cricket on British television in recent times. However, BT Sport – fresh from denting Sky’s football output after claiming further Premier League coverage and exclusive Champions League rights – are now finally providing stiff competition to Sky’s dominance and are ultimately confirming their place as major contenders for the next ECB broadcast deal. The deal, worth a cool £80 million, affords BT Sport the rights to show all Australia’s international matches in the UK; the key component of this for the UK audience being the next Ashes series. BT Sport will also be able to show Australia’s high profile series against New Zealand, South Africa, India and Pakistan and included also are the rights to the Big Bash League – a premium proposition to sit alongside their current Caribbean Premier League offering. Furthermore, and excitingly for the millions of cricket fans who have missed out since 2005, the deal will also see the return of free-to-air cricket. Although nowhere near the complete return to terrestrial television that many hanker for, BT will show a ‘match of the week’ from the Big Bash on their new Showcase channel from 2017, when the deal kicks in. This is not the end of the story for BT either. The distribution rights for England’s series against Pakistan in the UAE this October are still yet to be sewn up, meaning Sky face a very real proposition of an even more immediate blow. BT will surely also be eyeing up the ECB’s proposed new domestic T20 competition which, although unconfirmed yet, will be designed to compete with – or better – its higher profile siblings in Australia and India. All Response Media Viewpoint

While widely reported and discussed, it seems much of the conversation around the Ashes rights has ultimately concluded with a suggestion that ‘everyone will be asleep anyway, it doesn’t really matter. One look at the viewing figures for the last two series down under immediately disproves this assertion. The 2013/14 series averaged an adult audience of just over 100,000 during hours of play – on par with the current average C5 daytime audience – despite England performing hopelessly. If we turn our gaze back a further three years, the ratings were even more impressive; the average audience throughout the series was approximately 250,000 adults. Furthermore, this included a peak of 1.2 million adults watching on Day 4 of the Fourth Test (at midnight UK time), when England won the Ashes on Australian soil for the first time in 24 years. Beyond the Ashes, which ultimately are only one part of a much bigger deal, BT has set out its stall in a very serious manner. This marks them as serious competition to Sky within the cricket market – an area in which they have been virtually unrivalled for 10 years now. It also further bolsters the BT Sport portfolio, which is rather football-heavy, and provides access to the sought after 16-34 Men and Men ABC1 demographic for advertisers.

By Oliver Bertwistle, Senior Media Executive

Digital

Success through failure

‘I've never failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work’ This iconic quote from Thomas Edison, who created 10,000 failed prototypes of the electric bulb before finally succeeding, is a great reference to the fact that you can succeed through failure. Recently there has been a lot of talk online about how technology has made it quicker and easier to fail, learn, move on and eventually succeed in business. One thing that has not really been covered is how this same process applies to advertising and marketing. Like many things in life, you are not going to get everything with your advertising perfect first time, but what you learn from this is what can make the difference. Technology grants us access to a mine of information both pre and post campaign so we are able to plan advertising strategies using publically accessible data, case studies, internal/client data, etc. for a number of verticals anywhere in the world. This information reduces the chance of failure significantly and can even work toward removing the risk altogether. Those who have been in advertising for a while (you know who you are) will remember what it was like to have limited data resources and that data you did have would have to be crunched manually using a cumbersome spreadsheet. This data availability has seen a huge increase in the number of services that helps bring all this data together, with building strategies and with presenting the data in easy to read reports and dashboards. Tools such as Google Analytics, DoubleClick and Datorama are able to offer granular analysis of media campaigns which allow for continuous optimisation of future campaigns, thus increasing efficiency and saving all important ad spend. All Response Media Viewpoint

Within ARM, we are constantly using these tools to achieve the best results for clients from the initial proposals through to managing the account on a day-to-day basis. It is essential to maximise the technology and systems available – in a cohesive and seamless working strategy – when striving to ensure the delivery on client KPI's and goals. In summary, technology has changed the world, the way we learn and the way we fail. Imagine what Thomas Edison could have achieved with modern technology and think; how many times will you try before you succeed?

By Luigi Raw, Digital Media Planner/Buyer

Google changes logo with new brand suite Google introduced a new sans-serif and slightly toned-down four-colour logo yesterday in the biggest redesign since 1999. The new design will soon be seen across all its products, consisting of the Google logo itself, along with a four colour G and four dots. Google’s homepage introduced the redesign with an animation that wiped away the old logo and drew the new one. ‘Google has changed a lot over the past 17 years – from the range of our products to the evolution of their look and feel. And today we’re changing things up once again,’ the company said in a blogpost, which also shows a video of the history of Google’s.

PPC: How useful is phrase match type?

After Google’s introduction of the broad match modifier (BMM) in 2010, which has allowed advertisers to increase their ad visibility and qualified traffic, a lot of digital marketers have stopped using phrase match keywords and started building their campaigns using a combination of exact match and broad match modifier terms only, still being able to capture the same traffic. Does it mean that modified broad match has effectively destroyed phrase match? Comparing the performance of two exactly the same keywords, one in phrase and the other in modified broad match, which should theoretically behave in the same way, the BMM seems to bring in more conversions and higher click-through-rates (CTRs). However, phrase match generates a better cost-per-action (CPA), conversion rate (CVR) and cost-per-click (CPC). All Response Media Viewpoint

Even though we can capture the same traffic with exact match and BMM keywords, phrase match can generate slightly cheaper leads when used correctly. If budgets are the most important metrics, taking the time to build out phrase match campaigns with an extensive use of negative keywords could be beneficial. However, if you’re short on time and can spare more on the CPA side of things without restricting budget, a combination of exact match and broad match modifier would achieve similar results, without sacrificing traffic volume. As long as the negative keyword list is built out extensively and search query reports are done frequently to eliminate irrelevant terms, you will find that you can get a lot more for your money by not using phrase match keywords.

By Martyna Karpinska, Digital Media Executive

Facebook gets a billion users in just one day Zuckerberg made the announcement in a post on his profile: ‘For the first time ever, one billion people used Facebook in a single day. On Monday 31st August, 1 in 7 people on Earth used Facebook to connect with their friends and family.’

Netflix drops thousands of films in bid to go it alone In a bold move, Netflix will not renew its deal with distributor Epix, meaning thousands of favourites like the Hunger Games and Transformers will no longer be available on the service as the video streaming firm bets its future on its rising roster of exclusive shows. Netflix’s deal with Epix, which is reported to be worth $1 billion (£649 million), will run until the end of September this year.

SEO tip of the week…

Quality content: Positive signals such as the amount of time spent on a page are having an increasingly significant impact on rankings. Therefore it is important to keep the reader engaged, with relevant and readable content.

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