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Marcus Johnson (00:01):

Your audience is seeing ads everywhere. Even on the screens you'd least expect. Nielsen Ad Intel helps you see the whole picture, from creative trends to ad spend and media across all screens. All of them. Maximize every media dollar today with Nielsen Ad Intel. Hey gang, it's Monday, November 10th. Max, Allison, Matt, and listeners, welcome to Behind the Numbers, an eMarketer video podcast made possible by Nielsen. I'm Marcus, and join me for today's conversation. We welcome back from Friday's episode, eMarketer's principal analyst, he resides in Philadelphia, it's Max Willens.

Max Willens (00:43):

Hey, Marcus.

Marcus Johnson (00:44):

Hello, sir. Lower energy than me. Maybe I should bring it down a bit. Also, two special guests from Nielsen, head of performance marketing, living in the Bay Area. It's Alison Gensheimer.

Alison Gensheimer (00:54):

Hey, how you doing?

Marcus Johnson (00:56):

Very good. How are you?

Alison Gensheimer (00:58):

Good.

Marcus Johnson (00:59):

Welcome back to the show. And SVP and head of avatars and agencies based in the Cleveland area. It's Matt DeVitt.

Matt Devitt (01:07):

Everybody. Good to see you all.

Marcus Johnson (01:08):

Did I get it right?

Matt Devitt (01:08):

[inaudible 00:01:16]. Seriously, don't worry about it.

Marcus Johnson (01:16):

Devitt. It's Devitt, isn't it?

Matt Devitt (01:17):

Yeah.

Alison Gensheimer (01:17):

There you go. Don't overthink it.

Marcus Johnson (01:21):

Lars cut that in editing, please. Oh my goodness. Welcome to the show. Today, I am overthinking it. You're right on, Alison. Today's episode has a couple of special guests, so we start with the speed intro. Okay. So for folks who weren't hanging out with us on Friday, if you weren't, go check that one out because we're talking about similar topic, but different things, part one. Allison, what do you do in a sentence?

Alison Gensheimer (01:48):

I lead product and performance marketing for Nielsen globally.

Marcus Johnson (01:51):

Very nice. And Matt, still doing the same thing as Friday?

Matt Devitt (01:54):

Yeah. Still looking after the advertiser and agency clients in the US.

Marcus Johnson (01:58):

Very good. And our second question is for all three of our guests. We'll start with Allison. What's one hidden gem of a place you visited that maybe took you by surprise a bit?

Alison Gensheimer (02:09):

I don't want to tell people, but I live in the Bay Area, which means that everybody goes skiing in Tahoe. That's what everybody does. They were going Tahoe this weekend is the common thread. We found a little area. We didn't discover it, but we were led to a little area called Bear Valley, which is about two hours outside of the Bay Area. And it's full of these little tiny towns on this road and this nice local ski area. I grew up with a local ski area in Colorado, so I was super excited to find this one lodge and you can still walk in. And my son can walk up and go on a ski instructor by himself and it's one lift and it's fun. And so it's one of our favorite places to go. And then we found some friends around us that are like, "Oh yeah, we go to Bear Valley too." It's a super secret we don't want to tell you.

Marcus Johnson (02:56):

Bear Valley, is that what you're saying?

Alison Gensheimer (02:57):

Bear Valley. Yeah.

Marcus Johnson (03:00):

Bear Valley. All right. Very nice. Not been to Tahoe yet, but when I do, I'll go to Bear Valley. It'll probably be packed now that you've mentioned it to all of us.

Alison Gensheimer (03:05):

I know, right? I'm in trouble, but-

Marcus Johnson (03:08):

You've ruined it for everybody.

Alison Gensheimer (03:09):

... it's the alternate to the Grander Tahoe.

Marcus Johnson (03:11):

Very nice. Matt, how about you?

Matt Devitt (03:13):

Yeah. So I don't know how much of a secret this is to other Midwesterners, but for those listening across the country-

Marcus Johnson (03:20):

[inaudible 00:03:22].

