LinkedIn allows the sales conversation to start differently if used correctly. Key components for starting and building relationships are trust, curiosity, and empathy. These are some of the attributes that great sellers bring to in-person networking and meetings. LinkedIn profiles give sellers the information and context to initiate a conversation demonstrating these qualities and if done well will result in responses that start a nurturing process and puts high octane fuel in the sales process.     

Uh... Peter Naylor is at Snap.

I concur with the above comments, and being a proud Aussie, I'm glad how well SMI has been accepted and adopted in the US

And kudos particularly to Jane and James for taking SMI global.

Maarten, TV is not the only place where costs keep rising but you get less each year. That applies to most of the products or services that advertisers promote in their ad campaigns. It's called inflation. When you buy a box of crackers or a bottle of shampoo or a new car and compare what you get for the money with what you got and paid ten years ago for the same product you will see exactly what happens with TV. Now you pay more---because the manufacturer's costs have risen and these are passed on to the consumer----but you get the same or less. TV advertisers understand this as they face the same issues in their own marketing operations---how to balance higher costs with how they price their wares to the consumers and still make a profit. Invariably, the solution is to give less relative to what the consumer pays.

As for advertisers using TV more effectively---by which you refer to the way TV or alternative forms of TV/video time  are bought, I happen to agree with you. But there is a huge disconnect in the advertising system between the CMOs and agency big wigs and the media function. Generally speaking, the former believe that brand/product positioning strategies and "creative" are the major priority and they pay little attention to the numbers heavy media planning/buying aspect. This is the only explanation for their lack of interest  or action---in reforming their time buying practices. They don't understand what might be gained by changing their ways and nobody is trying to convince them otherwise. It's a sad state of affairs.

I find it hard to accept the definitions used in this report.  We seem to be saying that the number of "sources" is up but this merely lumps all of the channels available via "pay TV" together as a single source while various types of streaming/OTT services are considered separate sources.  In reality, the number of program channels we now get---as a national average---is considerably lower than before. The average TV home was credited with receiving  over 200 channels containing program content just ten years ago, now, thanks to cord cutting, that figure is 30-40 channels lower and slowly declining.

Love to see it, thanks MediaPost

Thanks Tracey!   Just an extension of all the great ideas you and I kicked around 10 years ago :)

OMG Ben, what a gift!!! The industry needs exactly this type of tool to evolve. Kudos to you for making this happen.

Golly, the agencies  and advertisers love Nielsen's "antiquated" measurements because they "undercount" the audience and this allows advertisers to pay less for their TV time. Actually, Nielsen, which has been forced to provide data it can't measure---namely average minute viewers of commercials---actually puts out heavily inflated audience projections---projections which assume that when a commercial appears on the TV screen, anyone who might have claimed that he/she was "watching" the program when it was first selected also "watched" the commercial----unless they notify Nielsen otherwise---which almost never happens. Nonsense. The real figures for people "watching" commercials are probably less than half what is reported. As for digital media  having better data, not so. Does anyone think that because a digital video commercial appeared on a screen for at least two seconds that this means that it was "watched"? I hope not.

@Dan Ciccone: Agree with your last statement: We are better than that. Thank you!

There's a difference between an honest mistake and retracting a story because the staff fabricated facts and sources.  When people are fired or forced to resign, it's not because of honest mistakes.  I gave you examples where it was proven people fabricated stories - they weren't honest mistakes.

You're better than that.

@Dan Ciccone: LOL You do understand that when news organizations "retract," correct, clarify, or add new reporting that is actually the ultimate form of journalistic honesty? It's called setting the record straight. Journalism is not an exact science, and has been described as the "best first draft of history." The rest is revision. But unlike honest news organizations, Fox News prefers to settle its worst reporting in court. Just ask Seth Rich's family.

But you are right about one thing, there are other journalists at MediaPost who offer objective insight within the industry. Thanks for sticking with them. But you know, you can actually unsubscribe from "Marketing Politics Weekly," without unsubscribing to the rest of what you receive from MediaPost. Just go to the bottom of the newsletter and click the part that says this:

"If you'd rather not receive this newsletter in the future you may opt-out here."

Otherwise, keep kvetching if you want.

