Interview with Giorgia Pentasuglia, Media Planner at Promomedia.
Advertising investment is returning to growth, a trend that will see a rise of 2.5% in 2023 compared to the previous year, with a total value of some 9 billion euros.
This is the forecast of Lorenzo Sassoli de Bianchi, president of UPA, the Italian association of investors in advertising. At the end of the first half of 2023, he commented on the initial forecasts for the year, confirming the positive mood of companies that are currently focusing on communication in order to continue a dialogue already started with consumers. And confirmation that this autumn is already starting on the right foot can be found at Promomedia, who are opening the second half of the year with TV ads for two brands already present in the first six-month period: Luiss Guido Carli and GiòStyle.
According to UPA estimates, all advertising channels are growing, including print, which in recent years had shown signs of suffering.
But how do you choose the best channel to reach your target audience? And what do we need to know to build an effective media plan?
We asked Giorgia Pentasuglia, a Media Planner at Promomedia.
Data published by Nielsen for the first half of the advertising year reveals generalised growth both by product sector and by communication channel, and this tells us that brands need to strengthen the relationship of trust with their consumers, expanding this to all targets. This new generalisation entails the need to rebalance the media mix with a completely new approach that does not necessarily mean going all out on digital.
Nevertheless, digital is one of the channels that record the highest growth trends, according to estimates provided by Nielsen.
Digital has grown 6.1% more than the previous year, but the statistics also tell us of an exponential growth in OOH (up 13.1%) and Go TV (up 41.1%). Add to all this the gradual growth of the most traditional medium, namely linear TV which, despite the growth of streaming platforms, is confirmed every year by Censis and Auditel data as still the most effective vehicle to reach all targets across the board.
Streaming platforms are also taking the hit of subscription changes.
This is something we’re monitoring with great interest. The Netflix revolution that introduced accounts with advertising has been a trailblazer for other platforms such as Disney+ and Amazon Prime, which are now thinking about a similar approach, and this is a great opportunity for us investors. Today there are still few users who have chosen to downgrade their subscription, but we’re convinced that very soon the need to reduce costs in order to have their programmes always available will change the minds of users, who will be willing to accept advertising even on paid TV. For us, this means the opportunity to profile users and plan targeted campaigns by user group.
A little while ago you mentioned OOH, a high-impact communication channel that, however, does not offer the possibility of tracking data.
Everything depends on the goal of the campaign and the target to be reached. Digital has accustomed us to performance monitoring and even TV, with addressable technology, is moving in that direction, but we must not forget that campaigns that aim to raise awareness can still afford the luxury of no tracking and enjoy the advantages of the visibility offered by traditional media. A campaign on the large digital screens of major Italian railway stations, or customisation of the buses that circulate 24 hours a day in the city offer an undeniable guarantee of visibility, perfect to achieve the goal of brand awareness. Just recently we used these tools to advertise degree courses at an important Italian university, Luiss Guido Carli, and the feedback in terms of visits to the website during the campaign exposure period has been excellent.
At the beginning we were talking about the press, a channel that has seen negative trends for years. Can it still be considered a valid communication channel?
The press is still considered the channel for communication with institutional targets, with stakeholders. If we want to speak to investors or institutions, we need to be present in the most influential newspapers. It’s a question of role, of context; being there is almost obligatory. However, these are niche targets compared to the mass that speaks the language of commerce, and we all know that large budgets depend on performance, and here the press is at a disadvantage.
Returning to the subject of TV, does television still play a central role in the composition of 2023 media mixes?
