This article appeared in Werbewoche 11/2016 of June 17, 2016.
To the subscriptions.
"Planned joint venture between SRG, Swisscom and Ringier: Association of Swiss Media calls for a halt to march and examination of alternative models". That was the title of a press release sent out by the Swiss Media Association on January 25, 2016. A few days later, Roger Schawinski also called on the media industry and Federal Councilor Doris Leuthard to take a deep breath on persoenlich.com.
"Stop marching", "take a breath" - this suggests that for publishers and other media players ( including radio pioneers ! ) the pace is too fast on the hike into the media future. Digitization is trudging ahead in leaps and bounds, the media are lagging behind - with Swisscom, SRG and Ringier in the lead. With their "advertising alliance" project, they are now increasing their lead over publishers, UPC and Sunrise and making them even more breathless. Not with the idea itself, but with the fact that for the first time, three (media) partners have come together who are also trusted to implement the project - the establishment of a national marketing platform.
One idea and seven years slept away
In fact, the idea is not new, as Mirko Marr, Head of Research at Goldbach Group and critic of the new alliance, also admitted in the NZZ of 22 January 2016. After all, former PubliGroupe CEO Hanspeter Rohner already said in Werbewoche 10 /2009: "We are developing a new digital processing platform with the aim of making the handling and processing of advertisements and advertising messages faster, more efficient and more customer-friendly. In the future, print, online, TV, radio, AdScreen and cinema will be able to be booked via this platform. Whenever possible, it should be a solution for the entire industry, i.e. open to all customers and as many media partners as possible. The coming months will show whether we can reach the necessary agreements.
Everyone in the industry knows: An agreement was never reached. This was due on the one hand to the arrogant and authoritarian behavior of PubliGroupe, and on the other hand to the obstructionist attitude of publishers, Goldbach and others. The PubliGroupe initiative was met with scorn, according to the motto: They won't manage it anyway. There was no trace of real interest, let alone willingness to cooperate. But the vision was there, it "only" needed to be taken up and implemented together.
Swisscom obtained know-how
Instead, everyone preferred to tend their own little garden and try to stay afloat. The tighter the economic situation became, the more they looked to the SRG's honey pots (fees and advertising). The more vehemently the SRG was confronted, the more the other Swiss media would profit from the weakening of the SRG.
Meanwhile, Publigroupe went into a tailspin. In 2014, Publicitas was sold to Aurelius and the rest of Publigroupe was acquired by Swisscom. Once again, the industry accepted this rather gloatingly and almost with relief. And because at the time it was primarily the bidding between Tamedia and Swisscom for the address portal local.ch that was causing excitement, hardly anyone noticed that the entire know-how about the platform that had been started, including the developer companies Spree7 and Improve Digital, was also transferred to Swiss-com. Publigroupe CEO Arndt Groth, together with his crew, experience and network, was engaged by Swisscom for a year. It is only logical that the telco is now using this acquired knowledge to build up the new marketing and industry platform.
So that's how the Admeira partners got their head start, and why the others are so nervous. Because in many places - with the exception of online offerings and to some extent TV - they have hardly adapted to digitalized advertising marketing and processing.
Tamedia, NZZ and Goldbach: first steps
In this respect - outside the Admeira circle - NZZ, Tamedia and Goldbach are the most advanced:
- NZZ and Tamedia already opened up their digital advertising inventory to programmatic buying in 2014, and each has had a marketing organization for its targeting offers since this spring. Tamedia also centralized its print, digital and cross-media marketing, making it more efficient. But when it comes to the digitalized marketing of commercial print ads, the NZZ is probably the furthest along: it has recently launched a deal platform on which it publishes "continuously attractive ad placements" for some of its print titles at last-minute conditions.
- Goldbach Group started thinking about Big Data or Programmatic Buying two years ago. Last October, however, the company acquired a stake in Jaduda, a company specializing in mobile advertising. In radio and TV, on the other hand, it barely got beyond concepts. Goldbach has, however, provided expertise at the personnel level: In April, Arndt Groth was brought onto the Board of Directors - a clever move, because the marketer can now also use the knowledge that Groth gained during the platform development at PubliGroupe and Swisscom.
And Goldbach upgraded in one more respect: It succeeded in winning over the web TV providers Wilmaa, Teleboy and Zattoo for joint marketing. Together, the three have 1.235 million unique users per month or 21 percent reach, well double that of SwisscomTV Air (544'000 users, 9.4 percent). Goldbach thus has the opportunity to now offer target group-specific advertising on all three WebTVs - earlier than Admeira and with greater reach. Admeira will not offer this form of advertising on SwisscomTV until a year from now, and for the time being only on the S1, TF1, NT1 and TMC stations.
Target-group-specific advertising for linear television is not yet an option: In general, the data required for this is lacking. In addition, Swiss private TVs - if they have a license like SRG - would not even be allowed to offer this form of advertising. In other words, target-group-specific TV advertising is currently possible only in niches, if at all.