Matt Devitt (03:23):

... Northern Michigan, Traverse City. So I've gone up with my family to Lelana County for many years, which is the definition of pure Michigan, their marketing and branding. But Traverse City as a town, we've recently spent time there. It's a really cool town and right on the water there.

Marcus Johnson (03:45):

The Peninsula?

Matt Devitt (03:46):

It's not on the Peninsula, but it's not on the UP, but it's across the water from the UP.

Marcus Johnson (03:54):

Okay. Okay. The peninsula, I haven't been, but I've seen pictures. It looks like the Mediterranean is gorgeous up there.

Matt Devitt (03:59):

[inaudible 00:04:00].

Marcus Johnson (04:00):

Oh my goodness. Okay. Very nice. And town, what was it called again?

Matt Devitt (04:04):

Traverse City.

Marcus Johnson (04:05):

Traverse City. Okay. Max, what have you got for us?

Max Willens (04:09):

Like our guests, I have something that is not something that I discovered, but something that really, I guess, exceeded my expectations, which is Cassis in the South of France. It's a tiny little town on the Mediterranean, which I maybe really got to me because we got there from walking and sliding up and down Calanque from Marseille. And so it really just knocked my socks off. But again, might have just been because I was hot and had pastis instead of some water after sliding down The Calanques.

Marcus Johnson (04:49):

Nice. Very nice. Excellent answers. But today's real topic, why advertisers are reducing spend. Part two is measurement worse today than it was. All right. I'm just going to start with the question. Because Matt, it was something that you discussed when we were talking about what to discuss before this episode. And you posed this idea of is measurement worse or harder today than it was. Something that, I don't know, a lot of folks might not say we think that everything is always getting better and better and better, but sometimes I think it's important to stop and look back and think, have we really made any significant gains here? What's your take? Is measurement worse/harder today than it was? If yes, why? If no, why not?

Matt Devitt (05:39):

Yeah. I don't know if I would necessarily characterize it as worse. To a degree, maybe that suggests people aren't trying. I know there's some very people out there really working and making measurement strong and accurate and rigorous. I do think it's harder. To a degree, we think about all the big data sets that are out there that we've never had before, more data points than ever before. One question that was asked a lot when I did grad school in data science was what's better to have a better model or more data? And a lot of the answers were more data. But what is the data? But not necessarily more data is better. Right now, we're dealing with a lot of fragmented data sources that do not talk to each other.

(06:34):

When I first started in the world of marketing analytics, we were able to bring together disparate data sources more easily and stitch them together. And there was greater transparency and there was, to a degree, a more holistic view on things. I think the data supply chain, the walled gardens, it's more fragmented than ever before. That's a term we've used forever, but it doesn't seem like it's gotten better. And fragmentation is a fundamental problem for things like holistic measurement and transparency. It's why the ANA is taking on the Aquila initiative. It's why we work really hard in cross-platform measurement as well as others.

(07:16):

But if you ask anybody who's really in the weeds of trying to solve it, trying to solve the data fragmentation problem, the identity problems, it's really a hard thing to do. And I think if you really ask advertisers seriously, especially the ones who've been doing it for a long time, I think a lot of them would say it is harder.

Alison Gensheimer (07:37):

Yeah.

Marcus Johnson (07:38):

Alison, please. Harder today?

Alison Gensheimer (07:40):

Yeah. Again, worse is so subjective, but I think that there's so much new and people bounce between channels so often more than they ever did before. And like Matt said, we used to be able to have ways to piece that back together.

(07:56):

And now it's like every time we find a way to piece it back together, we lose that way and we have to start over or try something new. And you turn into what's old is new. Media mixed models come back, panels become as they always have been, a really solid way to understand what consumers are really doing. Because just as we were kids in a candy store going after cookies and it was great. And then we started to lose that. Now we got to figure it out. So we're in this constant state of chasing so many new ways that we can consume media, so many new ways that consumers jump into it. And then we're trying to figure out how do we take advantage of that? How do we create great customer experiences and know that they're proving value when everything's just moving around so quickly?

