Poll: Modern Marketers Seem To Like Traditional Ads Better

A Digitas LBi executive analyzes the results of a recent CMO.com Twitter poll, which was taken by almost 6,000 people.

Last week CMO.com polled its Twitter audience, and a whopping 5,819 people casted their votes:

To get a better understandings about what these results mean, we reached out to Megan McCurry, SVP and group media director at Digitas LBi. Her analysis follows:

The variance and breadth of answers demonstrates not only the complexity of the channel but the variety of ways people use it.

There’s little question broadcast video delivers reach and scale efficiency across some audiences, but it’s not a unilateral value proposition across all programming and demographics, so it takes a sophisticated marketer to understand how to plan, execute, and measure digital advertising.

For planning, the standard, syndicated legacy-planning tools have limitations–they’re outdated (often one to two years behind the actual habits of consumers) and survey-data-based (i.e., what people say they consume versus their true behavior). They also generally measure channel usage and not advertising exposure potential, so as more and more people cut cords and skip commercials, the planning tools show broadcast as a more viable play holistically than it is.

The other factor is creative resources. Many brands can cut a single spot or build a general display/print ad and call it a day. But having to think beyond the impression to the user experience after someone clicks or engages with the ad, creating experiences of all shapes and forms, adds many layers of complexity.

Measurement has also been a challenge. Brands stuck in traditional TRP (television rating point) delivery as a proxy for reach/awareness have a hard time capturing every single digital impression to the same equivalized value as a TRP. There are limitations in how channels like mobile, influencer content, native formats, and connected devices (Xbox, etc.) can be measured this way, inhibiting growth of those specific forms of digital advertising.