Two things are necessary
If they were to be expanded, two things in particular would be necessary in addition to adjustments to the licensing law: First, this would require uniformly processed data - not only that of Swiss-com, but also that of other distributors (cable networks, WebTVs, Sunrise). Second, the more than 200 cable networks in the SuisseDigital association would have to come to terms with target-group-specific advertising. So far, this has "not been a big issue" there, as association spokesman Matthias Lüscher admits. And UPC and Sunrise, which offer competing products to SwisscomTV in the form of Horizon and SunriseTV, were not very forthcoming when asked directly about the status of their technology. The statement from Alexander Duphorn, CEO of Goldbach Media, is therefore more informative: When asked whether he could offer something comparable to Admeira, he told the German industry journal Horizont: "With UPC Cablecom and Sunrise, there are well-positioned networks. But they are not technically ready yet."
One door opens for all
At least with regard to the necessary data, however, there is now some hope - thanks to the Swiss Media Data Hub ( SMDH ), which WEMF and Mediapulse jointly announced in May. Because what the two are planning as of 2017 and are pre-financing with around CHF 10 million is not only a groundbreaking media research project, but also has the potential to defuse the conflict over Admeira by paving a third way in good time for all the players who turned away from PubliGroupe at the time and are also distancing themselves from Admeira now. If they are technically up to date!
In any case, the aim of the Hub project is to bring together data from various sources and process it for the industry ( see also WW 9 / 16 ). To this end, the existing radio, TV, print and online research by Mediapulse, NET-Metrix and WEMF is to be supplemented with an online measurement panel that will measure the surfing and streaming behavior of around 10,000 panelists. In parallel, IPTV providers such as Swisscom or Sunrise, cable network operators such as UPC or Quickline, operators of web radios and web TVs, and portals with videos are to be persuaded to feed their data into the new SMDH. This last point is crucial: because the SMDH would create a neutral organization that collects and processes the data, and WEMF and Mediapulse could then make it, along with panel data, available to all market participants as a currency on equal terms. So that would be exactly what publishers, Goldbach and others had called for in connection with the call for a "marching halt".
Swisscom shows itself open ...
The hub project was received with corresponding euphoria by experts in the media and marketers, as could be seen at a Mediapulse customer event in mid-May. Officially, however, people are cautious - because it is still open whether the project will succeed and whether the distributors will join in.
But a survey by Werbewoche shows that on the distribution side, i.e. at Swisscom, SuisseDigital, UPC and Web TVs, the hub project is "noted with interest" and there are hopes for "a uniform moving image currency for TV and online. The web TV Teleboy even "supports the efforts" by already supplying data for initial tests. Swisscom, SuisseDigital and UPC are more reserved, but at least open to talks, Sunrise is showing a wait-and-see attitude. There have also been various doubts as to whether WEMF and Mediapulse are neutral enough as hub operators.
On the other hand, the project is welcomed by the media, advertising clients, Goldbach and the Federal Media Commission. It is hoped that this will result in intermedia research that provides uniform and also meaningful data on small target groups and areas.
... Publishers remain skeptical
There are differing views on the question of whether the hub will be able to resolve the conflict with Admeira. "The SMDH offers a viable answer for all the concerns of the private media companies excluded from Admeira, provided that Swisscom ( and of course other important external data suppliers ) cooperate in this project," wrote Matthias Hagemann, owner of Radio Basilisk and member of the foundation board at Mediapulse. AZ Medien, Goldbach and Verband Schweizer Privatradios also see it as a "promising approach" or a "step in the right direction." But "level playing field" would only be possible if all the data Admeira receives from Swisscom flowed into this uniform currency, specified Michi Frank from Goldbach. However, this is exactly what the Swiss Media Association doubts: If Swisscom were to provide Admeira partners with additional and exclusive data, "the threatened market distortion would still occur," emphasized Managing Director Andreas Häuptli. Roland Ehrler, Director of the Swiss Association of Advertisers, was more optimistic. "As a neutral organization, the hub offers the chance that third parties like Swisscom might be more willing to make their measurement data available for media research."
A counter alliance would be possible
If the hub project and the online measurement panel succeed, data will be available to the market in the future, giving individual players the freedom to choose whether to join Admeira, continue to go it alone, or form a second alliance.
However, the counter-alliance of Tamedia, Goldbach, UPC and Sunrise, which is suspected and hoped for in many places, would have a hard time holding a candle to Admeira - if only in terms of technical reach. This is shown by the table below. UPC and Sunrise have a comparable number of subscribers to Swisscom only in the digital TV sector, and SuisseDigital as a whole would even be ahead. But for how long? Sunrise, UPC and SuisseDigital are currently losing digital TV subscriptions to Swisscom.
And in WebTV, Goldbach's lead (see above) may only be temporary, as the new app "SwisscomTV Air free" could soon outstrip its competitors Teleboy, Wilmaa and Zattoo.
This is probably why Tamedia has so far expressed little desire for such a going together. His company is positioned in such a way "that we are not dependent on the advertising alliance," said Chairman of the Board Pietro Supino on various occasions. Until now, one had the impression that this statement also ruled out the establishment of a counter-alliance, because for Supino it generally "makes no sense to unite all media under one cheese cover." That would be too complex and not conducive to innovation.
However, a Goldbach seminar on the topic of "Data Driven Marketing" will be held on June 29. Sylvia Epaillard, Head of Tamedia's Digital Advertising Services, will be one of the speakers. Is something brewing after all?
Markus Knöpfli