Advertising Week 360: The Cost of Consumer Attention in Our Cluttered Digital Landscape

By: Sean McCaffrey, via Advertising Week 360

We’re asking consumers to apply their minds at moments where that isn’t possible.

Can I have your actual attention? To read this, you’ll have to sacrifice part of your mind to process what I want to say, so I better get it right or you won’t come back again.

This is the basic transaction we’re making with consumers every day, and it’s easy for us to forget how hard it can be to focus. Right now, you’ve probably considered leaving this article to check that latest Twitter notification or Instagram story update. Some of you already have.

When we break through, it works. When it doesn’t, consumers move on.

That cost is tremendous when taken in total, millions of dollars every day are lost due to viewability issues (Forrester Research found that U.S. marketers wasted as much as $7.4 billion on digital display ads alone last year, 56% of those from ads that were either fraudulent or unviewable inventory).

It’s our responsibility to figure out what went wrong — why the message wasn’t right, how the creative could be stronger, why the targeting was off, or how to tell if it’s humans or bots who are watching. Fair enough, our daily challenge as marketers is figuring out how to optimize everything and adapt accordingly.

That’s also why capital-a Attention is creeping back into marketing narratives. Targeting and measurement today are better than ever. Sponsored content looks more like original programming than advertising. DNA-testing giant Ancestry moonlights as a partner for the show Who Do You Think You Are?, returning to NBC after a seven-year hiatus to help celebrities uncover their family histories. We’re so good at these things, yet when campaign metrics and conversions don’t meet expectations, Attention becomes the next factor to test.

It’s very difficult to find moments to reach consumers when they aren’t distracted. We think of true engagement as being deeply engrossed in original programming, binging The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel for a few hours, but 45% of viewers often or always use devices while watching TV (Nielsen).

Even the best original programming faces the same challenge brand campaigns do. What good is a great campaign if it’s delivered in a way that the intended recipient isn’t capable of paying attention?

We need to seriously consider Attention as the new engagement and targeting. So, if great content is the “What” we capture consumer attention with, perhaps we also seriously consider where and when they pay attention and give consideration the most?

According to a study GSTV commissioned with Mastercard, consumers are +3.7x more attentive to advertising when on the go. Given that consumers also check their phones 52 times a day (Deloitte), advertisers should start addressing viewer attention by reaching them when they aren’t in their homes juggling screens.

Tune out is inevitable, and where brands win the game of Attention is being where their consumers are, leaning on the strengths of a diverse omnichannel strategy to entertain and inform consumers as their attention wanes from screen to screen. GSTV is a measurable solution to help solve the fight for attention. In fact, we have the Attention of 93 million captive adults 18+ every month, for an undistracted 3-5 minutes, in a 1:1 engagement while they fuel up their vehicles — at a natural pause point in their day. GSTV’s reach is a compliment to TV buys, boosting campaign reach and engaging consumers on days we know they are spending more money.

With content more engaging than ever, and distraction at an all time high, Attention is a vital ingredient to accelerating consumers along their journey. Meeting consumers in the right place, with the right messaging, and during the right time in their day is a winning Attention formula. Advertisers who understand this and figure out how to get their message across to a captive and broad audience leveraging data and targeting, rise above and win.

CampaignUS: Former Sysomos CMO Mark Young to lead marketing at GSTV

By Laura Stein | CampaignUS

GSTV – formerly Gas Station TV – has hired industry veteran Mark Young to serve as its first CMO amid a major growth period for the national video network.

Young, who most recently worked with GSTV as a consultant on its go-to-market strategy for 18 month, previously served as the CMO of Sysomos. He also held senior marketing roles in the past at Microsoft Advertising and ClearChannel.

As CMO at GSTV, Young will lead all marketing, communications and brand creative for the company.

Over the last year, GSTV has seen great momentum – from expanding its premium content partners with the likes of Chedder, ChiveTV, So Yummy, Blossom and LiveNation to launching Octane, its insights and analytics service.

According to the company, GSTV has 93 million monthly unique views; reaches one in three Americans per month; and receives more unique monthly users than Spotify. It also says that more people between 18 and 34 years old in the U.S. watch content on GSTV than go to Starbucks each month.

"I’m thrilled to join GSTV during a time when the company is experiencing tremendous momentum with its brand and agency clients," said Young in a statement.

