Right About Now with Ryan Alford - Playing the Short Game - A Nielsen Study on the Impact of Brands that Stop Upper Funnel Branding with Cara Kantrowitz and Imran Hirani

Episode Date: August 31, 2021

Welcome to another episode on The Radcast! In this episode on The Radcast, host Ryan Alford talks with Nielsen’s Cara Kantrowitz, VP for Solutions Consulting, and Imran Hirani, VP for Strategic Accounts.Cara and Imran talk about their professional journey with Nielsen. They also share what Nielsen does for brands and the industry as a whole. Ryan, Cara, and Imran also dissect the premise of the study on the upper and lower funnel activity by brands.Cara and Imran also has a quick take on our latest segment of RAD or FAD trending topics;Short TermismTikTokNew York KnicksHard Mtn DewLearn more about Nielsen at https://www.nielsen.com/us/en/. Follow them on Linkedin: Cara Kantrowitz (linkedin.com/in/cara-kantrowitz-38267420), Imran Hirani (linkedin.com/in/imran-hirani-3222b91) and Nielsen (https://www.linkedin.com/company/nielsen/)If you enjoyed this episode of The Radcast, let us know by visiting our website www.theradcast.com or leave us a review on Apple Podcast. Be sure to keep up with all that’s radical from @ryanalford @radical_results @the.rad.cast If you enjoyed this episode and want to learn more, join Ryan’s newsletter https://ryanalford.com/newsletter/ to get Ferrari level advice daily for FREE.  Learn how to build a 7 figure business from your personal brand by signing up for a FREE introduction to personal branding https://ryanalford.com/personalbranding.  Learn more by visiting our website at www.ryanisright.comSubscribe to our YouTube channel  www.youtube.com/@RightAboutNowwithRyanAlford. 

Capture, viewing, no matter where it takes place, is really at the top of what we're trying to do. And so we're constantly keeping an eye on the new technologies so that we can make sure we're incorporating them properly into our measurement and advancing alongside the industry. There has always been this, you know, hey, to sell a product, you gotta have awareness, you gotta have interest, you gotta have intent, and then you have a purchase. We can see it when we talk to clients, right? There's a difference in how engaged they are, right? They're talking about the lower funnel measurement because it's dollars and cents versus the upper funnel measurement.

When I get to the point of purchase and it's, let's say 10% off a lower funnel sale, whether it hit me with the email, whether I'm in the store, the reason I'm even interested in making the purchase is because the upper funnel has established awareness, consideration, and potentially preference. You're listening to the Radcast. If it's radical, we cover it. Here's your host, Ryan Alford. Hey guys, what's up? Welcome to the latest edition of the Radcast. Got a good one for you. Go ahead and get your pencils and notebooks out. I want note-taking. I want all my DMs to be full of all the notes that you're taking. If you're a small, medium, large brand, you need to be taking notes today because it is all about marketing and how to treat your brand

and the balancing act of all of those things. I'm excited by my guest, Cara Nimron from Nielsen. We've got the VP of Solutions Consulting and the VP of Strategic Accounts. And if they give me any more titles, I might run out of the room. I'm kidding, guys. It's so great to have you on the show. It's great to be here. Thanks for having us. Yeah. I'm going to tell the story.

So I've been on my soapbox the last few months. We have fallen on the Radcast. We talk pop culture and everything, but we bring it back to the center of marketing. And when I get on my soapbox, I talk about, you know, I've been in the business for a long time and I've been watching this performance marketing thing bubble up and, you know, everybody, and I know the pressure having worked with CMOs and all that, the pressure that's on the C-suite, but like all this stuff is so short-term focused. And I'm like, man, this is right. This isn't right. I'm like telling people whatever.

And then I have a subscriber of Nielsen on the newsletter. And if you aren't, you need to subscribe now, hit the button, go to their site and subscribe now. No plug. Yes, it is. And anyway, the study hit my radar that they had conducted that we're going to talk about in depth. It was all about the impact of ignoring the upper funnel, uh, and putting too much emphasis on the, on the lower funnel of marketing, which we're going to define all of those things, no matter where you are in your marketing journey. And it hit my radar and I'm like, I got to get these guys on.

