Jayant Kadambi

By Jayant Kadambi, co-founder and CEO, YuMe

Back when TV was just barely showing in color and no one was talking about “multi-platform strategies,” a successful TV marketing campaign could be summed up by its slogan – who doesn’t remember De Beers’ “A Diamond is Forever” slogan? But today, successful marketing campaigns are more subtle and require multi-platform thinking. TV and internet executives have to be savvy about how screens merge, separate and blend if they’re going to reach the right consumers at the right time.

We were thinking about this issue and decided to design a tool that could help advertisers discover how they could allocate dollars across connected platforms and augment television campaigns. We created the Reach Calculator, which uses data from Nielsen research that lets advertisers explore allocation scenarios on a number of budget levels across specific demos and platforms, in the hopes that media planners of today can design a modern version of the De Beers slogan.

By utilizing a proprietary database of consumer connected device ownership and usage across 24 typical devices, the Reach Calculator estimates reach across television, mobile, tablet and Connected TV platforms.

But our Reach Calculator isn’t the only tool marketers have in their toolbox – there is Google Analytics and the Data Intelligence Platform from Adbrain, for example; but regardless of the tool used, a savvy marketer definitely has to know his or her audience numbers.

Here are the four reasons why:

Multi-Screen Viewing Brings Higher Recall & Consumer Action
Multi-screen viewers are more likely to recall ads within programs and more likely to take action. According to an IAB study on the “Multi-Screen Marketer,” tablet owners, for example, are more likely (47 percent) to take an action (voting, purchasing, etc.) in response to what they are watching than peers using three-screens while viewing. Further, viewers using four screens are more likely to recall advertisers (53 percent vs. average of 46 percent).

Multi-Screen Leads to Stronger Engagement with Content
Multi-screen viewing is TV’s ultimate “wingman,” serving to drive viewership and loyalty to the TV screen. In a recent study from Viacom, 79 percent of TV viewers said that having more ways of accessing shows helps them sample more programs, and 78 percent said they wouldn’t have become fans of some shows if they couldn’t watch them on multiple screens. As a result, viewers are also very positive about the future as 84 percent agree that they will have more options for where, how and what to watch, and 79 percent will keep up with more programs at the same time.

In fact, as televisions – and viewers – get more sophisticated, what they want are devices that support viewing on multiple screens and to be able to watch programming on any device (56 percent) and more programming from one device to another (50 percent), according to the IAB.

Co-Branded Multi-Platform Partnerships Enhance Engagement
Advertisers and content owners, realizing each other’s strengths, are combining forces to launch multi-platform campaigns to increase engagement. Dr. Pepper and Telemundo, for example, partnered to create “digital hubs” for Telemundo’s talent, devising custom banners complete with a “Rank It” tool for fans to comment on the campaign. The examples of co-branded multi-platform marketing endeavors are numerous, but ultimately point to the fact that viewers are best engaged with combined marketing muscle.

Marketing Budgets Are Increasingly Multi-Screen
We believe marketers will best succeed if they create campaigns that cater to the multi-screen consumer. A cross-screen study from Microsoft found that 68 percent of consumers engage in “content grazing” – multi-tasking with several devices at once. The study further revealed that “multi-screening, including sequential, simultaneous and separate usage, is increasingly the default mode for consumers. In fact, seven out of 10 consumers use a second device in some capacity while watching television.” Marketers need to create worlds that translate and heighten engagement across TVs, PCs, consoles, tablets and mobile devices.

The need to reach consumers wherever they are throughout their day (and the marketing dollars behind those efforts) will only continue to increase. Currently, 75 percent of advertisers are running multi-screen ad campaigns, according to a multi-screen survey from Jivox. In a 2013 study from Nielsen/ANA, 72 percent of respondents said they expect to increase their integrated multi-screen campaign budgets between 26 and 100 percent by 2016. With that, it is key to develop the tools and knowledge necessary to tackle the multi-screen world now, before marketers and brands fall behind later.

Jayant Kadambi has over 18 years of experience in the areas of networking, hardware architecture and semiconductors. Prior to co-founding YuMe in 2004, Jayant was Vice President R&D and Officer of Netopia, Inc., a publicly held manufacturer of DSL equipment and service provider for ISP’s and carriers. Jayant joined Netopia upon its acquisition in 1999 of StarNet Technologies, a VoDSL company he had co-founded. Prior to co-founding StarNet, Jayant held various technical and marketing positions in AMD’s networks division, and AT&T Bell Labs, where he worked on high-speed LAN systems, hardware and DSL technologies.

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