He added: "Advertisers are seeking innovative solutions beyond traditional media buys to engage consumers and deliver on business outcomes, and its important our message and value as a true business partner stands out."

Metropolis Planet: Gas Station TV Summer Road Trip features Super Museum

Watch IGNITE’s Super Museum clip below. Scroll further and read about us in the Metropolis Planet.

Network Computing: Evolving Services Enable Innovative Video Distribution

GSTV is about halfway through its transition to an enterprise cloud network, a move that will help reduce infrastructure costs.

The classic network challenge when trying to support bandwidth-intensive applications, video distribution, and data delivery is finding an economically priced service that provides the required performance and geographical coverage.

That’s been the case for GSTV, the nationwide media network based in fuel stations, since it started in 2006. The GSTV network serves over 21,000 locations, delivers 3 billion impressions per year, and ads to one of every three adults, generates 93 million unique users, and helps influence spending from a high-resolution screen. Additionally, it sends content with targeted ads to small pump-top screens reaching those gassing up their rides – a true captive audience.

“We try to be good listeners to our retailers, program providers, ad agencies and consumers,” said GSTV Chief Executive Officer Sean McCaffrey. “We’re programming a PG show that’s entertaining, informative and inspirational.” The desired result is a purchase beyond gas at advertiser locations.

Though the innovative systems don’t capture your name or other identity info, what they collect after you pay at the pump is analyzed by third parties to quickly identify macro and micro trends. It helps them provide captivating content and ads designed to fuel driver spending on items beyond gas. GSTV launched in 2017 following a joint venture that merged the assets of two existing businesses, Gas Station TV and Verifone Pump Media. GSTV claims viewers spend 1.7 times more after gassing up at a network site.

GSTV’s convenience and fuel partners include retailers including 7-Eleven, Arco, BP, Circle K, Chevron, Conoco-Phillips, Exxon-Mobil, Gulf, KwikTrip, Marathon, Speedway and Sunoco.

About 87 percent of the U.S. population lives within 10 miles of a gas station. GSTV’s network covers over 200 Designated Market Areas (DMA). With its 93 million unique visitor viewers a month, Nielsen measures GSTV’s audience. just like broadcast TV, cable, Internet sites, and radio stations.

So how does a sprawling, data-driven, video programming business find the best possible network distribution scheme? And what requirements have driven its network evolution? Remember that many gas stations are in sparsely populated areas with few transport options. Many are independently owned and operated, while others are owned by large corporations.

Dishing out content

Given the challenge, it's not a huge surprise that GSTV's predecessor, Gas Station TV, used satellite connectivity to push content down to the sites in its beginning roughly 12 years ago. Countless gas stations already had satellite dishes used to transmit transaction information and other key data back to their headquarters.

At the time, it was the most reliable, cost effective way to distribute video.

On to Cellular

But with the amount of content delivered to stations expanding – thanks to partnerships with additional programming partnerships and growth in ad clients and stations – Gas Station TV embraced cellular connectivity.

The widescale video distributor cited the advancement of cellular technology and the resulting reduced costs of bandwidth as the reason the sprawling network was moved to cellular-based connectivity.

Moving to the cloud

GSTV’s move to a proprietary, cloud-based distribution platform was driven by the need to deliver on market demand for fast, flexible, and complex programming across the highly fragmented technology infrastructure and decentralized, siloed data of the convenience and fuel industry.

In building its distribution platform, GSTV said it worked with its dispenser partners and pushed them to evolve aspects of their networks, allowing us to, in turn, deliver content more efficiently and further adapt to the growing needs of the marketplace.

GSTV is about halfway through its transition to an enterprise cloud network, a move that has enabled the company to eliminate the costs associated with owning and maintaining equipment and other infrastructure. The gas station TV network itself is heavily monitored.

Handling network expansion

Scalability played a key factor in the move to the cloud as GSTV expanded its network as have partnerships with content creators including Chive TV, Cheddar, Major League Baseball, C/net, Blossom and Yummy (a foodie content provider). CNN and a weather channel were already aboard.

“At present, we’re adding 400-500 retail locations (station) a month, where in the past it had been more like 12 a month,” explained McCaffrey, who joined the company having previously worked at Clear Channel. Using the cloud, GSTV can schedule shows when it wants and add more different localized tags to them, he added.

A 5G future?

