Toward A New Media Scorecard

Many Cups of Earned Media Value

I recently penned a soon-to-be-published article in a management accounting magazine – or should I say  “paid media”  publication – about valuating  a firm’s social media effort within the accounting framework.

My thinking was triggered by Syncapse, a social media management firm, who released a study in 2010 called the Value of a Facebook Fan: An Empirical Review.  As an example, they determined, using data collected from a survey of 4000 brand users, that a Starbucks (SBUX) fan on Facebook was worth about USD$235.22 on an annualized basis. The comparable figure for a non-fan was USD$110.95. If I read this correctly, Starbucks’ Facebook fans of 17M strong are worth about $4 billion annually in sales. 

Another study, the Fast Food Industry Media Value Report, by General Sentiment, a New York-based firm specializing in sentiment analysis, brings together online WOM, web traffic and online news readership data as the basis to estimate Earned Media exposure value. In this report, aimed primary at the QSR industry, the quarterly Media Value estimate for Starbucks is USD$67M or $268M on an annualized basis. This compares to the roughly $50-60M adspend on paid media, of all forms, by Starbucks.

 

In each of case, the Syncapse and General Sentiment analytics generate some big numbers. When I look at the financials, the numbers actually make relative sense: Starbucks’ market capitalization is $24B, revenues are $10B and EBITDA is $1.9B for the most recent fiscal year. They have 17,000 stores are in 50 countries and have a brand legacy reaching back to 1971.

 

While I’m not suggesting that these numbers are conclusive, they do merit consideration as they attempt to quantify, in financial terms, the outcome of using social media platforms. It’s time to think a little more deeply about some new measures of performance and update the Balanced Scorecard. This might just be the ticket for the CMO and CFO to join forces in moving the New Media agenda forward. 

   

– Ted Morris, 4ScreensMedia

Commentary: Media Companies Need To Become Marketing Companies

The following is an excerpt from an online post authored by Andrew Heyward and Jeffrey F. Rayport in a recent edition of Harvard Business Review:     

                                                                                                                                                                         These consumers, people we like to call “Customers 3.0,” live in a blur of mash-ups, blogs, RSS feeds, links, text messages, tweets, and “life-casting” on social networks like Facebook and MySpace. For Customers 3.0, the very idea of content includes everything, embracing all media formats as well as advertising. And they collect, collate, and customize such content according to their individual tastes in personalized online environments (like MySpace or Facebook “pages”). This is what we call “user-generated context.”        

In this environment, it’s increasingly difficult for either publishers OR advertisers to stand out. The long-standing value proposition of publishers to brands – we create compelling content that attracts a desirable audience and then sell you the privilege of placing your commercial messages adjacent to it – is becoming a tougher sell.         

That’s because marketers don’t get much value out of seeing their messages appear in anodyne ad units (like banners ads). They need rich integration of their brands with content users are seeking or creating on their own. That leaves publishers in a sticky position: either they stand by and watch marketers build compelling online experiences without them, or they put their editorial and creative capabilities to use to help their clients – the big brands – cut through the clutter.         

In our practice, we like to say that “every company is a media company.” Increasingly, every media company must also become a marketing company. For online publishers, the challenge is to achieve that goal without damaging the very reputation for credibility and integrity on which their market positions rest. If online publishers can’t manage that balancing act before it’s too late, they’ll have more than mud on their faces.          

Here is my take:  As brands/national advertisers transform in part, to media, publishers have an opportunity to seek new partnerships by redefining their roles. For one, extending the value proposition means that publishers can be purveyors of a paid subscription base that is made available to brands as participants in making the message. Media and message become united. Message and media finally merge in a way that makes business and cultural sense.    

What this may mean, by necessity, is the redefinition of how the paid print advertising model is architected as ‘earned media’ become currency. This is not to advocate a ‘freemium model’ – after all, you still only get what you pay for – rather a model that attributes a business value to user-generated content reflecting the effort and subsequent return of the medium.     

Those that see the opportunity will find the right tools for the job. New cloud applications are about to come out of the gate in such as way that makes the cost of entry low and the opens the door to test this new media paradigm.      

– Ted Morris, 4ScreensMedia      

The New Corporate Trust Agent

My previous post “Marketing Research Mindset: Stop Debating Social” was about the opportunity that Social Networks presents to the corporate marketing research function. Here are some further thoughts on moving forward.

Marketing Research professionals who look past the ‘research’ shortcomings of social media monitoring, see the wealth of organic, continuous streaming of customer conversation on the web. This view is echoed by the ARF – Advertising Research Foundation in their most recent publication The Listening Playbook.  This new breed of research professionals is reinforcing its position as the Voice of the Customer within their organization (or their client’s domain). They are also the small minority that organizations are turning to for help in solving complex business challenges brought about by the Social Web.

Marketing Research should be the ‘go to’ place to sense the marketplace and be the primary source for social network guidance.  Consider the following: 

You Can Handle The Truth

The Voice of the Customer (VOC): Consumer research is, in part,  about understanding wants and needs, whether explicit or implicit. The best methods afford the enterprise a window to see many possible futures rather than the world as viewed through a rear-view mirror. VOC input also enables strategic planning in the broadest context and tactical business process improvement at the transactional levels of the organization.

Analytical Rigor: Those who do it right and avoid analytical rigor mortis bring an objective view to the decision-making process. Marketing Research sits at the table as a key input that is fact-based and provides insight into the risk and potential rewards of business decisions. Like the accounting function, Marketing Research employs its own version of GAAP that can both replicated and audited for accuracy. Unlike accounting, Marketing Research has the added benefit of providing a qualitative perspective that can be applied to innovation.

Business is filled with risk: As in golf, business is ‘a game of mistakes’, risks and rewards.  As some like to ask, “With all of that marketing research, why do so many new products fail?” One might also wonder then why do so many advertising and public relations campaigns miss the mark, M&A deals go awry, startups fail, product quality glitches occur, costs are overun, brands lose market share and so on.  As one venture capitalist recenty told me, success is often about timing and luck. We both agreed however, that data, research and insight help to manage the “known unknowns”.

Enter the Golden Age: The best thing about Marketing Research, as I see it, is that it knits together Customer Relationship Management and Social Media as a primary step of customer engagement. It is catalyst in unifying the enterprise and the customer through insight. CRM needs research to design the customer experience; Social Media, in proving its business utility, needs market research to make sense of the millions of consumer-generated comments that are posted every day about brands. Social Media and CRM are where Marketing Research insight is put into action. Similar links exist at the functional level with product development, media, advertising, sales, public relations,  marketing and manufacturing.

In the new consumer world of social and mobile, has there ever been a better time for Marketing Research to be the new Corporate Trust Agent? 

– Ted Morris, 4ScreensCRM