Interview with José María Calvar, Head of Tech& Data at UPartner Media

José María Calvar: At UPartner Media, accurate omnichannel measurement is a reality.

In order to learn more about UPartner Media’s contribution model-based measurement platform, we spoke with José María Calvar, Head of Tech & Data, who revealed how the agency is able to offer a unique brand ecosystem to its clients, where technology is at the service of the business.

In the market, we hear a lot about attribution and last-click models, but you talk about contribution models… What is a contribution model?

Life is like a contribution model: if you don’t know who contributes what in your day-to-day life, sometimes it becomes difficult to make the right decisions.

A contribution model works in the same way, understanding how each channel has contributed to a specific action, instead of attributing it only to the last channel the customer visited before buying.

So, instead of assigning the entire outcome to a single channel, you can see the total impact of each channel throughout the customer journey, from the moment the consumer first became aware of the brand to the moment of purchase.

This makes it easier, for example, to make informed decisions about where to place resources for maximum impact and provides a more accurate view of how each touchpoint affects people’s decision-making process.

What are the advantages of using a contribution model over other models when measuring the impact of each channel in an omnichannel advertising campaign?

At UPartner Media we have based our measurement system mainly on 3 key points that are advantageous when you use a contribution model:

The first would be at a strategic level because, through informed decisions, we can recommend  the best way to distribute its budget in each of the contact points to the client, knowing how much investment is necessary in each channel and estimating the best way to distribute it so that it is as profitable as possible, maximizing ROI.

The second is at a tactical level, because it is possible to achieve an immediate optimization of the budget based on those channels, formats or creative pieces that are being more effective and contribute more to the result that each brand is looking for, regardless of the phase of the funnel we are measuring.

This means that we optimize those touch points that help to achieve more awareness, more consideration, more sales or more loyalty and this results in a much more transparent management of the media, which is one of the main value propositions that UPartner Media offers to our clients.

And the third is at the consumer level, since we are able to better understand the consumer’s journey, identifying valuable insights, weak points and opportunities to improve the user’s experience with the brand, improving their relationship with it.

This makes precise omnichannel measurement a reality at UPartner Media. The technological development designed to add value to the business of our clients from the communication and media differentiates us and puts us at the forefront of the industry.

Ever since digital advertising started gaining relevance, achieving a single measurement for all activity has been an issue in our industry. At UPartner Media we have picked up the gauntlet and developed a solution to this issue.

Not only do we have advanced modeling based on the contribution of each touchpoint, but the models are part of a complete measurement platform that integrates contribution models, machine learning and artificial intelligence to measure all variables that could affect the communication environment of brands.

Through this platform, we offer our clients a unique brand ecosystem, without divisions between on and off, nor between business and advertising. This is truly innovative. This way of measuring means that we are equipped to continue advising our clients regardless of whether their buying model is GRPs or CPMs, or whether cookies disappear tomorrow.

Our platform is able to combine data from multiple sources- such as web analytics, advertising and ad tracking systems, audience measurement data (Kantar, EGM, GFK), CRM information, sales data, brand health tracking, different consumer journeys and rankings, changes in distribution, macroeconomic situation, among a myriad of additional variables – to create specific solutions that solve each brand’s landscape and allow our partners to be able to measure, understand and optimize their communication results to ultimately make their business results more efficient.

Thus, we are able to create a perfect marriage between deterministic data and inferred data to put it at the service of our partners’ business and efficiency.

How does your measurement platform provide a more precise control of the impact of each channel compared to traditional methods?

Our measurement platform is more advanced because it considers a precise way to measure the impact of each channel and takes into account that a consumer’s journey in their relationship with brands is rarely linear. That’s why we track every user interaction with the brand, regardless of its origin.

With traditional methods, it is impossible to unify all these data sources and the amount of information to consider is enormous. Our platform organizes, prioritizes and establishes relationships between variables so that the client, at a glance, can understand what is happening with their brand, and how each of the actions they take can affect the final result.

It is a single ecosystem that the client can access in real time and immediately, without having to wait weeks or months to know how each activation is working. My team and I have constant follow-up meetings with the client to share relevant insights but, at the same time, the client can access the platform on a daily basis and see in a simple way how each measured KPI evolved in each of the activated channels.

Can measurement platforms like UPartner Media’s help brands make decisions about which channels to invest in or which media to allocate resources to? Does this affect all brands in the same way?

I don’t know about other platforms, but UPartner Media’s certainly does. Our partners already have a measurement system in place that guarantees them a unique, complete and detailed view of the consumer journey and the impact of each touchpoint along the way.