The CEO and his team have already begun evaluating 5G technology and see some benefits arising from use of super-fast wireless services it will deliver. “5G could have a positive impact when it comes to cutting costs for our partners and our ability to transcode programs,” explained McCaffrey, “We’ll take the fastest connection we can get. 5G will fuel improvements.”

Forward thinking

Understanding the ecosystem served by it network – gas stations and convenient stores, content providers, consumers and advertisers – GSTV continues its focus on the future of transportation. That’s a fast-evolving space that includes connected car opportunities and automaker advances toward next-gen vehicles, changes to transaction types, and the demographics of station visitors.

Digiday: ‘An extension of our broadcast buy’: Advertisers are buying ads on gas station screens

People probably don’t pull up to the gas station pump to watch videos, let alone to sit through ads. But while they wait for their tanks to fill, there’s enough chance that they’ll check out what’s playing at the pump that advertisers including PepsiCo and Quicken Loans, and agencies such as Spark Foundry see GSTV’s gas station screens less as a billboard and more as another TV screen.

PepsiCo has begun to consider GSTV to be part of its video strategy as the company has adopted “more of a video-agnostic approach” with that strategy over the past couple years, said Kate Brady, head of media innovation and partnerships at PepsiCo. That shift has helped with analyzing the effectiveness of the marketer’s GSTV campaigns. “Because you have a captive, engaged audience [on GSTV], we see that to be stronger than what we might see on many of our digital video results and some of our outdoor as well,” said Brady, who declined to share specific results.

Spark Foundry has similarly reevaluated what it considers video in recent years. About two and a half years ago, the agency combined all video platforms, whether in-home or out-of-home, under the purview of its video team, said Shelby Saville, chief investment officer at Spark Foundry. That move enabled the agency to take a more complete view of the video landscape and find opportunities to extend the reach of TV and video campaigns “in case we’re not getting the reach we want in traditional TV or digital video,” she said. The agency uses GSTV to drive foot traffic for clients with quick-serve restaurants and retail stores, in particular.

The executives interviewed for this article declined to discuss GSTV’s ad rates, but Quicken Loans CMO Casey Hurbis described the company’s pricing as “fair and consistent.”

GSTV streams videos and ads over the internet to its screens that span more than 23,000 locations across the country. That internet-based delivery enables GSTV to aim ads at individual locations, which enables advertisers to use GSTV to supplement the reach and frequency of their TV and video campaigns. Additionally it works with companies like Nielsen to cross-reference credit card data from gas stations, including their adjoining convenience stores, with advertisers’ first-party data in order to pinpoint brands’ ads and measure their sales impact.

As audiences tune out of traditional TV and into ad-free fare like Netflix, advertisers are seeking out all opportunities to reach people with their 15-second spots. For these marketers, GSTV has emerged as one of those opportunities despite being historically categorized alongside billboards and bus stop signage as an out-of-home platform. “We’ve had a couple clients and teams recommend [GSTV] be used as a frequency extension if we feel like there’s an audience that’s being underserved in television,” said Saville.

GSTV has been looking to capitalize on ad buyers’ interest in opportunities to offset TV viewership declines by angling to compete in the annual TV-and-video upfront marketplace. This year the company has had more than two dozen meetings with advertisers to pitch for their upfront budgets, according to GSTV CEO Sean McCaffrey. In those pitches, the company has talked up the 93 million adults in the U.S. that it claims it reaches every month, as measured by Nielsen, — up from 75 million adults in 2018 — as well as the TV-like qualities of its ads that play at full screen with the sound on between videos from media companies such as Cheddar, First Media and Chive TV as well as sports leagues like the NFL and NHL.

One question that GSTV faces as it angles for advertisers’ TV and video dollars is whether people are actually watching its screens while they pump gas. And it appears that people do watch. The company performs eye-tracking studies and consumer surveys to measure viewership. In a pitch deck that GSTV has shared with advertisers and agencies this year, the company claims that 86% of people watch or listen to the screens. For PepsiCo, the question of GSTV’s viewability has not been an issue. The company has conducted brand recall and purchase intent studies for its GSTV campaigns, and the results of those studios “make us confident that it’s working,” Brady said.