So I'm so excited to talk about it. Thanks for having us. We're excited as well. I know. So let's, uh, let's let everybody, let's talk about you guys for a minute, Kara excited as well i know yes so let's uh let's let everybody let's talk about you guys for a minute kara and ron you know i'll let you each uh you know kind of give your journey your story your professional journey to nielsen and then we'll talk a little bit about what nielsen does let's start there so uh you know carrie why don't you go first awesome so actually monday was my 11 year anniversary at Nielsen. So I started, I've actually been working on this brand effectiveness survey based work for in one way or another,

my whole time at Nielsen, just kind of going through different paths with it. So I started as a senior research analyst on one of our teams and I'm now in more of a commercial role where I'm aligned to all of our survey-based, we call it resonance, the brand effectiveness work. And our team just formed about four months ago. So it's really exciting. And from that and this new organization, we were able to put out the work that we're discussing today. So really excited to be here. Thanks for having me. Great. Awesome. And then Ron. Yeah, thanks, Ryan. So I've been in marketing analytics for a little bit longer, for a little bit over 20 years, and had the pleasure of being able to work in lots of different markets, lots of different advertising industries, and also been able to work across a lot of different marketing analytics disciplines. So new product testing, price and promotion, product assortment. The last 10 years I've spent really focused on

media analytics and marketing analytics. And it's a really exciting space to be in. Yep. I love it. And I tell people all the time, we work radical with small to medium brands. And depending on where they are and how their marketing journey and things like that they're like how do we measure these things right how do you know and having worked in agencies where all your work is with brands where you get more decks and data than you know what to do with i'm like well there's a company called nielsen that if you know when we get to this point we hire them and they can tell us what's working and what's not we love that that plug. No, it's true.

So one of the trusted sources, I think most people know Nielsen though from TV ratings. I mean, right. And you guys have, it's, you guys are way, way more than that now. But let's talk, can we talk a little bit about, you know, how brands and companies use Nielsen and the journey of the company, so to speak? Yeah, absolutely. It's a super broad range of things that Nielsen works on. But when I think about the common themes of what Nielsen works on, I boil it down to really probably two themes. One is all about audience. So we're putting audience at the

center of everything we do. We know our clients put audience at the center of everything they do, because if you're a content creator, content producer, you're trying to cultivate an audience. If you're a media seller, you're trying to sell an audience. If you're a brand or an agency, you're trying to buy time with an audience, right? So audience is important to everyone. And we put that at the center of what we do. And I think the second theme I'd say is we are students of media. We love studying media. And we study media because we want to make media a better ecosystem for everyone, right? We want the content producers to be able to reach more of their audience, to be able to find ways to make

themselves more discoverable. We want the media sellers to be able to monetize their data better, monetize their inventory better. And certainly we want advertisers and agencies to be able to make smarter choices on media placements and to be able to understand how they get better at media effectiveness. So those are the two themes on what Nielsen does, I'd say. Yeah. And that makes a lot of sense. And, you know, I'll just be Captain Obvious if I will. But the game of media has changed so much because, you know, even in my early days, I mean, it was print, TV, radio, outdoor. Those were kind of the big four. They had their sponsorship. There's a lot of other, there's little things, but Those were kind of the big four. They had the sponsorship. There's a lot of other, there's little things, but it's kind of like, okay, we can manage

these four. We can manage these four. Now you've got streaming video. You've got all the social channels. You've got insert video platform here. I mean, it's media. The landscape is just so dynamic now. I mean, I don't even know how you

guys keep up with it. It is super complicated for sure, but we're making lots of progress on being able to get our arms around all of that fragmentation. It is a challenge, but we feel we're in the best position to get up against that challenge for sure. Yeah, exactly. Has, uh, has that, I mean, has that been, is that kind of the day in day out challenge of, of all, you know, the channels that open up the media channels and figuring out the best way to measure within them that, I mean, that's, that's the, the Holy grail of it all, right? You have the channels and you know, that in the truest sense, media is reach and frequency and the reach, the audience, like you said, at the center. But it's like getting your arms around, you know, measuring that within the new when a platform turns on.

