David Verklin: Mastering a digital future - - Part III
(from our July RBR/TVBR Solutions magazine)
David Verklin, CEO of Carat Americas, runs the largest independent media services company in North America, sporting 6 billion in billings annually. David shepherds over 350 clients including Pfizer, Procter & Gamble, RadioShack, Adidas, Hyundai, New Line Cinema, Electronic Arts, Kia, Black & Decker, Marriott and Philips Electronics. Here, David talks about the biz, with a special focus on his passion, new digital technologies and the marketing that goes with it.
What are your clients' biggest concerns? Is it just ROI?
No, I think it's a concern about television. Clients love the old model, people don't want to talk about it publicly but everybody loved the old 30-second TV model - - it was great. You make three to five TV commercials a year. You shoot them in the Bahamas.
You edit them in Los Angeles, you stay at a really nice hotel while you do it. You run them for a year to 18 months, hopefully you come up with a campaign that's refreshable and feasible over a number of different years or seasons. You can make five or six ads you run the heck out of them. I mean it was great.
The challenges the traditional 30 second TV model has created a lot of problems for clients. One is it takes more knowledge or time from their perspective to manage. There used to be a real premium on the simplicity and elegance of what we call univehicular media plans. You can't do it anymore, you have to have a Hispanic effort, a digital effort, you have to look at search engine marketing and optimization and event marketing, experiential marketing. Don't forget about ethnic marketing and analytics. It bodes well for companies like Carat for navigation companies and guidance companies, which is what I really think Carat is.
Arbitron's PPM for radio and Nielsen's LPM for television - - what do you think about them?
I think it's a step forward. I'm a big fan of Apollo, I think Apollo is interesting and there's no question that's good stuff. How can anyone debate the improvement in veracity of an LPM or a PPM over a diary? I mean this is a joke. I've never really understood the debate. I've never really understood it.
People are afraid their stations aren't going to get as high ratings as they used to?
How's that my client's problem or Carat's problem? I'm sure they're afraid of that, and the biggest problem bearing against that is the poor stations are the people that pay the bills. If the clients and the media agencies were footing more of the bills you wouldn't be writing about this. The only resistance to this is by the measured, who are concerned that the accuracy of the measurement is going to show a decline in their audience.
I understand that problem but I don't understand the debate from my perspective. My clients are interested in the most accurate measurement of who is watching television and there is just no question that PPM and LPM are superior technologies.
So to me I've always been astounded at the brazenness of resisting it.
Any advice for creative departments?
Begin to understand how to create advertising for a varied palate of television options. Understand how to work with more varied unit lengths, and unfortunately a lot of them are shorter than 30 seconds. I think it's an enormous challenge because there's no question in my mind that the shorter the length of time, the more difficult it is to create commercial persuasion that has a good communication of product benefit as well as product personality. That's one of the reasons it's so hard to be a creative person. I do think there'll be 30 second TV ads, but I also think there's also going to be a minute TV ad, three minute TV ads, 5 minute TV ads, 10 second TV ads and two second TV ads. The creative department has to become comfortable with that kind of power.
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