While GSTV may seem to be an odd fit in the upfront consideration set, it has been able to merit consideration alongside TV networks and digital video platforms. “When we go into the upfronts, GSTV has historically been one of the partners where we make an annual upfront investment,” said Casey Hurbis, CMO of Quicken Loans. He has been buying ads on GSTV for at least seven years, dating back to when he was an automotive marketer at Fiat Chrysler Automotive and where he said GSTV was viewed as a cable network. “I’ve never really looked at [GSTV] as an out-of-home placement. I look at it as an extension of our broadcast buy,” said Hurbis.

OOH Today: Innovation In The OOH Space —Cannes Matters

We were turning through web pages recently searching Cannes OOH and found this post written by Cannes Attendee, President and CEO of GSTV, Sean McCaffrey.  Though it was written two years ago, it still resonates as profoundly today.  McCaffrey states, “Cannes Lions in OOH are inspiring the broadening role of OOH and highlighting its increasing value in a visual, connected and mobile world.”

Last year, Cannes selected McDonald’s of Canada ‘Follow the Arches’ as the top OOH choice and this year’s winner, Nike’s, Just Do It with Colin Kaepernick.  OOH Today posted  twice on Nike’s Just Do It/Dream Crazy Kaepernick OOH Campaign.  Quoting Sean McCaffrey in his return from this year’s (2019) event, “this year’s winners add recognition to OOH’s ability to catalyze a social conversation and drive brand value and growth. 

__________

Published by Sean McCaffrey on June 30, 2017

As the advertising world returns from the Côte d’Azur to conference rooms, while still others debate from afar the very reason for Cannes, we’re left to consider professional ROI from Cannes. Does the time spent there matter? Does Cannes inspire and lead to business growth? And for a more personal question to me, does Cannes accurately reflect and reward where OOH fits in media today, tomorrow and beyond?

Unequivocally YES . . . the Lions and the hardworking jurors among them are absolutely nailing the growing value and utility of OOH with their Grand Prix selections. 

Much like video and audio encompass more innovation than their legacy roots, OOH is similarly transforming it’s value with screens, audience data, integrated consumer experiences and smarter campaign strategy. If you want to follow the consumer to connect and inspire, those consumers are increasingly connected while OOH. 

But like audio and video, OOH at its best leverages the core values of the medium (powerful, unavoidable visuals in physical locations and context) alongside the right application of data, technology and consumer insights. Creativity . . .technology . . media selection. . .all must combine to drive business results. And the Cannes Lions in OOH are a literal road map for the evolution of OOH’s growing value to brands.

Five years ago (a lifetime in today’s economy), Google won for their outstanding Google Voice Search with understanding of OOH’s key value, the power of location and context. Phonetic pronunciations of words placed in the right place and time made consumers ask a question with Google providing the answer . . by downloading the Voice Search app. Smart, contextually relevant, visual and most importantly successful at driving 50% more downloads in London during the campaign.

The following year we all delighted in childhood wonder with British Airways #LookUpcampaign. Taking location and context one step further with an addressable screen and real-time weather and flight data tracking BA flights over London, British Airways encouraged Londoner’s to #LookUp in amazement and wave in real-time to passing travelers. British Airways deftly illustrated location and context catalyzed by addressable screens and real-time data.

Next the world welcomed more stunning visuals from Apple Shot on iPhone and their Grand Prix winning campaign. Once again, a brand smartly combined location, context and stunning visuals while engaging their loyalists in a global social community writ large in OOH. Rather than shout about the power of their camera or speed of their processors, Apple smartly took the personal relationship we all have with our smartphones to share those moments with the world.

And or course this year’s winner, Twitter Grand Prix, chose to show the world that Twitter is “what’s happening” with powerful visual hashtags featuring icons and events from music, politics, social and cultural conversations. Working both as a B2B and B2C campaign, Twitter uses cultural currency and iconic visuals demonstrating the value of their platform. Twitter intrinsically understands there is no line between the physical and digital worlds to consumers, and we’re mobile and empowered and can move from awareness to action in an OOH minute.

It’s worth noting the Cannes Lions’ Marketer of the year winners from the last decade are also a highlight reel of powerful OOH creativity – Nike, Honda, P&G, Volkswagen, Unilever, Ikea, Mars, McDonald’s, Coca-Cola, Heineken, Samsung and most recently, Burger King. These brands over-index in OOH and their creative uses of the medium drive business results.

