Data can provide unparalleled knowledge about the decisions made by consumers. However, with our worlds flooded by so much new information every second, it is often difficult to discern the important fragments from the rest of the noise. Partnerships allow different stakeholders to pool together resources in order to gain insight that alone they might miss.

Challenge

Ever since the launch of commercial TV, marketers have shared a common desire to answer the question: “Who watched my TV ad, and who responded by buying my products?” A question retail giant, Argos, aimed to address.

Argos was looking to better understand its customers, and by doing so, increase the value generated from its advertising. With data being key, Argos joined forces with Sky Media to optimise the effectiveness of their TV investment and to ultimately deliver incremental revenue from their tactical TV advertising.

Solution

In order to tap into the true potential of the shared data sets, Sky Media proposed the following approach:

  • Match Argos customers with the Sky Media Viewing Panel
  • Strategic TV performance analytics
  • Target audience segmentations
  • TV campaign planning
  • In-flight TV planning
  • Post-campaign analysis using sales data

Process

To start, Sky Media brought together Argos’ sales data with its own customer-viewing data to create a single source viewing panel. Using Sky Media’s data-matching technology, out of the 500,000 households on the Sky panel, 280,000 were successfully matched with Argos.

From this combined data, the next step was analysing previous campaigns to gauge what genres and programmes resonate with customers and how different customer segments behave. The aim was to understand and define the relationship between Argos’ TV advertising viewing and sales, and in turn, give recommendations to optimise their TV investment in the future. This involved measuring and comparing the effect on sales of different spot lengths, frequency of ads and weightings for different product categories so that each campaign element could make the greatest impact on audiences.

The real breakthrough came from the data analysis phase where Sky Media unveiled new target audiences based on more than 100 audience segmentations, from demographics to programme and product preferences, among other factors. As a result, Argos could then ensure their campaigns were tailored to their most valuable audiences based on their propensity to shop after seeing a TV ad, and ensure that it reached the right audience with a relevant message to drive sales.

With a rich picture of Argos’ different customers and new insights on how to execute more effective campaigns, it was over to Argos’ media agency Mindshare to plan against these defined audiences and evaluate, in-flight, spot laydowns from sales houses. It could then ensure that each campaign aired was effectively reaching their target audiences, not just their buying audiences.

Results

By dissecting the merged data panel, for the first time, Argos was able to truly understand and capture the viewing behaviours of its customers, as well as unveiling how TV drives specific purchase patterns.

Through a combination of improved targeting and a more efficient use of copy, Argos saw increased TV targeting against their audiences by 8% on average, year on year. Average shopping rates nearly tripled and average shopper value doubled for the exposed target audience. Moreover, Argos saw a large halo effect in incremental revenue within each product category – beyond those advertised on TV.

By understanding their most valuable customers, Argos knew which key audiences to target at the right time. As a result of increased customer engagement, for the 10 weeks in the run up to their peak period alone, Argos drove £7 million in incremental revenue. This is a direct result of the insights and recommendations made from the data partnership with Sky Media and Mindshare.

The coalition between Sky Media, Argos and Mindshare just highlights the clear mutual benefits for brands, agencies and media owners working more closely. Businesses with strong data capabilities and a willingness to work more closely with partners have the opportunity to deepen their understanding of customers and make advertising more effective in the long run.