Analysis

How workers move, now they’ve moved on

BY Tim Burrowes

March 21, 2023 10:31

Welcome to a midweek update of Unmade, the media and marketing industry update your boss reads.

Today: Changed work habits, and a fall on The Unmade Index.

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The steak and the sizzle

Ooh Media CEO Cathy O’Connor introduces the study

The marketing industry sure does produce a lot of research.

All of it is in service to the people who commission it. Otherwise they wouldn’t commission it.

A lot of that happens at brand level. Sometimes it’s to help an individual brand do a better job. If you don’t know you’ve got a terrible Net Promoter Score, then how can a CMO start to do something about it? More likely though, it’s to track more subtle movements over time. Is that NPS tracking upwards or downwards over time?

Sometimes it might be more qualitative, to understand how people are experiencing aspects of a brand. That’s where focus groups come in.

Sometimes the data can come from researching what’s observable. (Take Qantas. Thirty six of the last 38 reviews of its inflight Entertainment App for iPhone each give it one star out of five. Maybe that says something. But I digress.)

Most research commissioned is not intended for the public light of day. It’s proprietary to brands or agencies seeking to plan media schedules and understand behaviour in their category, and find an edge over rival brands.

The most reliable (and expensive) research regularly published are the media trading currencies – built over time to an agreed standard, measuring the same thing every time. Think the radio or TV ratings, for instance.

The other type of marketing data which regularly hits the public domain is that commissioned by somebody with skin in the game, with an outcome already in mind.

For instance, Think TV, whose job is to promote commercial television as an effective marketing medium, is currently spruiking research it commissioned that demonstrates TV is an effective marketing medium. I’m sure it’s true, but presume it was commissioned with the intention of proving it, rather than finding out.

Similarly, Dr Karen Nelson Field’s Amplified Intelligence has built a nice revenue stream by accepting commissions from media owners to provide data which makes its way into their media kits demonstrating that they’re winning a disproportionate proportion of consumers’ attention.

I’m sure the methodology of all this research is fine, although it’s hard to believe it would see the light of day if it didn’t provide the answer the commissioner was looking for. Research companies which accepted that kind of brief wouldn’t stay in business very long unless they come to the ‘correct’ conclusion.

As investor Charlie Munger put it, “Show me the incentive and I’ll show you the outcome.”

Which brings us, in a roundabout way, to this week’s refreshing study from Ooh Media. The company unveiled a piece of research yesterday which neatly sidestepped the “they would say that, wouldn’t they?’ factor by not even asking the question.

During the presentation on what people are getting up to when they’re not at home, neither Ooh Media’s inventory or indeed the wider outdoor advertising medium even got a mention. The medium was not the message.

The utility for the audience came in hearing insights into how consumer thinking has evolved since the pandemic. Of course, Ooh Media’s motivation for commissioning that research (featuring a panel of 2,000) was not purely altruisitic; it wanted to find a story to tell, and to position itself as the authority on the changing consumer mindset.

It was playbook built by Ooh Media’s CMO Neil Ackland back when he was running Junkee Media. He positioned Junkee as the experts on youth culture, via annual research presentations on the evolution of the demographic, not the publication.

That playbook includes putting together a slick, tightly presented, entertaining presentation on the findings. It was led by strategist and researcher Stig Richards, another ex-Junkee executive, speaking at about 150 words per minute. And when I say tightly scripted, that even included the jokes.

The key thing though is to find a story, not a sales pitch, within the data. It’s a chance to act like the leader within a medium.

You’d have guessed the topline. Commuter behaviour changed since the pandemic, and although people are gradually returning to old habits, they’re not going to go all the way back.

With the caveat that lots of people work non-office jobs that have to be done in place (54% according to the study), there’s far more working from home, particularly on a Monday and Friday (on average 1.4 days per week). But, the data suggested, people are still leaving home for shorter trips every day.

For the out of home advertising sector, more than any other, these shifts are fundamental. Intuitively, it feels bad for business. Fewer days in the CBD for your average worker, means reduced exposure for the most expensive billboards.

What emerged was a more subtle picture, with the audience left to draw its own conclusions about how that changes schedule planning and creative execution.

CBDs may never be quite the same again. But the audiences are still to be found when workers pop out, even on the days they work from home. In the end, we got the message.

Unmade Index drops on a mixed day

The Unmade Index fell yesterday, despite the wider ASX 300 moving upwards. The index closed at 642.2 points, a drop of 0.42%.

There was no clear movement yesterday. Nine, Ooh Media and HT&E all fell slightly, while Seven and Southern Cross Austereo both moved slightly upwards.