What Every CEO and CMO Must Know:
Opportunity Markets - Bill Harvey
Published: September 18, 2013 at 10:37 PM GMT
Last Updated: September 18, 2013 at 10:37 PM GMT
By Bill Harvey
A brand always has certain segments where its uptake is fastest. They may or may not be the
core market for the brand — a brand may have several different opportunity markets of which
one is the ROI-driving core target. To go after that core while at the same time also extracting as
much as possible from the other brand-responsive targets requires budget allocation, people
resource and attention to creative and media suitable for each target. In some cases the creative
can stay the same, but the media needs to be different to go after one of the other opportunity
markets other than the core.
Setting some default rule such as “10% allocation for opportunity markets” is not a bad idea as a
starter. At least it gets one to think about and investigate the data related to opportunity markets.
The same techniques that apply to the opportunity markets for a large brand also apply to tactics
useful for a small brand with a miniscule advertising budget. In both cases one has to do a lot
with a small budget. And in both cases the key tactic is to go hyperlocal and advertise in
geographies where the indicators are way above average — Category Development Index (CDI),
Brand Development Index (BDI) and especially the best indicator of where incremental dollars
are justified, Brand Fast Growth (momentum).
Every brand has opportunity markets in this sense. Those are the geographic markets where these
indicators are high. Today, due to the existence of about 2800 cable zones in the U.S., both TV
and digital can be aimed precisely into select cable zones where CDI/BDI/BFG (momentum)
indicate brand opportunity. Every brand can and should do this as a Hyperlocal Opportunity
Heavy-up (HOH). Small brands with almost no ad budget should cover the U.S. with a thin layer
probably of digital and focus a TV/digital mix at these opportunity markets. The bootstrap
strategy would be to drive sales up to the point where the tactics proven in the opportunity
markets can be rolled out everywhere, maintaining higher weight in the opportunity markets.
This use of spot media thinking has actually declined over recent years for the wrong reasons.
Advertisers using procurement ideology to incentivize media agencies have driven most agencies
to want to go as network as possible in order to be able to carry out assignments profitably with
the compensation pushed down to the floor. Until the new tools led by TRA are fully used to
provide ROI-based bonuses to agencies the situation is not expected to change for the better.
I’ve recently decided to adapt my consulting practice (Bill Harvey Consulting) to also serve as a
specialist working to supplement the agency in executing hyperlocal TV/digital buys with
research/measurement. To carry out this service I’ve been joined by Dennis Lentz, recently a
leader in TV research and hyperlocal crossmedia activation at AOL. Dennis is now a Senior
Partner at BHC; please welcome him. Our vision is to provide a turnkey solution to make
opportunity marketing easy.
Charter Communications, as reported earlier , has also taken steps to support opportunity
marketing. Advertisers can match databases with Charter’s subscriber base for media selection
using Charter’s set-top box data, and can read the sales results through their own purchase
records at anonymized matched household level.
Comcast Spotlight and National Cable Communications (NCC) also have their own programs to
support opportunity marketing. Our work with them in the past has indicated that TV/digital
heavy-up in high CDI markets can provably lift sales and ROI. TV and digital work well
together as shown by largest sales lifts among those reached by the brand in both media. Looking
at those reached by the brand in only one of these media, TV tends to bring in people who have
not bought the brand recently whereas digital appears to increase repeat buying.
One vertical where cable zone opportunistic marketing has also proven itself is tune-in
advertising for network shows. When buying tune-in spots on a network one does not own, the
general rule is you’re not allowed to specify the day and time of the promoted show. This is not a
restriction when buying MSO inventory in a cable zone.
Opportunistic cable zones also exist for program genres, which can be identified, and heavy-up
tune-in spots run in these areas have been proven to lift ratings. Not only can the zones be chosen
empirically but, using set-top box data, so can the programs in which to run the tune-in ads.
Action Takeaways:
1. Every brand has opportunity markets, besides the core, that deserve small budgets used
geographically.
2. Small brands can bootstrap by focusing most of their small ad budgets hyperlocally at
first.
3. Networks should test tune-in advertising heavy-ups with TV/digital in high opportunity
cable zones using MSO inventory that allows “day, date and time” in the creative.
4. TV and digital work well together, use them that way.
5. If you have your own purchase data by household, why not leverage it opportunistically
in the Charter 5MM homes footprint by first selecting high opportunity zones, then doing
match for picking shows, and reading sales lifts at household level.
Hyperlocal TV/digital can be a high-return tactic for all or many of your brands.
Bill Harvey is a well-known media researcher and inventor who co-founded TRA, Inc. and is its
Strategic Advisor. His nonprofit Human Effectiveness Institute runs
his weekly blog on consciousness optimization. Bill can be contacted
at bill@billharveyconsulting.com
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