By assigning a portion of each KPI (mention, sale, comment, etc.) to each touchpoint, the client can see which channels, campaigns and ads are actually generating better responses and impacting their bottom line. This information is key when deciding where to allocate resources or which channels to invest in.

Our measurement platform is flexible to adapt to each client’s objectives, customizing the KPIs we track. For example, for a direct response client, we associate each conversion to the path that the IDs have followed and it is easier to understand what is the optimal mix that will boost the sale. But for clients working at the top of the funnel, we are able to assign a brand mention or advertising recall to each channel activated and thus improve their efficiency in branding KPIs.

Therefore, our measurement platform can be implemented for all brands, regardless of their target audience, their level of digitalization or their marketing strategy.

How can UPartner Media’s measurement platform be used to improve the consumer journey and optimize people’s experience with brands?

UPartner Media’s measurement platform can be used to improve the consumer journey and optimize their experience, regardless of whether the channel where we impact them is paid, owned or earned.

This platform makes us understand how to customize the user experience and interactions in each channel with different touch points, which ultimately translates into improved cross-channel integration, for example, by reducing overlaps.

Understanding how consumers approach brands is especially relevant in today’s environment, where we are seeing that changes in the consumer’s relationship with brands are happening at breakneck speed.

At UPartner Media, we analyze real journeys to provide a single view of how different channels interact in the consumer decision-making process so that brands can identify the strengths and weaknesses of each channel or adjust their strategy in real time and in an agile way to adapt to these findings.

About UPartner Media

About UPartner Media

Interview with Noelia Fernandez, Chief Operations Officer at UPartner Media

Did Atresmedia’s announcement to move from GRP to CPM as a TV campaign cost indicator come as a surprise?

Users have been consuming linear and digital TV indistinctly for a long time now, so this is a more than coherent step to be in line with the method of consumption, so it is not really a surprise. We think Atresmedia’s step to adapt to this environment is a brave one.

Unifying the media currency so that the whole ecosystem can be looked at under a single lens is something that other countries have already implemented and it makes sense, especially with a situation like TV, where audiences are transforming, but the demand for advertising remains.

Grouping the proposal will help to reach the user from a single audiovisual concept and that always brings fluidity to the brand image. This approach between on and off helps companies like ours to be much more than a media agency for the client, as we are able to follow in real time the impacts that their communication is having and how this affects both the consumer’s perception of their brand and the overall result of the business.

What does this change mean for active campaigns, and do you foresee a price increase in upcoming campaigns?

Well-planned campaigns should not notice too much difference in the final cost.

This is because it is now even more necessary to have a deep analysis to avoid wastage in audiences that are not interesting for brands, so both the technology that can help us find those profitable places and the talent of the team within the agency to find the spaces of opportunity are going to be essential points in this scenario.

What has been the reaction of the advertisers UPartner Media works with? Are they uneasy? What are their concerns?

The first reaction, as with any change, has been one of concern and curiosity.

Television is just another medium to get our message to the audience. What is still important is that the message gets through and that it arrives in the most efficient way for the advertiser, reducing the number of wasted impacts.

At UPartner Media we have been working for some time on solutions that, through real-time measurement systems, enable us to become campaign efficiency managers and, strategically, the best advisors for brands when it comes to optimizing their budgets.

What doubts does this change of model raise?

The main doubts revolve around a possible price increase, because this change comes in a year of generalized cost increases in television.

Then, considering that Atresmedia proposes a unique audiovisual solution, there are doubts about how the market will react and how we will be able to efficiently measure the users who consume its product through different devices and how to provide that incremental coverage register that is part of the discourse that the company has shared so far.

It is our job, as part of the market, to provide greater visibility and knowledge to reduce these doubts and advise our clients in these times of change.

The group has a lot at stake and advertisers have even more at stake. We are confident that this is a coherent and well-planned move, which will be more difficult for some types of companies to adopt. Nevertheless, at UPartner we have already been developing products under this paradigm for some time.

Do you foresee this change coming to other television groups?

This is the beginning of what could be a great revolution in the way of understanding communication.

If Atresmedia’s implementation is successful (which we are confident it will be), then it most certainly will come to others, because it represents a reappraisal of its most important asset and this will be a major turning point in the media, communication and marketing landscape in general.

For now there is no information on whether other TV groups are going to adopt this form of commercialization, but it is true that there are already other media, such as overseas, that have decided to take this path.

Do you consider this change to be for the better?

