There are two types of media: paid and earned.
Owned is often included too but, given the fact algorithms have depressed branded content so much (requiring either paid support to attain reach or engagement — such as shares — through earned media) it’s really a reflection of one or the other (or both).
When it comes to paid media, we know three important things.
1. From the work of Byron Sharp and colleagues at the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute, reaching all category buyers is essential to both sustain current market share and ensure further brand growth.
2. From the work of the IPA and Nielsen, budget determines success. You can (literally) buy market share by spending more on advertising.
The report “How Share Of Voice Wins Market Share: New Findings From Nielsen And The IPA Databank” states: “The critical metric that determines the level of a brand’s market share growth is its excess share of voice (ESOV), defined as share of voice (SOV) minus share of market (SOM).”
i.e. if you want to grow your market share you need to over invest.
And: “The corollary of this is that no agency or marketing client can guarantee to continue to deliver the same level of business performance for a brand is ESOV is falling as a result of underinvestment in media and marketing communications.”
i.e. if you are under-investing, you can expect your market share to decline
3. Paid media doesn’t convert buyers. As Ehrenberg explains, there isn’t a ‘Road-to-Damascus conversion’. Nor does it sell from scratch.
Instead, it acts as a weak force, reminding people the brand exists and nudging them into noticing and (occasionally) buying it.
Simply being exposed to the brand’s logo or name has an effect. Even liking an advert (not necessarily the brand) means people are more likely to both notice and pay more attention to the ad, making the brand easier to recall.
Given marketing doesn’t work by rationally persuading consumers of the benefits of a product or service, I think it’s fair to say PR doesn’t work in a wholly and substantially different way to advertising.
In paid media, reach and expenditure are not measures of success but are both important prerequisites for AND indicators of success.
If one campaign substantially outspends another and reaches more people it will have more impact even if the creative is much poorer.
As such, in earned media, attaining reach and higher quality media coverage (that’s more likely to be seen, e.g. because it appears on the front page and contains a photo vs. a single line on p22) are prerequisites for greater success.
Facebook (“In 99% of the campaigns we evaluated, sales generated from online branding ad campaigns were from people that saw, but did not interact with, ads”) and comScore (“there’s no relationship between the click rates and the impact of the campaign”) are amongst numerous parties to have demonstrated that those who directly interact with a campaign in any immediate and visible way provide no indication of success. This comes from the passive majority who merely see the content.
So, while media coverage isn’t a tangible demonstration of success in itself, it is a prerequisite for achieving it (unless you can prove the views came from another source, like a stunt that x people passed).
Given, unlike paid media, reach isn’t guaranteed with earned media, I would argue, in that regard, attaining it is an outcome, rather than an output, and provides a strong indication of how successful a campaign has been (particularly when you place it in context against others; in the same way comparing spend on advertising enables you to do).
