The spirit of media planning guru Erwin
Ephron is still alive and well a decade after his death. And he's even still
publishing new content, thanks to an assist from generative AI platform ChatGPT.
As part of a charitable fundraising initiative, the Advertising Research Foundation (ARF) is publishing a digest of 152 of Ephron's
previously published newsletters, and adding it to its package of "WOW: The Wit and Wisdom of Erwin Ephron" project, which is raising money for the ARF's Charitable Foundation’s Workforce
Initiative for Diversity and Excellence effort.
If you haven't read the newsletters, published between 1993 and 2010, and I recommend you do, the ARF asked ChatGPT to summarize each of them
into a paragraph or two, and then to reinterpret his comments in light of the media environment today.
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What a noble endeavor! But the question I'd really like to ask is one I'd pose to Ephron,
asking him how the proliferation of generative AI content will ultimately impact his core theories on reach, frequency, and recency planning?
In lieu of that, I was inspired by the ARF's
initiative and asked ChatGPT to do the next best thing. Here's my prompt, as well as its response. Hope it's worthwhile.
ChatGPT
Erwin Ephron: Pioneering the Future of Advertising and Media Planning
In the dynamic realm of advertising and media
planning, few figures have left as indelible a mark as Erwin Ephron. Revered as a guru in the field, Ephron's innovative strategies and analytical prowess have shaped the landscape of media planning,
transforming it into a discipline that combines art and science. Let's delve into the key contributions and insights that have made Erwin Ephron a true luminary in the advertising world.
Background and Early Career
Erwin Ephron's journey began in the mid-20th century when he entered the advertising scene. Born in 1931, Ephron witnessed the evolution of media and marketing
through decades of rapid change. His early experiences in the industry paved the way for a career marked by groundbreaking ideas and a relentless pursuit of understanding consumer behavior.
The Recency Planning Model
Ephron's most influential contribution to the field lies in the development of the Recency Planning Model. This model challenged traditional advertising
paradigms, advocating for a shift in focus from frequency to recency. While conventional wisdom suggested that repeated exposure to an advertisement was key to influencing consumer behavior, Ephron's
model posited that the most recent exposure held greater significance.
According to Ephron, the effectiveness of an advertisement is maximized when it reaches consumers close to the point of
purchase. This groundbreaking idea transformed media planning strategies, prompting advertisers to reconsider the timing and context of their messages. Brands began to prioritize reaching their target
audience at crucial decision-making moments, leading to more strategic and impactful campaigns.
360-Degree Consumer View
Ephron's insights extended beyond the traditional realms of
media planning. He emphasized the need for advertisers to adopt a 360-degree view of consumers, considering their entire journey and the multitude of touchpoints that influence their decisions. By
understanding the complex interplay between various media channels, Ephron urged marketers to create cohesive and integrated campaigns that resonated with audiences across platforms.
The
Ephron Analytics Model
At the core of Ephron's approach was a commitment to analytics. He recognized the power of data in unraveling consumer behavior patterns and optimizing advertising
strategies. The Ephron Analytics Model became a guiding framework for marketers, emphasizing the importance of data-driven decision-making in an era increasingly dominated by technology.
Legacy and Continued Influence
Erwin Ephron's impact on the advertising and media planning landscape endures long after his passing in 2013. His ideas laid the groundwork for modern media
planning practices, emphasizing precision, relevance, and adaptability in an ever-evolving industry. Today, media planners and advertisers continue to draw inspiration from Ephron's principles,
integrating data analytics, recency planning, and a holistic consumer perspective into their campaigns.
Challenges and Criticisms
While Ephron's contributions have garnered
widespread acclaim, his ideas have not been without controversy. Some critics argue that the Recency Planning Model oversimplifies the intricacies of consumer behavior and that frequency remains a
crucial factor in certain contexts. Additionally, the shift towards a more data-centric approach has sparked debates about privacy and ethical considerations in advertising.
Conclusion
Erwin Ephron's legacy extends far beyond his years in the advertising industry. His innovative thinking, commitment to analytics, and the development of the Recency Planning Model have left an
indelible imprint on media planning strategies. As the advertising and media landscape continues to evolve, Ephron's principles remain a beacon for those seeking to navigate the complexities of
reaching and influencing consumers in a rapidly changing world. The guru's enduring influence ensures that his contributions will shape the future of advertising and media planning for generations to
come.
