Carat's Verklin Reaches Out, Embraces Micro Planning

Media buyers should reconsider what has long been a goal: reaching as many consumers as possible, Carat North America CEO David Verklin told the audience Tuesday at OMMA East in New York City. Reach, said Verklin, will be far less important in the future.

"In the digital age," he said, "we need to be able to manage thousands of small placements," as opposed to just the "big blockbuster properties."

To illustrate, he told the audience what he considers the biggest waste of ad dollars today: "Putting a PoliGrip ad in front of a person with a full set of teeth."

"It's not about reaching every consumer," he said. "It's about reaching the right consumers."

By contrast, Peter Weedfald, senior vice president, consumer electronics and North America corporate marketing at Samsung Electronics, Inc., proposed that the advantage to the Web wasn't just that it allowed for more precise targeting, but also for greater frequency and consistency than TV.

"The Internet is the fastest, most dauntless, most assiduous weapon I have to build demand," Weedfald said. It's also one of the cheapest, he added.

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For example, he said, Samsung always runs a banner ad on certain Web sites--giving the company persistent exposure on those sites. "I'd like to be able to do that on TV," Weedfald said at a panel discussion Tuesday morning. But, he added, the expense was prohibitive. "What do you think they would charge me to run a banner at the bottom of 'Friends'?" he asked. "A billion dollars? Five billion?"

Carat's Verklin also proposed that audience members develop marketing budgets that allocate between 15 and 20 percent of ad dollars for digital media. Current estimates hold that between 4 and 5 percent of total ad dollars are spent online.

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