Please mind the gap – and definitely avoid falling down the hole!
Ebiquity’s Mind the Gap report shows how strategic media planning is a craft we need to double down on, writes Facebook’s Ian Edwards
We are in the heart of a media revolution and are witnessing the epic fragmentation and digitalisation of the UK media landscape. The changing “attention economy” needs to be navigated with a renewed focus on media planning, but it’s not enough any longer just to follow shifts in audience attention.
Brands and advertisers need to understand how the “new” media channels are fundamentally different to “traditional” media. You need to understand the mechanics of how these new channels work – objective first and not audience first and then measure them against the desired marketing outcome.
Blunt comparisons that strip away how platforms like Facebook work do not help advertisers; it is the equivalent of investing in building a Formula 1 car and then removing the engine and seeing how fast it goes. Brands are in danger of minding the gap, but instead falling down a very deep hole.
Based on the first two months, 2020 is shaping up to be not just a new decade, but also a defining moment for the media industry. There appears to be some rather large gaps appearing on the horizon and they are opening faster than any of us had thought.
First up in January, the IPA published their ‘Making Sense Report‘, which showed a generational gap rapidly growing between the media consumption of the young and the old. Never have the two cohorts been further apart. The report also highlighted a changing of the guard as Facebook overtook ITV as the single media property with the largest weekly reach of adults in the UK.
This was just a starter, nothing highlights the rapid and real shift in media more than the latest report from Ebiquity, ‘Mind the Gap‘. It highlights how the dramatic shift from TV is worse than their worst-case scenarios last year. The same TV spot shown on linear TV in 2018 will impact 60% fewer teenagers, 48% fewer 18 – 24 year-olds and a 36% fewer 35 – 44 year-olds by the year 2022.
How can advertisers Mind the Gap?
Stepping back from the graphs and analysis, the report underlines that advertisers need to develop two critical muscles to be successful. Firstly, it highlights the need to refocus on the craft of media planning, which a growing number of industry heavyweights (like Nick Ashley at Tesco) feel is being lost.
Understanding where your audience is spending time and how to reach them in the right context remains the foundation of any effective media plan. If you don’t reach them, you have no chance of influencing their behaviour full stop.
Read the full article on Mediatel.