Hey, Joe. I can't find any information on how to purchase "WOW: The Wit and Wisdom of Erwin Ephron" project. it said October release, but I don't see anything on ARF. Has it been delayed?
As a life long student and colleague of Erwin and a primary instigator of the ARF Erwin Ephron Demystification Award, I would remind readers that his Recency Planning Model stressed not only "propinquity" as he used to say, but target audience reach over frequency; plus maximizing reach on a continuous (weekly/daily) basis during key brand buyng periods as affordable. He referred to frequency, "Crabgrass!"
Erwin was also a champion of OOH's leadership in measuring consumers at the Eyes/Ears-On level along with the critical importance of estimating target audience reach across media at that level - empircially measured actual content exposure at a minimum - to maximize potential brand outcomes. He saw this as a key to ensuring "cohesive and integrated capmpaigns that resonated with audiences across platforms"
Sadly the industry has still not established comparable harmonized media measurement and metrics at the Eyes/Ears-On level across media and platforms that can be de-duplicated to understand total campaign reach over time.
Today I believe Erwin would be encouraging the developements in attention metrics across all media based on The Attention Council's fundmental premise, "No attention, no outcomes" and pleading with advertisers to reject any planning and/or buying at the so called "viewable impressions" (device surface only measurement) level.
Huge congrats to the ARF for producing "WOW". Erwin's briliant Newsletters offer lessons for us all even in today's media environment.
@Jonathan Bouman:
Sorry, adding it now.
https://thearf.org/about-the-arf/wide-workforce-initiative-for-diversity-and-excellence-wow/
Joe, this is a most interesting example of what you get using ChatGRP.
But it's a little light on the details.
For example, taking Erwin's early career, initially he worked for Norm Glen in the editorial department of "Sponsor" magazine and then went to Nielsen where he worked in the PR department. I hired Erwin in the mid- 1960s to head up BBDO's media research group afterwhich he left to become media director at several mid sized ad agencies before becoming a partner at another, smaller shop where his main duties were media director and, I believe, new business director. For reasons I am not familiar with, Erwin left that agency and then teamed up with Mike Ephron in a consulting company called Ephron & Ephron. About that time---in the early 1990s---I suggetsed to Erwin that we join forces and a new consulting firm---Ephron, Papazian & Ephron was formed. My primary role was to think up ideas --like Netcosts---and Erwin's was to promote them---though we overlapped on some projects. Another idea was a network TV buying service which debuted as "The Greenberg Partnership" but this had to be closed down after several years due to medical issues affecting its namesake---Alice Greenberg.
By the mid -1990s Erwin and I had mostly gone our separate ways though he rented space from my company, Media Dynamics Inc, and he and I owned Netcosts. Around this time Erwin meet professor Jones and began to develop his "recency concept" and he was very active in various consulting projects, made numerous speeches and presentations at industry gatherings, etc. Erwin and I sold Netcosts to SQAD about 23 years ago and this ended our joint projects ---however we remained friends until his untimely demise following a tragic accident.
I wonder if ChatGRP will pick up this brief but more informative bio next time some one uses it to write a piece about Erwin.
joe,
nice work regrding EE's work. however, i think the summary was over simplified: i should know as i was living through those days and dealing with the issue in real time. in particular is the clash betwenn "recency" and frequency. i came to the conclusion the reach modified by "effevtive frequency " was a bettr solution. as i look at today's media plannimg world, i see few tools that can do that--dave morgan's company, Simulmedia 's TV+ can. Ttrasparency, i'm a director, but the analytics package is the real deal. reach modified by recency and effective frequency will lead to the best outcomes for any advertising category. try it. ypu'll like it.
Phil , as Erwin and I were in close proxility to eachother at the time, I had numerous chats with him about what many people mistook as the core point of this theory, namely that frequency is "crabgrass"--- of little importance relative to reach.