For UPartner Media, it is the future of communication and it is independent of whether Atresmedia does well or not. CPM is the only common currency for all environments and, although it is a new concept today, over time it will be normalized as another metric. The important thing for brands will continue to be to occupy the spaces that are most efficient in whatever terms are used to evaluate results.

If the market is slow to adjust, it will be time to evaluate whether or not measurement sources are adapted to the digitalization of the market, which is, in any case, imminent.

How does it affect the agency, and does it have a big impact on the operational level?

From UPartner’s experience and without having executed the first campaign in these terms, we have been prepared for some time to measure and report the client’s results from a single source, so at the operational level it does not affect us more than changing the visualization of reporting.

As for the agility of the process once the model is implemented, it will depend a lot on how Atresmedia organizes itself and responds to the doubts and demands of the agencies when executing the campaigns.

How is Atresmedia helping the agency in this transition?

The group is making a great effort to democratize the measurement step, sharing data in both CPMs and GRPs so that we can get used to the metrics.

In the same way, it has also developed a simulator that has been made public so that the industry can better understand the change, through practical exercises. Furthermore, in all the proposals, the effort to educate through transparency is also being quite explicit.

However, we still have some things to understand and we are eager to know more details about both the operationalization and the implementation at the tactical level.

About UPartner Media

UPartner Media is a media agency with end-to-end services that works to add value to the business results of brands, through a partnership relationship based on trust, transparency and involvement. Its proposal is based on a solid team, data solutions and innovative technological products, all at the service of communication.

UPartner Media showcases León’s Easter Week as a unique cultural and touristic experience

UPartner Media and the Junta de Castilla y León (Castilla y León Regional Government) through the Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Sport have launched a campaign to highlight the cultural and ethnographic value of the festivity in the autonomous community. Six creative pieces will cover  the biggest screens of Madrid’s Gran Vía for a week as the main axis of a campaign that is estimated will impact more than 2 million people.

Under the slogan ‘You are just one step away from Easter in Castilla y León’, the Junta de Castilla y León through its Culture, Tourismo and Sport Office has made public its most recent campaign to highlight the cultural and ethnographic value that these dates have in the autonomous community.

An action that, by means of an exceptional visual and narrative language, presents  some of the most outstanding rituals of Easter in the autonomous community through different pieces. The campaign has been orchestrated by UPartner Media, an agency that manages its media communication to support the great audiovisual power of the pieces created by O2Studio, and it is estimated that it will reach more than 2 million people during its activation.

The 6 creative pieces that cover, from top to bottom, the largest screens of the Gran Vía in Madrid are the central axis of an action whose objective is to enhance  awareness of the Easter Week of Castilla y León as one of the best in the world, with nine international distinctions, five at a national level and fourteen more recognitions as festivities of Regional Tourist Interest.

The activation is part of a strategic action of the Junta to turn Castilla y León into one of the main tourist destinations during Easter Week. Along with it, various activities and events will be carried out for this festivity, such as the Opening of Monuments of Castilla y León Program, which will allow visits to 356 monuments of the autonomous community from April 1 to 10, grouped into 16 thematic proposals based on artistic styles, geographic areas or tourist products.

The plan has been presented in an event celebrated in the Palace of Linares last week, where Juan García-Gallardo, vice-president of the Board has emphasized the importance of eno-gastronomic and patrimonial tourism in the autonomous community, and has urged those present to be the best ambassadors of the Holy Week of Castilla y León.

All the information on the Holy Week in Castilla y León, as well as the associated tourist products can be found at www.turismocastillayleon.com.

TECHNICAL DATA

  • Media agency: UPartner Media
  • Advertiser: : Junta de Castilla y León. Siglo Foundation.
  • Executing agency: Consejería de Cultura, Turismo y Deporte.
  • Sector: Public Administration
  • Client Services Director: Nuria Partida
  • Creative Agency: O2Studio
  • Production company: O2Studio
  • Media: Outdoor, Social Networks, specialized press (travel supplements), regional press, national radio, local radio, specialized sites (travel).
  • Formats: : OOH: 6 10′ spots. Social networks: 6 videos of 10′. Press: page, half-page and color insert. Radio: 20″ spot. Digital: standard video display, double roba, roba,sky and billboard.
  • Title:“You are one step away from Easter in Castilla y León”.

Interview with Farah González Insights & Comms Lead at UPartner Media

What professional challenges do you face in this new role?

