Ed Couchman

"The cost of dullness" brilliantly summarized in two bullets: 1) Dull ads need 7% more ESOV to deliver results. That is serious $$$ down the drain. 2) Half of the ads tested are less interesting/engaging than watching a cow eat grass (literally). Now, I happen to like cows, but even so, beating "cows munching grass" must be the minimum benchmark for any ad from now on.

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Interesting results for FAST - free, ad-supported, on-demand TV services - in the UK For the first decade of the streaming revolution the received wisdom, most fervently espoused by Netflix, was that the days of the TV commercial were numbered, with consumers willing to pay for uninterrupted viewing. A combination of the cost of living crisis making consumers more open to paying less in return for seeing a few ads, and the growth potential in tapping a new revenue stream as subscriber growth petered out, has made the ad break the streaming winner of 2024. However, with relatively low audience numbers, some advertisers have balked at the rates being sought by the streamers, which are considerably higher than broadcast TV, resulting in viewers seeing a lot of “house” ads promoting shows or parent company-owned attractions such as Disneyland holidays. https://lnkd.in/eyghT3ed

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Brilliant to be collaborating with the team at i-media, one of the UK's leading and most data driven OOH advertisers, using ActiveXchange UK/Europe Movement Data + PartnerMatch modules to help brands discover their target audiences across 133 UK motorway service stations (250m+ annual visits). 📊 This service is relevant to any organisation who owns or operates assets and community infrastructure (or associations/governing bodies looking to coordinate top-down value) who are looking to leverage data to realise commercial value of audiences, and ultimately drive more investment back into supporting and activating communities. 💡 Know your audience. Grow your audience! Further information is available https://lnkd.in/erD8quED Alex Burrows Ben Jones Sara Ebrahimi Chris Patterson, MBA, P.Eng John Oxley Jacob Jankel James Byard James Robertshaw

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'Cookies are gone, but audio targeting is better than ever’ was our tag line at Adwanted UK Future of Audio & Entertainment 🔊 Head of Agency, Isobel Langley at GroupM UK, joined the stage with Ridhi Jogia Implementation Director at EssenceMediacom UK, to discuss geo targeting and the success it is driving for clients. Combining GroupM's single point of entry solution with EssenceMediacom’s geo-graph planning and activation tool is proving to be a winning combination, not only for digital audio, but across the full addressable eco system. #AudioTargeting #GeoTargeting #FOAE

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🚀 Exciting News from Scope3! We’ve launched our new Media Reporting dashboard, a cutting-edge tool that links carbon reduction to media performance. Now brands can see the impact of reducing emissions on key metrics like CTR, CPA, and viewability. Our simulator forecasts performance changes when high-emitting publishers are removed, making greener media plans actionable and insightful. Join us in driving sustainable advertising forward! 🌿📈 Read more about it here. #Sustainability #AdTech #MediaPerformance #Scope3

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Tired of 'yes' being the default? In 2025, let's question more. Our Managing Director of UK & Europe, Rachel Lofthouse, has joined other leading marketeers to share her New Year’s resolution with The Drum Network. A resolution that keeps us thinking proactively over reactively. Read what industry insiders are hoping to see in 2025 over on The Drum 👉 https://lnkd.in/e4Xg-T4v #B2BMarketing #MarketingAgency #TechMarketing

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Have a read on the Role of TV advertising in Black Friday and Cyber Monday campaigns. #tv #d2c #advertising #blackfriday #cybermonday https://lnkd.in/exE_PSiZ

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Want to know how Pinterest has evolved and Why are they appealing to Gen Z Shoppers? Have a read of the article below👇🏼 Thanks to Melissa Ryan & the Agency Team at Pinterest! #dentsu #pinterest #performancemarketing #socialmedia

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Richard Kirk, CSO at EssenceMediacom UK joined the recent Barb Briefing for Brands - an event for advertisers & media agencies – to share his views on the role of audience data in supporting effectiveness assessment. He explains how reach and frequency metrics are crucial because 95% of people seeing advertising aren't immediate buyers, but advertising builds brand associations for future purchasing decisions. He cautions that in the current landscape, cross-channel measurement difficulties can result in over-delivering messages to a small audience segment at high frequency, which can reduce effectiveness.

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'Cookies are gone, but audio targeting is better than ever’ was our tag line at Adwanted UK Future of Audio & Entertainment 🔊 Head of Agency, Isobel Langley at GroupM UK, joined the stage with Ridhi Jogia Implementation Director at EssenceMediacom UK, to discuss geo targeting and the success it is driving for clients. Combining GroupM's single point of entry solution with EssenceMediacom’s geo-graph planning and activation tool is proving to be a winning combination, not only for digital audio, but across the full addressable eco system. #AudioTargeting #GeoTargeting #FOAE

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🚀 The UK Film & TV market is set to deliver 80% of its annual content output, leaving a crucial 20% gap to be filled. Discover what this means for the industry! Read the full article here: https://lnkd.in/gwiBRRby Key Insights: 📈Trends & Performance: Dive into the latest trends and performance metrics for UK productions and international acquisitions. 🎥 Content Demand: Learn which types of content are in high demand and why. 🔍 Supply Gaps: Identify emerging patterns and content supply gaps. 🎯 Strategic Opportunities: Explore how SVOD platforms and PSBs can enhance their content strategies. #UKFilm #TVTrends #TVMarket #ContentDemand #IndustryTrends #SVOD #PSB #EntertainmentIndustry #MarketInsights #VitrinaAI

