Category: Contributors

Despite the difficulty of the past two years, brands continue to re-balance their marketing efforts after widespread pullbacks in 2020, especially with respect to traditional mass reach channels like TV and radio.

As they rebalance, agility remains critical. Consumer behavior isn’t just in flux—it has changed.

Data remains a marketer’s guiding light. But that data–which should be increasingly rooted in an effective first-party data strategy–should be plugged into scalable marketing solutions that brands of all sizes can use to approach all decisions with precision to arrive at reliable, growth-driving outcomes.

The findings in this report offer an inside view of the state of the global marketing industry through the eyes of frontline marketers. The report leverages findings from a global survey to understand marketers’ sentiment around brand objectives, marketing allocation, channel spend, martech effectiveness, driving tangible ROI, new marketing channels and the importance of brand promise.

This report features four key sections:

• Driving Brand Awareness Has Never Been More Important
• Ensure that Your Cross-Platform Measurement isn’t Siloed
• Crystalize Your Data and Your Data Strategy for a Personalized Future
• Make Your Brand Your Promise

Navigating change isn’t easy, yet change remains front and center for marketers seeking the best strategies and channels to engage with consumers. Agility has never been more important, and adaptability remains a top attribute for marketers as channels broaden and the lines between our linear and digital worlds converge.

To establish and maintain meaningful relationships with consumers, marketers need to keep pace with real-time changes in behavior, attitudes and media engagement. According to Jamie Moldafsky, Nielsen’s chief marketing and communications officer, robust and accurate data must be marketers’ north star for understanding and engaging consumers—and for measuring the ROI of that engagement.

With the complexities of ongoing disruption and media fragmentation, Moldafsky says several things remain constant: the need to know consumers and clients, what they want from you and how you can most effectively and efficiently engage them.

In concert with the launch of Nielsen’s 2022 Annual Marketing Report, we spoke to Moldafsky about the importance of brand, the intersection of brand and acquisition, the importance of understanding full consumer journeys and the value of scalable data strategies.

For additional insights, download Nielsen’s 2022 Annual Marketing Report.

The video streaming industry continues to hit new milestones, as CODA recently became the first film produced by a streaming service to win an Academy Award for Best Picture—a significant shift from how streaming began: an online alternative to DVD rentals by mail.

While CODA has been streaming on Apple TV+ since last August, its availability could have been easily overlooked (at least until recently) simply because of how much other content is out there—and more heavily promoted. As detailed in Nielsen’s State of Play report, audiences have more than 817,000 unique program titles¹ to choose from across traditional TV and streaming services. That’s up 18% from just over 646,000 at the end of 2019.

While many titles form the bedrock of the traditional TV universe, an increasing amount is being developed for streaming services, and audiences are eating it up. In an average week, U.S. audiences watch almost 170 billion minutes of video content. That’s up from just over 143 billion a year ago².

In addition to the validation of increased time spent streaming, Americans express overwhelming adoration for their streaming services. Notably, Nielsen’s recent streaming media consumer survey found that only one in 20 respondents have negative feelings about their streaming experiences. Additionally, 93% say they plan to either increase their paid streaming services or make no change to their existing plans over the next year.

In step with shifting consumer behaviors, media companies are increasingly adopting streaming-first mindsets, and the number of available services continues to rise to meet audience demand. Amid the growing number of platforms, which some estimate exceeds 200, consumers are feeling overwhelmed. In fact, 46% of viewers say it’s harder to find the content they want to watch because there are too many services available.

Once audiences log into a service, making it easy for them to find content they’ll love is key. After all, U.S. audiences spend an average of 4 hours and 49 minutes³ with TV (live, time-shifted, CTV) every day, and platforms want that time spent engaging—not scrolling. Applying hyper-detailed video descriptors to content catalogs can help here, as they crystalize the storylines and context that make up the essence of a show or movie. This data enables nuanced discovery paths and offers fresh and relevant program recommendations that are aligned with a viewer’s individual tastes and viewing history.

In addition to recommendations and suggestions, streaming platforms have the benefit of being visual, and discovery can be visual as well.  In the streaming realm, the video carousel is the storefront. Visitors aren’t logging in to read. They’re logging in for visual experiences. And that’s where personalized images can enhance a platform’s visual merchandising. When a platform uses different images to appeal to different viewers, the video carousel quickly becomes a personalized storefront that elevates the customer experience.

Today’s streaming landscape is a treasure trove of options for consumers, and the volume of content continues to rise. The audience will steer the future of the streaming landscape, and the media industry can help consumers in their media journeys by leveraging data to ensure they never get lost along the way.

For additional insights, download our State of Play report.