Is that like problem one? Yeah, I mean, to Imran's point about audience is everything. Figuring out how we can capture viewing no matter where it takes place is really at the top of what we're trying to do. And so we're constantly keeping an eye on the new technologies so that we can make sure we're incorporating them properly into our measurement and advancing alongside the industry. Yeah. Is there, you know, the, and I want to get into the study, we're going to be talking about kind of that balancing act of, you know, upper funnel, lower funnel activity for companies and brands. But is that, is the change in media and maybe the change in transition specifically, you know, coming to your core, like from TV to these medias.

I mean, is it going as fast as it seems to go, that transition? I know that's kind of like, is this a rhetorical question? But at the same time, it seems like it's been picking up pace the last 10 years, but it just seems like maybe it's hitting the ground screaming running now. Is that safe to say? it's hitting the ground screaming running now. Is that, is that safe to say? I think so. I absolutely. And we are trying to keep pace with it and getting ahead of it as much as we possibly can. And the client relationships that we've built in order to partner and make sure we're measuring everybody properly is absolutely part of it. But yeah, I think that is an absolutely accurate characterization of things.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, is that, how often is that talked about in meetings at Nielsen? part of it but yeah i think that is an absolutely accurate characterization of things yeah yeah i mean is that how often is is that talked about in meetings at nielsen regularly i would think so like all right like what's but then it's like you know just getting your arms around it i'm sure and like you know you guys are it's got your arms around it as much as anyone, but we'll see. But I do want to transition. Let's, you know, this study hit my radar and I know it's both the study and just broad thinking that you guys have put together, but there's been this transition. We've moved into a world, you know, where the C-suite is under a lot of pressure. They've always been under a lot of pressure, but marketing in particular is under a lot of pressure to

deliver results and deliver revenue. And historically speaking, we could get into the cycle versus the funnel versus all of those things. But I like, as a purist, thinking about it as a funnel. Yes, they go back around, they come back through and they might enter in and channels, but there is always been this, you know, Hey, to sell a product, you got to have awareness. You got to have interest. You got to have intent. And then you have a purchase. And we've moved into this world where we just want intent and purchase intent. We want, we want, you know, immediate purchase. And it's like, well, we're kind of missing a few

building blocks that have to happen typically. I mean, don't get me wrong. I'm in the line at the grocery store and I see that pack of gum. I might buy it right there. There's no funnel there. But for about 99% of everything else, there's a cycle for purchase. And so we've been moving to this place though, where all of the kind of marketing activity, not all, but you've definitely seen this transition into the lower funnel. And that's been just an observation for me. I mean, and I was like, okay, and then Nielsen study hits my radar and I'm like, okay. So I would love for you guys to kind of tee up the background of the study and all of the things that kind of brought this together.

Yeah, thanks, Ryan. So you're right. We feel it too. When we're out talking to clients, we do studies on upper funnel marketing effectiveness and lower funnel marketing effectiveness. And we can see it when we talk to clients, right? There's a difference in how engaged they are when they're talking about the lower funnel measurement because it's dollars and cents versus the upper funnel measurement. But I always remind folks that, you know, there's a fundamental truth about buying something. You can't buy something that you don't know exists, right? And you're not going to buy something that you have no consideration or interest in, right? So those fundamental building blocks, just like you said, have to be there for you to actually get to the point of purchase.

So, yeah, we saw this trend happening for a few years, and we decided we needed to take a look at it and figure out, is this really the right thing for brands to be doing? Is this in their best interest? And so we undertook a very large research project, called together information from lots of different studies that we had, built normative databases around this, and we were able to find some pretty unique insights that helped remind everyone that actually, yeah, those building blocks are still relevant today. to find people who are in market, who are raising their hand, showing intent. Super easy to find those folks now.

