Addressing patrons of the Association of Canadian Advertisers’ annual general meeting yesterday, an Angus Reid researcher presented survey results that may help marketers and agencies make better sense of a changing media world.
Andrew Grenville, chief research officer at Angus Reid, was the first speaker in the executive forum that followed the Association’s AGM. The focus of his presentation was a survey conducted earlier this year by his firm of 3,000 consumers—1,000 each from the Canadian, U.S. and U.K. markets—that concerned media consumption and brand loyalty.
Grenville identified five different groupings of media consumers —“media maniacs” who consume a variety of media at a rapid rate, “socialites” who index heavily on social media applications, “broadcast receivers” who consume both television and radio, “Joe watchers” for whom television is the primary medium and the “tuned out” crowd that absorbs little media.
According to Grenville, the rate of broadcast consumption was high among the first four of these groupings, a result that he said should soothe doomsayers predicting the end of traditional television and radio advertising. “Broadcast still cuts through,” he said.
The Angus Reid study also identified four distinct consumer segments grouped by their attitudes toward brands—“brand lovers,” “cost-conscious believers,” “lukewarm” consumers and “brand skeptics.”
According to Grenville, these brand attitude segments were represented fairly consistently across the five media consumption groups, a finding that he said should serve as a caution to advertisers that believe they can reach their target audience by focusing narrowly on a particular medium.
“The medium does not dictate who you’re reaching and how they feel about your advertising. Media should drive tactics, not strategy,” Grenville said. “The medium should not dictate the message.”
Following Grenville, keynote speaker John Rose, senior partner and managing director at New York’s Boston Consulting Group, urged dramatic change in the way the marketing and media industries collaborate. Specifically, he suggested that with new technologies making the divide between above-the-line and below-the-line marketing more arbitrary and artificial, advertisers and agencies should do away with these distinctions altogether. He also advised the elimination of specialty agencies and the embrace of a more integrated planning model.
The event closed with a panel discussion featuring Rose; Lauren Richards, CEO, Starcom MediaVest Group; Richard Musson, vice-president, marketing; Labatt Breweries of Canada; and Graham Moysey, senior vice-president and general manager, digital media for Canwest.