As we work to meet today’s consumers with meaningful communication that inspires action . . .it’s worth noting the Cannes Lions in OOH are inspiring the broadening role of OOH and highlighting its increasing value in a visual, connected and mobile world. For that I’ll raise a glass to all the winners and look forward to bright things ahead in OOH . . it’s #whatshappening!

OOH Today: GSTV Drives +12% Lift in Store Traffic for Major QSR

Campaign was 7.8x more efficient than the Placed digital media benchmark 

GSTV, the national digital video network, recently presented the results of a campaign for a major QSR brand, advertising a new value menu and season limited time offer aimed at driving visitation.

The success of the campaign is widely applicable to QSR’s seeking new and better alternatives in their broadcast and digital marketing mix. The results demonstrate clearly that advertising through GSTV’s network can drive consumers to store.

“This case shows how impactful GSTV can be in driving visitation, efficiency, conversion and a host of highly relevant KPI’s,” said Sean McCaffrey, President and CEO at GSTV. “Our network is now national broadcast scale with digital targeting and attribution in the moment of consumer choice.  Simply put, we’re delivering when consumers are hungry and we prove results.”

APPROACH

During the month-long campaign, GSTV worked closely with the research team at Placed, a leading foot traffic attribution company, to evaluate the incremental impact of the advertising on GSTV’s network. Leveraging its privacy compliant, opt-in consumer panel of 3.5 million mobile device users, Placed analyzed the post-exposure behaviors of GSTV viewers in order to assess visitation to the advertised QSR.

After establishing a link between the advertising on GSTV and restaurant visitation, Placed then compared this conversion rate to a matched control group to quantify the incremental contribution of the GSTV campaign.

RESULTS

Placed found that 14% of impressions delivered on GSTV were followed by a visit to the advertised QSR, yielding 10.5 million restaurant visits.  The visitation rate was +12.1% greater than that of the matched control group, meaning 1.3 million restaurant visits were incremental and thus directly attributable to the GSTV campaign.

Of particular interest to the advertiser was the efficiency of the GSTV campaign.  When weighing the size of the media investment against the incremental restaurant traffic, Placed found that the cost per incremental visit was just pennies on the dollar, or nearly 8x more efficient than a typical digital QSR ad.

“These results are consistent with what we’ve seen over the past couple years in the quick-serve and casual dining categories,” said Eric Z. Sherman, SVP Insights & Analytics at GSTV.  “The GSTV viewer is naturally predisposed to convenient dining options, and compelling video advertising moments before a meal decision can be highly effective at influencing consumer choice.”

Adweek: Tremor Video Is the Latest Company to Take the OOH Plunge

via Adweek

A new partnership will bring its inventory to thousands of gas stations nationwide

Tremor Video is taking its programmatic advertising a little further out of home. Today, the ad tech company said it will be expanding its demand-side offerings to include digital out-of-home (DOOH) screens, aside from the company’s connected-television (CTV) and over-the-top (OTT) inventory.

Moving the company’s programmatic operation out of home seemed like a natural choice, according to Jay Baum, who heads global partnerships for Tremor Video’s DSP side. The biggest DOOH publisher that will be launching Tremor’s inventory is GSTV, a data-driven digital video network pumping out content at thousands of gas stations nationwide. “The videos on these pumps is truly a one-to-one environment, compared to the video screens in elevators, for example, ” Baum said, explaining the partnership.”There’s less audience modeling that needs to be done.”

Both companies—GSTV and Tremor—will leverage audience data from the DSP-friendly data platform Dstillery as part of the partnership.

Tremor’s news marks yet another company taking the dive into out-of-home. 2018 saw companies like JCDecaux and Lamar spending billions on the medium, and by all estimates, that spend is only going to continue to ramp up. A recent Magna Intelligence report found that global OOH revenues, overall, grew roughly 4% each year, from 2010 to 2018. Meanwhile, according to the same report, digital out-of-home sales have been growing by 16% per year over the past five years, with digital OOH screens generating roughly $6 billion in 2018 alone, thanks, in no small part, to the ease provided by programmatic buying.

“There’s no fraud in this space, and no issues with viewability; you have an audience that’s completely engaged,” Baum said.

In addition to Tremor’s new OOH offerings, the company said it would also add outstream video ads to its roster. These advertisements—which play alongside the content of a particular webpage, rather than playing pre- or post-roll on a video—can be less intrusive to the average web surfer.