And so you can really focus your efforts on conversion. But it can come at a price if you don't have a balanced approach. And that's what we found consistently throughout the research. I love that. And I want to, for our audience, we have a balance of first-time company to executives at companies that are going through this or I think they're nodding their head or shaking their head or going, Oh, I don't know which one they're doing yet. But they're doing all of that. But we have a mixture. But let's talk about, you know, we talked about the purchase funnel. Let's talk and tell and I'll have you

guys kind of describe what the difference between upper level activity in the funnel and lower level. Let's kind of give everybody a kind of a 101 on that. Yeah, it's a great place to start because they can mean different things to different folks. So it's great to level set on what we actually mean. So when we talk about upper funnel, we mean that things are generally broad in reach and they're designed to increase your brand's awareness, consideration for your brand. A short pithy way to say it would be to grow demand for your brand, right? You want people to want your brand. And that's what upper funnel marketing is about.

And because you're trying to get to broad awareness broad consideration usually those marketing efforts are done with pretty broad reach lower funnel is by contrast meant to win the purchase that's about to happen right you have a sense that this person may be ready to buy either because of past purchase information because they're showing some kind of intent or because they've done some kind of intent, or because they've done some kind of search activity. So a lot of that kind of marketing can fall into the lower funnel, or even marketing that's just messaged around lower funnel about take this action tonight, go home and do this today, right? So that's all lower funnel marketing. And lower

funnel marketing, by design, should be narrower in focus, narrower in reach, because you're trying to reach a group of people that you've already built the demand with, right? And so you're going to focus on those. And typically, it's going to, again, try to win the purchase that's about to happen. And I think, you know, the purest sense of that to me, and I, you know, I always go to the big brands because it's it's the purest example but like like the Nike I'm wearing Air Jordans here today my Nike shoes but I if I go to a store and I walk in and there's a rack of shirts and one of them has a Nike swoosh and one of them doesn't uh and let's say the prices are the same, exactly the same. They're both way more than they should be for a t-shirt, $40 or something. And one of them has a Nike swoosh on it. All of the legwork that Nike has done with TV and outdoor and sponsorships and players

that has made that swoosh resonate in my head is brand upper funnel activity. When I get to the point of purchase and it's, let's say, 10% off, a lower funnel sale, whether it hit me with the email, whether I'm in the store, the reason I'm even interested in making the purchase is because the upper funnel has established awareness, consideration, and potentially preference. Am I breaking this down into a good example, Imran? You totally are. You nailed it. In fact, that was one of the most exciting findings from our research was there is a

very clear relationship between how strong your awareness is for your brand, how strong your consideration is for your brand, and how strong your marketing efficiency is on conversion marketing specifically. So that's something that may not be obvious to everyone, right? You may think that, hey, I'm doing conversion marketing. I'm trying to find the people that are ready to buy, and I'm trying to win their buy. I'm trying to win that purchase. And that has nothing to do with whether I've actually spent time building recognition for my brand. But the research shows us that it has everything to do with that. And so conversely, you could also say, if you neglect to build your brand, if you let your awareness decay, if you let your consideration decay,

because those things aren't stagnant, they do decay, right? So if you let those things happen, then what you're really doing also is you're making it much, much harder for you to convert the people who are actually ready to buy into category. And so it's got kind of this dual deficit, right? You're creating a gap in your ability to convert people today. And you're also creating a gap in your future sales potential because you haven't built awareness and consideration

for people that want to buy down the road. Perfect. And Kara, please. Can I also add, I wanted to add also to your point, Ryan, about, you know, if I'm at the store and I see a pack of gum, I might just buy it there.