(08:40):

And to Matt's point, the data is just some of it's here, it's really all over the place, probably more than it ever has been. You used to be able to point to the three sources and be like, "Those three things don't talk to each other." Now it's like, those 25 things don't talk to you.

Max Willens (08:55):

And the amount of time we spend consuming and interacting with those things is increasingly stacked on top of each other in ways that are crazy. I think what both of you guys said is super on point. And then you roll in the pressure that was a major topic of our previous conversation and that just makes it even worse, right? Because in addition to having this meteoric rise in complexity, you also have the CFO going, "You also have to prove this works. A directional thing is not going to cut it." So you roll all that together. And I feel like for most CMOs, you could argue that because it's more complicated, it may feel like it's worse, even if there's more potential.

Alison Gensheimer (09:42):

He makes confident decision making hard, right? And we talked about in the last episode, the idea of planning was such a great idea of being more confident in your planning, being across all these channels and new channels, and then you're not crossing your fingers and hoping that the measurement comes out and said you were right. How do you feel more confident throughout that entire process? It's not easy. But it's a fun challenge to try to figure out.

Matt Devitt (10:08):

Well, and I think we're pointing into partly why the industry has moved towards just doing what's easier. Like Max, you said there's the speed aspect to it, but I actually think underlying a lot of this, there is just this, what's the right word? Despair maybe in getting it right and truly accurate.

Max Willens (10:31):

Now where getting somewhere.

Matt Devitt (10:31):

So I'm going to get the best thing I can right now so that I can make the case for this specific aspect of this campaign or this channel. And that's what I need in order to justify this investment. And it is a lot of the urgency part with the incompleteness creates a bit of that perfect storm. It's not because people don't want it to be better, it's just that's a bit of the environment.

Max Willens (10:57):

Yeah, I think that's right. And I'm not going to say with the 21st century companies to plug in yet, but it is a little bit of the nobody ever got fired for buying IBM thing all over again, right? And in the absence of that clarity and cleanliness, you will just reach for the thing that I guess passes muster with other stakeholders in the organization. I love that phrase you used, Allison, just like it gets you through the meeting and I think that there's a ton of that.

Alison Gensheimer (11:29):

[inaudible 00:11:29].

Matt Devitt (11:29):

100%.

Max Willens (11:30):

Yeah.

Matt Devitt (11:31):

And that's where I think the digital players have, they've been really smart from a business standpoint is they are amazing at user experience, whether that's consumer user experience or B2B user experience. So the ability to manage a campaign, get measurement, the ease of use part of it, they've been brilliant at building products to do that, which make it easy and fast. It doesn't make it holistic though. I think we all have to at least acknowledge that that has gotten harder.

Alison Gensheimer (12:02):

Yeah, for sure.

Marcus Johnson (12:06):

So I want to speak about, so the metrics advertiser is using to evaluate spend changing. Alison, I'll start with you. How do you think marketers are doing when it comes to transitioning away from those directional upper funnel metrics to more grounded business focused ones?

Alison Gensheimer (12:24):

I think marketers are good at working with what they have, just what we've been talking about. And making the most out of what's in front of them. It's a default skillset for the job. You've got to be flexible and work with what you have. It's not as much of a transition as redefining what success looks like in this new space. And some of the things that we used to use is what success was really straight up reaching frequency were really common or still a common usage of success, but real success is starting to think of what drives outcomes, what drives to that next level and how do we redefine that in a way that really delivers. And they're trying to do this on top of their day jobs. That's not an easy thing. "Hey, continue to deliver the campaign.

(13:12):

Hey, continue to be successful, make it through the meeting. And by the way, could you on top of that, just redefine some of your KPIs and success metrics while you're doing it?" There's always that fun joke that it's no one walks up to an accountant and says, "No, no, no, I completely disagree. That is not right. I do not know what you're saying." But marketers, every day, every month, every meeting, their metrics are disagreed with.

