Last week I attended the Executive Council All Media ’09 Summit in New York (and, in the interest of full disclosure, I also consulted on the editorial content of the event). Andrew Heyward, senior advisor at Marketspace LLC and former president of CBS News, delivered the opening keynote and posited that every company is now a media company. He based this arguement on the observation that corporate created media (web sites, YouTube videos, Twitter tweets, etc.) are now intermingling freely with content created by the traditional media as well as users. Companies are no longer simply buying reach and frequency, they are creating it.
Pepsi, for example, has begun thinking of the value of the space on their cans and bottles in terms of audience delivery. They, and many others, are thinking about and measuring activities in ways traditionally done by media companies.
This raises a challenge for analytics professionals not schooled in the tools of media measurement but also an opportunity for working more closely with your colleagues in marketing. One bit of good news: YouTube is opening its Insight Analytics tool to users, according to PC World, and is likely to add functionality soon that will make it possible to download data and integrate results with other analysis tools.
“Among the data Insight can capture is the state and country of viewers, the sites from where viewers are referred and the varying popularity levels of different parts of a single video clip. This month, Insight also gained a “community” tab, which aggregates stats for things like ratings, comments and the number of actions viewers take per view of a video.”
How is your company using social networks and other online tools to reach and influence customers? How are you measuring results? What new tools would you like to see?
About Eric McNulty
I cannot agree more with you Eric. I think the future will separate the men from the boys based on mastery of new media and the ability to leverage it. Consumer companies like General Foods and Pepsi are certainly ahead of the curve in their understanding of it – witness the using of Twitter and Google data for listening platforms and ‘buzz metrics’. Others like companies that are in consumer health, pharmaceuticals, automobiles etc. seem to be well behind the curve when it comes to dealing with new media. What will bind all of this is analytics. It is all about data, and organizing them to read the tea leaves. The better readers will win.