So we have to also talk about the impact of the pandemic because there is an amount of brand building that happens just by being out in the world and seeing brands in that way. So maybe you hadn't heard of that brand of gum, but now you have and you've seen it and you try it. But in a world where people aren't going out to the store as much and being able to just see brands on the shelf, we actually have to rely more on upper funnel marketing in order to bring people into your funnel to begin with. I love that. And that's a key. And you know what?

I kind of threw that example off, but you know what? The reason I choose Wrigley's Spearmint is because I hear a song in my head that's probably three layers deep in my subconscious that is reminding me of which pack of gum I did choose. So I don't want to throw that off. And I will say, this brings to me, all right, ad agency guy. I always feel self-serving when I say this about marketing. So when clients talk about stopping marketing efforts, or in our case, large brands rarely stop. They just might pull back. So it's the same reference. But brands we work with, they don't stop completely. But when they want to dial it back, they think the agency guys are, oh, they just want us to spend money with them. But the reality is, I understand this person having done it. You guys are, oh, they just want us to spend money with them. But the reality is, is I understand

this purpose having done it. You guys are explaining it perfectly that when you do that, you are hurting both short-term and long-term impacts because it is such a fleeting, awareness is fleeting. You know, our brains get, we get 10,000 messages a day or something like that. It's fleeting. So this is why even the large brands with bigger budgets continue to advertise. It's not jobs done, brands done. Oh man, we could all go, you know, all the brand guys would just be at the beach every day, you know, but it's, this is the reason you have to continue to advertise because if you're not top of mind, someone else will be. 100%. And you can see that in the brands that get right. They are constantly

advertising because they know it matters, right? So if you're sitting at Geico, you might be wondering, why am I seeing the fifth time today a Geico ad? Well, there's a reason for that. They want to offset that decay that's happening all the time. that decay that's happening all the time. We're talking pretty broadly about the mediums and the tactics of brand, upper, lower funnel. Let's talk about transition. I know the study gets into this, the messaging, the specifics of the messaging. Can you define a little bit for the audience the messaging nuances from upper to lower funnel?

Yeah, that's a great question. And I like to think about this in terms of the auto industry because it's something that everyone sees on TV and everywhere else all the time. Whether you're in the market to buy a car or not, there's a really great volume of auto advertising, so everyone's familiar with it. And if you think about auto advertising, there's the kind of advertising where you hear the sign-and-drive event or the Toyota-thon or Honda Days or whatever it is. There is some kind of an imminent desire to get you into the dealership, get you test driving. So that's what we think of as lower funnel marketing, right? It's designed to try to get you doing something right now. You also have an auto advertising, this kind of advertising that is all about, here's all the awards we've won, and here's our safety standards,

and here's how luxurious our car is. And that's not trying to win a purchase that's going to happen in the next week or next month. That's trying to build the reputation for the brand, trying to, again, build the demand for the brand over the long term so that when you are in market, you're ready to buy. So we think about that as upper funnel marketing, right? And one of the really interesting things we've noted in the research that we have, and it's corroborated by academic research in the industry too, is you have to have a balance between those two, certainly in terms of messaging type. Each one of those messaging types has the right channel mix that's associated with it.

But the research actually, this might surprise a lot of folks, says you ought to have about 60% of your marketing put in upper funnel messaging and about 40% put in lower funnel messaging. And I would bet that that would surprise a lot of brands given the way most brands operate today, right? One of the really interesting things we found about why that is, is if you look at the effect of upper funnel messaging relative to the effect of lower funnel messaging, you get a little bit of what you'd expect in that the upper funnel messaging has more impact in the long term, less impact in the short term. The lower funnel messaging has more impact in the short term, less impact in the long term. But what's really interesting is the

disparity between those effects, right? So when you look at just short-term effects, upper funnel and lower funnel messaging are actually pretty close to each other. They're not that far apart. So upper funnel messaging actually can still help you in the here and now. But when you start looking at long-term effects, lower funnel messaging is really, really weak in producing impacts for the long- term, right? So when you think about that, if your upper funnel messaging is going to help you a decent amount today and a lot tomorrow, and your lower funnel marketing is going to help you a lot today, but not much tomorrow, that makes sense, right? That's why you need to have a greater balance in upper funnel

marketing than you do in lower funnel. Yeah. And it's interesting. It's the, what do you call it, the unintended consequences. Like, you know, you're thinking back to the short-termism of it all. You know, if I'm sitting in the C-suite or I'm a director of marketing or whatever, I'm worried about my, excuse me, ass today. You know, and I'm like, okay, I'm going to focus on this because I'm worried about the numbers today. That's great. But the unintended consequence of that is someone's paying the piper long-term and it's usually the brand, right?