(13:33):

The KPIs are using our challenge. They're sent back to the drawing board to figure out that next story." And I think they're doing the best with what they have. I think what I want to just ask everybody else to is ask for help. I know I'm learning to ask for help. Luckily, I'm a kid in a candy store and I work at Nielsen. So I can ask really smart data scientists to try to solve problems for me. But it's just really to get over that hump. It's you got to ask for a little bit of help here because you are doing it on top of your day job.

Marcus Johnson (14:02):

Yeah. Who are you asking help from the most, do you think? Is there certain folks you're gravitating more towards?

Alison Gensheimer (14:08):

Certain folks I'm gravitating towards?

Marcus Johnson (14:12):

Yeah, in terms of the help you're asking for.

Alison Gensheimer (14:13):

I try to put together the science and the intuition. So talking to marketers across B2B and B2C and seeing if they're speaking to someone, a marketer I've worked with for many years and she's worked across both. And I was like, "What have you learned from one that works in the other? And how do they work together?" And then you're starting to see a lot of data science groups, marketing measurement teams really start to consolidate within data teams, which is positive because it's giving us so much more power and the data science parts of the organization and connecting those dots. So I turn to a lot of those teams that are pulling this together and go, "How are you thinking about it differently when you're not just looking at the marketing data?" I worked for a large advertiser that when we just looked at the marketing data, we saw one stored, but when looked at the holistic business data, all of a sudden all these other stories showed up. That we hadn't considered before. We hadn't thought about.

Marcus Johnson (15:07):

Yeah. Matt, how about for you? We talked about the transitioning. Maybe it's more, as Alison was saying, a redefining of what success looks like. How do you think about this conversation?

Matt Devitt (15:22):

For me, it does start with brand building. So let's say if you're a large brand, so you're not, let's say maybe a D2C or a performance brand, but for a lot of the brands we think about. At the end of the day, and maybe I'd start with for the vast majority of brands, at least, I don't want to be too general, the goal is to increase your market share. Everybody wants to get more customers to increase your market share. That's what the business is judged on. And so what are the things that you're doing as a brand to grow your market share and grow your customer base? And for me, based upon what I think the evidence is that a lot of it starts with the brand building activity, building the base of the brand, and that is hard to quantify in the short term.

(16:21):

If you are on the Super Bowl, let's take the extreme example of a brand building activity that is extremely high reach, high attention. Marketing mix models will see a short-term response, but a lot of that is just creating the, to use a Ehrenberg-Bass term, the mental availability of your brand, and that is a baseline that you can build performance off of. So I worry when we get so obsessed with the short-term metrics and the short-term optimization, which I do again, think is important, and we talked about this in the previous podcast for things like testing and learning and experimentation, but you've got to get the base right. And I think there are data sets plugged for Nielsen that does give you comparable high quality, highly curated data on things like premium video. How you are showing up in live-streaming, in audio, in premium television to get to some of these brand building metrics, which are a bit slower moving. But they're slower moving because they're building equity. So I don't know if we talk enough about that and then how performance then plays a role on top of it.

Marcus Johnson (17:48):

Max, what's your take here.

Max Willens (17:50):

Well, I think what's, I guess, encouraging in light of all the complexity and fractured nature of the data and measurement signals that marketers have to deal with is that we are seeing signs that marketers are doing what they can, I guess, to look at this from multiple angles to the extent that they can. So that survey that we did in partnership with TransUnion, we asked about five different measurement methodologies and whether they were going to invest in any of them over the next 12 months, they meaning the US marketing community. And what we found was that close to 88% of them were going to invest in at least one of them and most were going to invest in more than one. And so you do have this cognizance of what Matt was talking about, of not wanting to be too myopic and focused solely on short term bottom funnel returns.

(18:58):

And so I think that that's something that's going to stand everybody in good stead, even though the road toward developing a stable, clean or at least workable vision of how the spending is impacting results is often a long path. And also to Allison's earlier point, is a path that can get destroyed by an ATT shaped landslide or whatever it happens to be or a Google shaped landslide depending on what's happening year to year.