TV has the advantage of offering numerous opportunities in terms of format: making a television campaign does not necessarily mean designing and producing a 30-second commercial, which is an obsolete and expensive format. Today there are much more effective formats that meet different needs, for example sponsorships with static messages displayed for a few seconds before the evening news, are addressed to purchasing managers, or 10-second spots broadcast during early evening programming, speaking to families, or even commercials lasting a few seconds broadcast during sports competitions, which address a generalist but mainly male target. In addition to all this, we must not forget TV promotions, which we have discussed on other occasions, that convince due to the relevance of the hosts presenting them. An example here is the campaign we planned for Gio’Style, which drew on a mix of formats: for the launch we chose a promotion on the programme È sempre mezzogiorno hosted by Antonella Clerici; while for the “cruise” phase we opted for a tabular plan with 10-second spots; a similar mix will also be proposed for the second half of the year, with a second TV promotion within the same programme.
Is TV promotion a bit like influencer marketing for the new generations?
Young people would be horrified to hear this definition, but the basic logic is the same. Creators or influencers are public figures who have a good reputation among fans. The breadth of the fanbase is irrelevant: there are micro-influencers who are even more effective than the major ones, it’s the principle that matters. If a person I trust tries a product and gives me advice, I consider it valid and it doesn’t matter if that advice is paid. The secret to success is to leave creators free to express themselves in their own language and style, so that the result doesn’t look artificial. In our media plans we often set aside a slice of the budget for ambassadors, influencers and creators to participate in campaigns by commenting on their profiles or creating reels, posts or stories about the products we need to push.
Can you give us an example of a campaign that involved creators?
Right now, the Luiss Guido Carli advertising campaign is on air to promote courses at 42Roma Luiss, the new coding school with free access for those who pass an admission test called “the pool”. The best applicants win a full scholarship. To promote the courses and encourage users to sign up, we used all channels: press, TV, digital and influencers. In particular, we involved very active gamers on platforms such as Twitch, the quintessential social network for gaming and coding enthusiasts, and TikTok, which is on the rise among young people, asking them to explain what the teaching method of 42Roma Luiss consists of and how to sign up. And the results, which in this case are trackable, were excellent.
In conclusion, if we were to summarise your tips for building an effective media plan in bullet points, what should we keep in mind?
- Each target has its own language: we can’t talk to a child as we would talk to their parents, so the budget has to be allocated in order to reach all recipients effectively. To give an example, we can sell a particularly high-performance frying pan to young people with a recipe from a TikTok chef/creator, but their parents are more likely to buy the frying pan if it’s recommended by Antonella Clerici.
- The media mix is made with Excel. This statement is somewhat exaggerated, but the fact is that there can be no approximation when making a media plan. The choice of channels is based on data that vary according to the chosen channel. Building an effective media mix means knowing how to read the data on audiences, the composition of the target, points per hour etc, and creating a network of connections that can always get the right content to the right audience at the right time.
- Differentiate formats: you can’t carry out an advertising campaign with only one format. The same type of content must always be differentiated according to the medium, so a TV commercial will necessarily be different from a video for social media, simply because with social media, attention drops off after 3 seconds, while for TV the threshold is 10 seconds. So the narrative will have to be different in terms of timing, pace and duration. Similarly, the same video can’t be used for all social networks: TikTok requires a different language to YouTube and Facebook simply because it speaks to different people: younger on TikTok, older on Facebook, and more selective on YouTube.
- Never forget the CTA: the user must be led by the hand until they complete the action we want. For a user to buy a product we have to follow every stage of the process, we have to intrigue, then attract them, as we would a suspicious cat, then make them greedy and after they have eaten the cheese… pamper them so they don’t forget the lovely feeling of a full belly (Yes, we know cats eat mice, but cheese tastes better…! ed.)
- A media plan is not a tattoo. If something don’t go as we expected, we have the tools to recalibrate the media plan. Users, like TV viewers, are human beings, as wonderful as they are unpredictable. To reach the finish line we need to spy on them, monitor them, follow them and move according to their reactions. Only by doing this can we get the full cart we want.
And lastly… the most effective media plan is one that never ends. Because once hooked, the customer should never leave. But that’s what CRM is all about, and that’s what we’ll be discussing in October!
