Steve Grubbs: Challenges and opportunities in media abound
In this three-part series from our August print issue, we speak with Steve Grubbs, CEO of Omnicom's PHD. He's responsible for $4.5B in global billings and seven US offices. Clients include DaimlerChrysler, Gap/Old Navy, Ralston Purina, J&J, Goodyear, Reebok, Gap, Enterprise Rent-a-Car, Discovery Networks, Schwab and Energizer.
Prior to joining PHD, Steve was CEO of OMD USA, Omnicom's other global media services network. Before that, Steve was EVP/Director of National TV Buying and Program Development at BBDO New York, where he served for 22 years. Steve's also a former Chairman of the AAAA's Network TV committee and currently serves on the board of directors of Advertising Information Services and E-sync Networks. Here, Steve gives an insightful take on holding the keys to innumerable, constantly-evolving media vehicles.
What creative challenge/opportunities are agencies facing right now?
I think it all comes back under one heading; there's been a diminished impact of the 30-second spot on the consumer. If you take a look at recall scores and commercial recall scores and things that, the trend line is going south. I tie it all back to impact. You have increased clutter that's been going on for several years now. You have all the fragmentation, so how do you generate impact with your campaign? Then you have the remote controls, and now you have TiVo. So I think it all comes back to generating impact and I think that's one of the reasons that people are starting to gravitate towards program integration, or product integration within programming.
Well it's just the way the business is evolving and so it is a challenge and we're looking for ways to get our brand name and our brand message and our brand personality, we're looking for different ways to convey that.
Any prime examples other than product integration?
I'm really intrigued with this whole area of what I would call long- form advertainment. It's things like BMW films, things like the BOB Network where you can run sort of long form advertainment that meshes product with story line. If you take a look at what Ford did last year in "24" they ran a little mini movie, three minutes before the premiere, three minutes at the end of the show. If you take a look at what Anheuser-Busch has done they created a seven-minute spot called the "Best Man." So I think all those things where you try to deliver your product message in a creative entertaining environment, I think we're going to see more and more of that.
Tell us the opportunities and threats you believe TiVo presents to the ad industry.
I think TiVo rocks our world. I'm surprised it hasn't caught on faster. I'm surprised it's not in every household. It is a superior product and the ease with which you can maneuver through the remote that is connected to the TiVo technology makes it very easy to maneuver through system. So I'm surprised it hasn't really just exploded. Is it a threat? Is it an opportunity? It's technology and it's evolution so yeah, it's a threat. I've had TiVo for two or three years now and it changes the way I watch television. It absolutely changes the way I watch television and all it suggests to me is we need to find a way to really integrate product into content. It very much negatively impacts the 30-second spots. Not so much in the live broadcast, but certainly for scripted shows it has an impact.
How do you internally expand the buying dynamic within your company to effectively do buys across the ever-increasing media choices?
That's a challenge for us. I think we had something like 6,000 proposals last year that we analyzed on behalf of one client. That's not including all the proposals that came in that we actually took the time to meet with somebody and analyze a proposal. It does have some impact on our own internal workings and our manpower. But yeah, there are different ways to reach the consumer. The consumer is exposed to more and more messages in more and more places and there is a huge challenge. There are some metrics that are available for some media, but there's a lot of this we just can't account for. Even simple things like viewing your television in your office. There's no accounting for that, the way that Nielsen sample is set up. Radio - - we can't really measure very well. The whole diary concept is not a valid way to measure radio listenership. We have a whole slew of research issues and as the research improves, then we're able to start to get to this whole issue of ROI. The Internet - - there's great accountability there.
Did they click or did they not click.
Yeah, I mean you can track and see what the response was. We've actually, interestingly, in the past year seen a great usage of direct response television. Maybe it's just the nature of our client base, but we spend a lot of money behind direct response television and that's very accountable as well.
It's just really about how are you internally tackling all this stuff that's being thrown at you. When you say 6,000 that's a prime example.
Well that, the first place to start is you need to identify your core customer. You can't just identify that core customer as an adult 18-49 who makes $50,000 or more a year. You really have to do a drill down on things like lifestyle, psychographics, product usage and we're getting more and more better information on those kinds of things that are now available and we're better able to tie those to some program specifics. It all starts with understanding the consumer - - understanding the consumer touch points, consumers' passion points and then linking that up to how best to communicate with your core customer.
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