A Flawed Focus on Early Measurement: Digital Merchandising on Connected TV

Sometimes, tradition just means that we’re repeating outdated methods. My company, Looper Insights, learnt this quickly when it came to using the Share of Voice (SoV) metric. When we started the business, we only focussed on how often content appeared on digital platforms to measure merchandising success, because this is what the global entertainment companies were doing. It seemed promising at first, but we soon realised that this industry metric was really limiting.

Connected TV devices have been part of the industry for a while, but their significance has surged recently due to changes in how people consume content. Streaming services have become the primary way for many to watch TV shows and movies, making Connected TV devices increasingly important for digital marketing in the film and TV industry. This shift has highlighted the need for more effective measurement metrics, moving beyond traditional methods like Share of Voice.

Share of Voice is all about visibility - how often a piece of content appears compared to others. Visibility is what we’re all about at Looper, but this metric only told part of the story. It didn't account for the effectiveness of these placements or their impact.

The problem with Share of Voice is that it measures quantity, not quality. Knowing how often something appears doesn't tell us how well it works. It doesn't consider where the content is placed on the screen, whether it's in a prime spot or buried somewhere less noticeable. It also doesn't look at how viewers engage with the content. Are they clicking on it, watching it, or ignoring it? Share of Voice can't answer these questions.

Another limitation is that Share of Voice doesn’t track the outcomes. It doesn’t show if the placement led to actions like purchases of content or subscriptions to services, which are crucial for understanding the real value of your marketing efforts. It’s like counting how many times an advertisement airs without knowing if it actually sells any products.

As we delved deeper into the world of Connected TV, it became clear that relying solely on Share of Voice wasn’t enough. We needed a more comprehensive way to measure the true effectiveness of digital merchandising on these platforms. This realisation led us to develop a new metric in partnership with a global leading retail and entertainment company. This proprietary metric, called Media Placement Value? (MPV), aims to provide a fuller picture of how well digital marketing works. Unlike Share of Voice, it considers the quality of placements, user engagement, and the direct impact on business goals. Forbes recently put out an article called "Why Brands Should Move Beyond Share Of Voice To Instead Measure Share Of Engagement." As we had identified ourselves, it suggests that by focusing on engagement instead of Share of Voice, brands can get a better grasp on consumer interactions. This way, they can understand their audience's interests more deeply and create strategies that really hit the mark and drive meaningful results. This is just one example of this idea becoming increasingly recognised across industries (Forbes, 2024).

By shifting our focus from Share of Voice to Media Placement Value, we can now better understand what works in digital merchandising and why. This change has allowed our clients and partners to make more informed decisions, leading to improved engagement and higher conversion rates.

In my next piece, I’ll dive deeper into Media Placement Value, explaining its components, how it became the new currency utilised by streamers, Hollywood studios and an increasing number of broadcasters and the significant impact it can have on your digital marketing strategies. Stay tuned to learn more about why we’re so excited about this new metric, and how it’s been helping the entertainment industry's biggest players achieve streaming success.