Yep. And it may not be an immediate effect, right? So, you know, Imran was talking about how we see the relationship between brand building and lower funnel performance, and we see the converse to be true as well. So if we see a decline in upper funnel, we see a decline in lower funnel, but it may take a little while for that decay to set in. And so it may seem like, well, you know, I'm not focusing on awareness, but my lower funnel metrics are still doing okay. Okay. But how long are you going to ride on that? And is that going to last out? And not to be the person harping on the pandemic, but to come back to that, there were other things

besides just being out in the world and not being able to build brand by seeing it. But when you shop online, you have what we like to call an infinite shelf. So if someone may have been loyal to a brand before, and now they have so many more options in front of them. So people may be purchasing different brands and not only because of that, but because of availability. So we know that certain products went out of stock pretty early on in the pandemic. So for all of these reasons, Nielsen believes that upper funnel marketing and measurement around all of it is important regardless. But I think that the pandemic has really exacerbated a lot of this and really is driving home the need to make sure there is

as much focus on upper funnel marketing as there should be. You guys, you know, you guys are working with the largest brands in the world. You guys, you know, you guys are working with the largest brands in the world. But, you know, as the world's moved towards e-commerce, right, and some of the brands are, you know, let's leave Amazon out of this. But, you know, e-commerce is growing. Most, a lot of e-commerce brands, the challenge is they think definitively lower funnel performance because they're an e-commerce store. And we work with, again, medium-sized e-commerce brands. And the challenge we have is telling them, you need to invest in your brand.

You've got to make people, just because you're selling something, you have a price point, immediately you can hit the store. I mean, are you guys dealing with many straight-line e-commerce brands? And whether you are or aren't, is that as big a challenge as it is for me every day? Yeah, I would say that I'm starting to see the tune change a bit, especially as our thought leadership has gone out and it's getting socialized a bit more, but that's absolutely the case in our client,

our media seller clients are coming to us with that. Same kind of help us prove this, help us show these DR clients, direct response clients, that they should also be focused on upper funnel. Because as both of you have said before, if you don't know about the brand, you can't be interested in it or want to buy it. So you have to get them into the funnel somehow before they can get down to a conversion. And, you know, that's exactly right. somehow before they can get down to a conversion. And, you know, that's exactly right. We worked with a couple of years ago, a supplement company that they had great products and they had done all the research and done all these things. And all they wanted to do was, you know, sell protein

at $30, you know, a pound or something like that. And it was just, you know, very straight line messaging towards the lower funnel or whatever. But it's like, there's 5 million protein powders out there. We've got to explain, you know, beyond that yours tastes good, like why your company matters, you know? It's like, it's so true. It's like, you know, there's a lot of choice and options out there. You guys, how's the response been? You know, you just mentioned it, Kara, you know, to a degree, you're starting to turn heads.