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I was at Videoweek and CTV/broadcast ad payload was a big discussion point. From a personal consumer perspective this is no surprise. We play a game when watching CTV with the kids which is 'can we spot a new ad?' because as we all know, frequency capping is broken. It also generates a significant amount of irritation with the kids generally booing as the content flow is broken by an ad in the wrong place. I've found myself explaining to the kids as the resident 'ad tech expert' why they have to sit through the same ad again and again and why the ad break timing is wonky. Fun times and maybe not surprising to know this causes a certain amount of eye rolling with them and 'signs' behind my back. It would seem from this study that consumers feel the same way as my family. The same debate on payload has been had in the publishing industry between editorial and commercial and in most cases commercial has won. Which is why we have a broken UX on many popular sites. The UK TV ad experience has long been the gold standard. Big screens, great content, and good* ads. That’s why it delivers such strong returns for advertisers. But as linear audiences shrink and budgets pour into the walled gardens, the pressure to “go digital” increases. The danger is that we could end up with an experience akin to “Tokyo at midnight”—cluttered, overwhelming, and ultimately ineffective. So, What’s the Fix? If commercial pressure leads to gradual degradation of the user experience, it might not show up in short-term metrics. But over time, as viewers switch off and ROI diminishes, the damage will become clear. By then, it’s too late. It is still early days for CTV and work is going on behind the scenes to improve the experience. The debate in publishing has rumbled around many times about a 'less is more' experience. Bigger ads and lower payload = everyone wins. Putting aside fixing frequency capping there are other opportunities to get it right. Two thoughts with my DAIVID 🦩 measurement hat on are: 1) Congruence between content and ads. We're already seeing broadcasters profile the emotions in the content which is a great start - what happens when you bring this together with the emotions in the ads. A better experience for the consumer and improved KPIs for the advertiser. 2) Measurement frameworks that track not just short-term performance but long-term viewer attention and engagement. By understanding how ad load, ad types and frequency impacts the consumer experience and advertising effectiveness- ideally with access to sales data - to get to the optimum balance. *I know this is debatable and I often discuss ads with my kids because many times they are completely confused as to the point of the ad - especially fragrance ads. This BTW is a bad thing as confusion has a significant negative impact on advertising performance. That is a conversation for another day.

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I just read a very interesting article in The Media Leader by Charlotte Skornik, head of client measurement, UK, at TikTok. Unsurprisingly, TikTok has the same problem as linear TV and other VOD providers – People do not click on video ads especially if the content is engaging. I wrote here many times that measuring video ads through last click models is anti-productive and leads to wrong decisions – any measurement solution must look at the long-term performance of the video ad. I agree with Charlotte that measurement needs be cross-channel (as well as cross-media) and must be able to isolate the uplift from each channel to calculate ROI. Having said that, I think that the proposed solution is too expensive, time-consuming and complex for most brands. Furthermore, as it requires fusing many different data sets – it will just not be accurate and granular enough. Luckily, there is a better and more cost-effective solution – With our single source data, advertisers can measure the uplift from their TikTok (or any other) campaign within seconds without the need to put any pixels or tags on their website. This is true both for online brands as well as CPG brands who can immediately measure the uplift in sales from their campaign without the need to fuse any data. If you are interested to measure your TikTok campaign – feel free to reach out https://lnkd.in/efRgvkgy

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We're excited to announce that we’ve signed an agreement to acquire the full-service, award-winning creative studio, Wonder Media Network (WMN) ✨ WMN are experts in audio, digital, experiential, and social media, specializing in podcaster-first, integrated omnichannel campaigns for major global brands like Nike, Pfizer, GE, and Mercedes-Benz. They also produce a slate of award-winning original podcasts This acquisition is an important strategic step for Acast to supercharge our creative and production offering in the US. WMN will combine with our existing creative team in the US to form a brand new division, Acast Creative Studios. 💥 Welcome to Acast, Wonder Media Network! Read more at: https://lnkd.in/eseVvTcE

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Brands are already using the right amount attention to increase cost efficient outcomes for both performance and brand activity. If you would like to explore how understanding attention can help your brand increase the quality of media they are buying, whilst simultaneously reducing the cost of your business outcomes, please get in touch #attention #outcomes

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The dynamic and changing landscape of screens is moving at such a pace that measurement cannot keep up. No single source of data to report and measure effectiveness, nor viewability or attention across all devices, all screens, all publishers. There are currently many limitations when converging trading and reporting and vice versa, with implications for brands and agencies on establishing benchmarks and developing KPIs and ultimately determining effectiveness of each platform. And yet this consumer behaviour is already establishing, arguably established in younger audiences. It will be interesting to see the impact VOZ STVM has in 2025 for BVOD publishers and how the industry continues to respond to these challenges.

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🚀 Unlock the secrets of modern marketing with Digitas UK's Impact Report, 'The Impact Balancing Act.' Dive into insights from 400 senior decision-makers across sectors like Financial Services, Health, Travel, and Retail. Discover strategies for achieving commercial and cultural influence in today's digital landscape. #DigitalMarketing #MarketingStrategy #TechInnovation #ImpactBalancingAct 📊

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In an age where 90% of young people engage with news online, the need for trusted, responsible media is more crucial than ever. Platforms like Teads play a pivotal role in delivering quality, brand-safe environments for advertisers, ensuring messages land where audiences are actively seeking information. As digital habits evolve, how can brands leverage premium, engaging media to connect authentically with younger audiences? Let’s keep the conversation going on the value of responsible media in today’s landscape. #DigitalAdvertising #MediaResponsibility #Teads https://lnkd.in/eQGNNGYJ

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Does your organisation have a strategy for using flexible talent to fill skill gaps and build competitive advantage?

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