Marcus Johnson (19:31):

Yeah. Let's send the episode and the series, because we have part one, Friday, part two, today with some advice, some help for marketers. Alison, I'll start with you. What are things marketers can, should be doing to make sure that they are navigating this transition or this redefining of measurement effectively?

Alison Gensheimer (19:54):

I would say try to align your measurement to your customer experience, seek what's really happening and do your best. We know that nothing's perfect and we live in a mixture of art and science, but really try, if you follow a former CMO I worked for said, "If you follow the customer, you can't go wrong." And so just that idea of being able to try to see what we can do to look at that holistic story of the customer experience you're trying to create, to Matt's point, from really getting that attention span, that space in their mind to them taking that action. We all know that doesn't happen in one channel with one frequency, at one day, at one moment. We know that that happens over time and trying to understand that. And I think ask for help. Don't get stuck in your spreadsheet land of, "Oh God, I can't see it."

(20:46):

Look at those partners who are developing and thinking the way you're thinking, who are trying to solve those tough challenges for today and tomorrow. Look for people, because we at Nielsen do believe this is solvable. It's very solvable. We spend our lives, our days, our nights doing, is trying to figure out how we do this and how we keep up. So ask for help.

Marcus Johnson (21:06):

Yeah. I really like that a lot. I feel like we spend a lot of our time doing creating this stuff or in meetings, a lot of the time we shouldn't be in, but not very much time asking for help and listening, and learning from others who are right there. Matt, how about for you?

Matt Devitt (21:27):

So I agree with a lot of what Allison said. And I know we talked a lot about measurement, but I think one of the initial solves is be really deliberate in planning. What's the Boy Scout model be prepared? So not only big channel allocations, but I think there's a lot of insights and work that can be done by getting an understanding, which a lot of these advertisers think about constantly. Who is my customer to Allison's point? Who is my audience in the media world? Where are they? Well, then getting very deliberate about building plans to reach that audience with a great, clear, distinctive message and not punting it to, "Well, I'm going to put this money into this programmatic ecosystem to get the lowest possible CPM." That is not strategic and deliberate enough, in my opinion. I think there's a lot of work that can be done in the planning part that the advertisers can really have a lot of visibility to, which is a great place to start and then work with a lens towards measurement.

Marcus Johnson (22:47):

Yeah. My dad, he was also US military, so maybe this came from that as well, but he would always say you fail to plan, you plan to fail. It's painfully relevant. I hate how relevant it is. I must think of that phrase probably 20 times a day and you're spot on and that it was relevant when he told me. Relevant today, maybe even more so. Max, how about for you?

Max Willens (23:11):

I love everything that Allison and Matt shared. I guess I would just round it out by say, make sure you understand where the results come from. If you decide that you're going to invest in a marketing mix model solution, make sure you really understand how the different inputs that go into it tune the results because you don't want to trade one black box for another. And so it's just important to look under the hood and understand what's driving the results that get spit back out at you, because you just want to have that visibility to accept that it's possible.

Marcus Johnson (23:57):

These are all fantastic. And even more recommendations in Max's new research, Measurement Trends H2 2025, it's on the website. Go look. That's what we have time for for today's episode though, unfortunately. Thank you so, so much to my guests. Thank you first to Allison for joining us today and Friday as well.

Alison Gensheimer (24:16):

Thanks guys. It was fun.

Marcus Johnson (24:17):

Yes, indeed. Thank you to Matt.

Matt Devitt (24:20):

Thanks. Great to see you guys.

Marcus Johnson (24:22):

Yes, sir. And to Max, of course.

Max Willens (24:24):

Always a pleasure, Marcus. Thank you.

Marcus Johnson (24:25):

Yes, indeed. And thank you, huge thank you to the production crew. As always, everyone for listening in to Behind the Numbers, an eMarketer video podcast made possible by Nielsen. You can tune in Wednesday to hang out with Susie on the Reimagining Retail Show.