Study: Understanding competitor media strategy challenging for 63% of brands

Some 63% of advertisers find it hard to generate insights on competitor media activity, which is a concern given the priority placed on benchmarking, said a recent report by Kantar titled “Data strategies for brand growth”. Whilst 75% recognise the value of syndicated data, the accessibility of data for benchmarking against competitor activity proves a frustration.

Majority of advertisers (86%) say that benchmarking their media investments against competitor activity will either increase or remain important over the next few years – only 10% feel it will be less important. When it comes to competitor communications strategy, more than one in four advertisers (28%) express frustration in trying to benchmark, citing it as a significant challenge to their strategy, underscoring the need for consistent and timely competitive reporting.

Moreover, one of the biggest challenges to a brand’s advertising and planning strategies is profiling its audience across all media touchpoints (38%). This is closely followed by budget optimisation across media (37%). Some 30% of marketers today find that there is a lack of cross-media reach and frequency data as a potential roadblock.

Around 81% of advertisers believe their brands should actively be looking to use their own (first-party) data alongside primary research data, given the trustworthiness and relevance in-house data has to marketers' objectives. Moreover, 76% of marketers believe that data should be used by everyone, as 56% believe that integrating other data sources with audience segmentation will become even more important.

However, in-house data scores lowest on engaging visual outputs and for ease of connection to other data sources – technology platforms, such as Google and Facebook are just ahead here.

Whilst data from adtech platforms is acknowledged as up to date and actionable, advertisers are less likely to see data from them as transparent, trustworthy, easy to personalise, customise or connect to other data sources, said the report. Only 28% see syndicated data as providing actionable insights and 18% as easy to customise. In this context, advertisers are actually slightly more appreciative of data from tech platforms such as Google and Facebook.

Power of data

Many marketers believe that their future is directly correlated to the growth of direct-to consumer strategies (DTC) and 82% of advertisers say they are pursuing a DTC strategy. There are growing opportunities to go direct to consumers and build direct long-term relationships that boost loyalty. Whilst 67% of advertisers feel that understanding and retaining current customers is more important than customer acquisition, only 34% disagree or are unsure.

“Brands need to grow share of pocket in order to move market share. Whilst first-party data gives brands the opportunity to forensically dissect their own customer interactions, they also need to ‘zoom out’ and view the competitive landscape more holistically,” said the report.

Some 56% of advertisers anticipate that data to guide real-time targeting will become more important in the future, with 53% citing ease of integration into their data management platform as vital. Nonetheless, 82% of marketers surveyed said want to take more control of their media spend (48% agree strongly) and planning with 80% of advertisers wanting their own in-house segmentations to enable media planning and activation.

Photo courtesy: 123RF

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