I just gave you a half a dozen examples of competing networks that have had to retract stories.  People were forced to resign or fired over willful misrepresentation of facts to push an agenda vs. reporting news...and you offered no examples of FOX's "lying."

If you disagree with their pundits world view and opinion, that's fair.  However, your premise is that FOX News pushes lies and if you can't offer any examples of their staff being fired or reprimanded for falsifying information, then your opinion piece here is hollow.

Finally, your usual response to anyone who disagrees with you is to tell them to unsubscribe.  You're not seeking truth or objectiveness - you're just pushing your own agenda.

And no, I won't unsubscribe as there are other journalists with Mediapost who offer objective insight within the industry.  Thankfully you keep them on staff to maintain credibility and they offer balance to your false narratives.

Disintermediation favors new media over legacy media. 

IMHO, because DAR requires the content (i.e. the ad) to be tagged it is probably the best measurement of the delivery of the ad.   It is not necessarily the impact of the ad because it measures that the ad was served but it still doesn't measure eyes-on.   DAR was originally aimed at single-user devices (PCs, tablets, mobiles), but CTV tends to have more 'viewers per device so there is probably a counter-balancing under-reportting.

The great irony is that while TV ratings are better at measuring the programming than the ads, the inverse is probably true for DAR.

Very well put Mr. Scardino. On what politicians get away with, we have met the enemy and he is us.

"You have Google and Facebook, you have these technology companies [that] know exactly who’s watching, exactly who they are and what they’re buying and what they want to read."

Really?    They have server-based data that they impute with varying degrees of accuracy.

As an example, I am reading today's MediaPost articles.   I have multiple browser tabs open concurrently - one for each article.   Each appears to have me as an active reader server-side.   So THIS article is correctly accumulating time-spent, while the other tabs that are not in focus are probably also accumulating time-spent.   And in fact because I have a cold (winter is approaching here in AU) this article just racked up a minute or so while I was getting some cough medicine.   All audience measurement systems have their short falls - it's just that some are more transparent, while others appear to be transparent without any oversight.

Bravo Tony.

Totally concur on the 'impressions' comments.

Though one thing I found about MMM is that the 'good' models can be data agnostic.   For example, if you had (say) linear TV 'impressions', CTV 'impressions' and digital video 'impressions' and good MMM will analyse and basically be non-comparative of those three types of 'impression' and (if they could speak) would say ... well I don't know what a (say) CTV impressions is, but I know that whewn we have truckloads of them we sell more product.

But one thing I found in MMMs is that the model will still have 20%-30% 'unknown' variation.   That is, it can explain/forecast around 70% of the variation in sales.

In many cases that is because the MMM focuses too much on the media component at the expense of 'real world' factors.   A good MMM will have things like unemployment levels, average income data, consumere sentiment, season, weather etc etc.   We did a model for Macca's Happy Meals.   Rainy afternoons were GREAT for sales as the mums and dads were picking up the kids after school, stuck in rainy traffic, didn't want to get home and cook dinner so ... anyone want a Happy Meal?   The Happy Meal ads (and live reads) on drive-time traffic reports on the radio worked a treat on rainy days.

Thanks very much Ed!

Sounds like a valuable tool, Ben. Thanks.

You're exactly right Ed.  SMI's linear eCPM data includes key dimensions such as paid, unpaid, upfront, scatter, direct-response, etc.  This gives media buyers & sellers the ability to toggle on/off any of the dimensions they'd like to examine i.e. understanding how effective CPMs change when factoring for unpaid units, etc.    

Interesting, Joe. Unfortunately, without the other CPMs---including bonus spots, make goods, etc-- as a basis for comparison, it's difficult to interpret such stats. Certainly, SMI isn't saying that the bonus/makegood announcements are of no value. Or even that they have less value---if the targeted consumer is really reached. This is especially true for cable where the so-called "tiers" are  based almost entirely on rating levels--not program  quality, viewer attentiveness or the amount of ad clutter.  Channels with the lowest ratings simply earn fewer bucks per viewer "impression".

@Dan Ciccone: Then for the life of me, I don't understand why you don't unsubscribe? If you ask me, that is the Mother of All Alternative Realities.

But I think Einstein had a theory for that too.