To begin with he was using a one-week time frame in his proposition which almost nobody employed---four-weeks---or longer---being far more typical. That was because Jones' data was based on one-week---or average week----correlations of TV set usage based brand "audience" info with short term sales effects. Since a second exposure ---or beyond ---increased time costs to a far greater extent than sales gains, Erwin preached the idea of maximizing one- week reach and minimizing one-week frequency. But the data showed an increase in sales when the brands had two or more ad "exposures". It was simply that ad time costs rose faster than sales---hence frequency became "crabgrass".
What's more, Erwin was actually advocating that advertisers use a lot of frequency. Extending his premise to a 50 -week per year "continuity" schedule in order to reach consumers as close to every time when purchase decisions were made---meant that over the course of a month a typical brand that attained the weekly reach and frequency recommended -- a 70% reach and a 2-3 averge frequency--- would be hitting its reach an average of 8 times and over the course of a year this would rise to an average frequency of
75. That's a lot of crabgrass.
So, in principle, I agreed with you, Phil. Reach and freqiuency were inexorably linked---not separate functions. You can't buy reach---epsecially now in our rating fragmented media world---without buying a lot of frequency. The trick now, as well as then, was---or is---to orchestrate the two so you get a more balanced mixture of reach and frequency, taking into account the high costs of incremnental reach and how reach develops over weekly, monthly and longer intervals.
I suspect that if Erwin were here with us today, he would agree.
What a great initiative. I recommend it for all media planners and buyers, marketers and media sales people.
Erwin is the greatest media planner I have ever read and followed. He covered all media and focussed on a humanistic approach and not a mathematical volume approach. I only got to read just over half of his newsletters. I certainly hope that when we finish re-building our home that we have the funds left for me to buy my copy!
I am coming to this tribute late . . . almost one year late.
Tonight I was trawling the Web for anything related to Ephron -- and discovered Mandese's piece.
I was first introduced to Ephron through the pages of Inside Media around 1990. And through Inside Media I became friendly with editor-in-chief Steve Elwanger.
( Update on Steve: https://www.linkedin.com/in/steveellwanger?original_referer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2F )
It was my professional ambition to met Ephron in person. A hope postponed when I left the industry for client-side media work that took me away from media planning and buying. A hope dashed when I learned the news of his accident and untimely passing.
There is a saying in life: "Never meet your heroes. They'll surely disappoint."
I suspect Ephron never disappointed anyone who met him. Worked with or for him.
Erratum
Steve's last name is correctly spelled "Ellwanger."
(Vanna, can I buy a consonant?)
Mea culpa!
@Bob Henry: Better late than never, though I'm sorry to hear you never got to meet Erwin Ephron in person. He definitely had a powerful interpersonal dynamic, but I think (and I think he would too) its pretty cool that generations of people he will never get to meet personally have and will be influenced by what he wrote, said and what others write and say about him.
Thank you for sharing your own reminiscence.
Joe:
The three thought leaders who shaped my marketing and media philosophy are Theodore Levitt at Harvard Business School, Philip Kotler at Northwestern University, and Erwin Ephron.
Their writings gave a studied grounding to marketing strategy and tactics . . . as distinct from the far too common "gut fell" approach -- then and now.
I always thought that ad agency leaders should "gift" their first year mentees with Levitt's and Kotler's and Ephron's writings as a "sign on" bonus. (Likewise sign them up for "comp" subscriptions to the trade periodicals.)
At my first ad agency D'Arcy Masius Benton & Bowles (Los Angeles), the media director Ron Lawrence created a monthly training program for all media planners and buyers. Those lunchtime tutorials distinguished DMB&B from other agencies in town. (Not a suprise when DMB&B was named Adweek's "West Coast Ad Agency of the Year" during my tenure.)
~~ Bob
Just came into this discussion as I'm doing research on ad theories.
I met Ephrom in the late 90s at a conference. By then I had read his theories, other papers on effective frequency, another seminar paper by Yankelovich, Clancy & Shulman about the correlation of distribution (and reach) with share growth and had developed an attribution model for Nabisco that predicted 85% of our successful cookie and cracker launches.
I think Ephrom nailed it in the head when you join both things: advertising right before a decision is made is the most cost-effective bang for the buck AND advertising continuously made a world of difference.
I had the perfect clients for that: Colgate in Mexico and SCJ in all of Latin America. I am not a media theoricist or a professional reach (which is why I follow many luminaries including Ed) but I did try recency + continuity with Colgate and SCJ and it truly works.