But what's the, is there feedback loop with the brands you're talking with around the study and around these notions in general? Yeah, there's been a lot of excitement. And, you know, we kind of, there's a mix of things that we're seeing. And, you know, we kind of there's a mix of things that we're seeing. Sometimes there's the evangelist in the group who's like, so, you know, similar to you, Ryan, like, come on, like, I'm beating this drum. This is how it should be. And we come in and start to see some other heads turn like, oh, maybe they're on to something interesting. Everybody maybe gets it and sees the value, but is a little gun shy on taking action around it. And it's too soon to say if we've seen any major actions be taken, but we absolutely are seeing more interest in the measurement solutions that we have for full funnel, upper and lower, mid and lower funnel so that we can help make the decisions for how to be investing in the channel mix going forward. I love that. I mean, how do you guys,

we didn't really talk about this, but something like TikTok, how does that fall? I know the messaging could obviously be upper or lower or whatever you're going to argue, but how does a group like Nielsen look at TikTok? Well, so TikTok is one. So I was thinking about this when you were talking about the explosion of different media channels that exist now. Because what I was thinking is how we, not we Nielsen, we as a world of humans like to bucket things so that they can make more sense to us, right? And so we say social. But if you go and you talk to Facebook, Snapchat, TikTok, Twitter, they will all tell you that they're all extremely unique in their own ways and like how they see themselves. And so TikTok sees themselves

as an entertainment platform. And speaking as a user, I agree with that statement. And I think that TikTok is in an interesting space and a lot of the competitors in the social digital entertainment space as well, because they have this opportunity for more native appearing content that's harder to tell that it's advertising. So I think that that, you know, that can be a double edged sword, right? It can serve them well because then you have more engagement. But it is still important to make sure it's clear who the brand is and what it's for. Do you guys have brands asking you about TikTok a lot? I mean, is that is that is it is on the radar for you guys as it seems to be growing mainstream?

Yes, absolutely. We have work for brands with TikTok. We work directly with TikTok. There's a lot that they want to be proving that we want to help them prove. And a lot of brands are absolutely interested. Cool. Yeah. So, I mean, so let's talk as we're kind of concluding here, guys. You know, I think for a lot of people that might be listening, it's like, OK, I'm understanding the impacts here. But how the heck do I get at knowing what is the mix of these mediums, media that we're talking about, all these things? How do we how do we how do we guide people towards that, Kara? Kira? Yeah. So there's some conventional wisdom out there about particular channels that are better at driving certain things. So some might say TV is great for broad reach. And so that's what I'm going to use to build my upper funnel. But what we have seen in our data is that it's not actually super predictable from campaign to campaign and message to message. So we looked at

a case study where there was a client that ran studies in about 20 different markets. And across, I think it was like the top quarter of them, TV was the most effective medium. But then across the bottom quarter of them, it was the least effective medium. So it is just very unpredictable. And so we really drive home the importance of measurement, measurement no matter what, and letting the data speak for itself and letting campaign performance inform the future decisions that you're going to make as opposed to just making broad assumptions. And as Imran alluded to before, Nielsen happens to have measurement across the whole funnel.

So we've got what is needed in order to give those tools to advertisers and happens to have measurement across the whole funnel. So, you know, we've got what is needed in order to give those tools to advertisers and agencies to make the most of their channel mix. I'd add one more thing to that, which is that we see a lot of brands now have overindulged in the lower funnel, forgotten about the upper funnel, and they're saying, we made a mistake. forgotten about the upper funnel. And they're saying, we made a mistake. And I think that that's really illuminating because what it's telling us is if you had the right channel mix for upper funnel and lower funnel kind of accidentally, they were the same, then you wouldn't have brands saying that, right? So what it's actually showing us in the data shows us is that there is a particular channel mix for a particular campaign, a particular brand that is optimal for producing sales. And it may not be the same as the channel mix that is optimal for producing awareness and consideration.

And so this is, I think, one of the most fundamental challenges that every time we talk to brands about this, this is the message we leave them with, is you have to walk and chew gum at the same time. We know it looks like a conflict of interest that you might have certain priorities of channels you want to pick for upper funnel marketing and a different mix that's right for lower funnel marketing, but you got to do both, right? You've got to have the hybrid plan that gets you into the best place for both. And by the way, if you could do one and accidentally trip your way into automatically optimizing for the other, you wouldn't see these examples of brands that came forward and said, we messed up. I love that. And I love, Kara, you pointing out that TV is not always the answer, but sometimes is,

depending on the brand. And it goes to what we preach all the time is you've got to have iteration today. You've got to have measurement and iteration. It's read and react. And the only way to do that is to have your eyes forward and be reporting that's telling you what's working and what's not. And then you've got to alter course. It's telling you what's working and what's not. And then you've got to alter course. And sometimes it's like it's just the days of the 30 second TV spot and the NBC media buy are kind of over.

I hate it. Like that might be part of it, but it's just not wash your hands. Right. There's a lot more complexity out there now. So we need more tools to help us make the best decisions for sure. I love it. You guys got time for a little rad or fad with me here? Definitely. So we need more tools to help us make the best decisions for sure. I love it. You guys got time for a little rad or fad with me here?

Let's bring it on. All right. First one's going to sound real familiar, but short-termism. Rad or fad? Fad, I hope. We hope it's a fad. I can't imagine that any brands are going to say, I can't care about the short term, but we hope that it's not exclusively the short term. I love it. So let's hope a fad. Fingers crossed.

Number two, TikTok. I think rad, personally. I really see them growing. I think that they have an interesting place in the market that is different from some of their competitors in the space. And I'm excited to see how they grow. Totally read. Totally agree. Totally agree. And we're kind of past the point of, yeah, I use them a lot. They're so way past like some new phase. So for all the listeners out there, make no mistake, I'm not putting them on the, they're new and we just started. As someone who's verified on TikTok, I love TikTok. So how about the New York Knicks? And the resurging New York Knicks?

I am going to say fad only because, and this is really not based on facts. This is based on the fact that I was living in Brooklyn, so I have to go for Nets instead of Knicks. Touche. I like it. I'm going to have to go with theets instead of Knicks. Touché. I like it. I'm going to have to go with the Rad. They're going to be back. Every team gets their way back. I like it. I like old KD in Brooklyn, though, so I have no problem with that, Cara. And last but not least, a little fun here. It's launching. It was on some of the big marketing news this week.

Hard Mountain Dew. rad or fad I'm gonna say rad only because I think the hard like soda things are pretty big right now though I personally don't think I will be drinking it yeah I will say I'm not in the target market so for me personally, fad. Yeah, I think it's a fad. I think all these seltzers are fads, you know, like and I'll drink one here and there. I like the like one carb ones that just because like if I'm like at the lake all day or something, I'm like don't want to like, you know, drink 17 million calories or something.

But I don't really love the taste of them. Just give me a beer. Keep it simple. I know. Hey, guys. Kara Kantrowicz and Imran Hirani, I really appreciate you guys coming on. Now, tell where everybody can keep up with all things you guys and Nielsen. Where can we follow, keep up, go to find these kind of studies?

What does everyone need to do to keep up with Nielsen and you guys? So you can go to Nielsen www.nielsen.com and there's a section for insights and that's where you can see all the studies that we release and we also Nielsen does a lot of posts on LinkedIn and you can find me Kara Kantrowitz on LinkedIn and Imran same with me you can find me on LinkedIn as well as he's his place place to reach me. I love it. I really appreciate you guys coming on. You know what I like even more is just when really smart, intelligent, wonderful people come on and validate something that I've just been on a soapbox on. I think we're going to bring you to our pitches also, Ryan.

Absolutely. Hey, I'm a good salesman, you know? I'll sell it to them. We can tell. I know. Well, hey, guys, really appreciate it. It's been a lot you know. I'll sell it to him. We can tell. I know. Well, hey, guys, really appreciate it. It's been a lot of fun. I want to stay in touch.

Maybe we come back. Hey, I want to be like the first to like release. The Radcast has become like the first, like, I know you got to get to clients to pay for, but like maybe the second layer is like you come on the Radcast and we're going to tee up whatever study you got cooking. Love it. Love it. All right, guys. Hey, guys, you know where to find us we're at the radcast.com search for all of our content hey search nielsen you'll find all the highlights from this episode and more i'm at ryan offered all the channels you know where to find us we'll see you next time on the radcast