The main professional challenge of this new role revolves around building stronger relationships between brands and consumers, and in the current scenario this is really complex. We work with a proprietary technology that allows us to have a wealth of data to understand the consumer journey from activation, but at UPartner Media we don’t understand that relationship in such a “cold” and distant way. For a brand to achieve true success in its relationship with consumers, it must have a soul and find the balance between what the data says and those intangible attributes that differentiate it from others and that represent its main point of engagement with the customer’s needs. Knowing where to look for answers and establishing the optimal balance between what is measurable and what is not is where the challenge of this position lies and what my team and I face.

What is UPartner Media’s internal team like?

Look, I think UPartner Media has created a team to be proud of, because we are a group of young professionals with extensive experience, very diverse and that gives the company a different vision of things. Diversity gives our company the richness of having a thousand angles from which to see reality and that is tremendously nourishing both for our value proposition and service as well as for the company’s internal environment. We are a multidisciplinary team that works together to provide value from each of our areas of expertise and thus strengthen a common proposal that responds to and nurtures the client’s needs. This is, in part, what has allowed us to build a client base that has been with us since the company’s inception in 2017. There is a common effort to produce excellence at both the service and product level.

What are your goals for the future at UPartner Media?

We want to continue growing and taking on new challenges, viewed through that different way of doing things that characterizes us. Our goal is to continue to consolidate our position as experts in understanding the relationship between our marketing actions and consumer receptivity. This not only involves the work we do on a day-to-day basis with our current clients, but also makes the Insights & Comms department responsible for communicating the UPartner Media brand to the market. Until now, the company has been consciously working on strengthening its value proposition, assembling a talented team capable of meeting the market challenge and optimizing its internal work processes. Although we are always in a constant learning process, the evolution of my role responds to the need for the market to know our vision of communication strategy. We approach daring clients who are also committed to continue growing and who are looking to work with an agile, avant-garde media agency that gets involved in the business of each brand in a strategic way. In the same way, we bring our technological development capabilities to drive evolution from a vision that adds value to the consumer’s relationship with brands.

What measures do you plan to establish to unite the consumer’s vision and the brands’ communication?

At UPartner Media we use technology as the foundation of any strategy, without limiting ourselves only to what a traditional media agency does. We push the boundaries of what our work is supposed to be to help brands take their business further. In the Insights & Comms department, we seek to collaborate so that all the phases of communication are integrated within the vortex of the intelligence and data we know about the consumer. This makes it possible to create advanced marketing strategies and activations, which allow us to build stronger relationships with the consumer and enable each brand to achieve its objective. Our technology allows us to know where the consumer is on his journey towards the brand and gives us the ability to respond precisely to those actions that generate a better response, through a process that makes communication more profitable because it can focus on what responds optimally to each objective set.

Based on your more than 13 years of professional experience, what do you think is most relevant when working on brand and communication strategies?

This is a difficult question, because in each challenge what is relevant is something different. If I had to summarize everything we do in one thing, I would say that the most relevant thing would be to understand the needs of the brand not only from the perspective of the brand itself or what is written in the brief, but to take on a viewpoint which more similar to the consumer’s own, understanding what the consumer needs and how the brand can contribute to satisfying that need or even anticipating it. It seems obvious, but this way of understanding people is often less common than you might think.

What trends are present in the world of communication in terms of consumer needs?

With the current situation of instability and the scenario of immediacy experienced in recent times, I believe that we will soon face a more vitalist consumer. This answer takes shape from the sustained state of anomie in which the consumer has been immersed. Not for several generations has the consumer been faced with a change in the normal functioning of the world such as the one we have experienced and which still seems not to be over: a pandemic, the Russian war or a unique economic situation in which forecasts lose validity almost immediately. Given the lack of references on how to act and the prolonged nature of this scenario, enjoyment and exploration as ways of reacting to reality are also changing what consumers expect from brands. Consumers now demand solutions that go beyond the current offer through new and improved paths that lead them to solve what they want or need, and that are consistent at all levels: ethical, economic, social, etc. About UPartner MediaMedia UPartner Media is a media agency with end-to-end services that works to add value to the business results of brands, through a partnership relationship based on trust, transparency and involvement. Its proposal is based on a solid team, data solutions and innovative technological products, all at the service of communication.

Interview with Rubén Somoza, Head of Digital Strategy at UPartner Media

Rubén Somoza, digital strategy lead en UPartner Media

UPartner Media is an agency that claims to do things differently, with a holistic vision of media and communication, and with the client’s business as its permanent focus.  In order to have an in-depth look at the agency’s projects in the realm of the digital world, we had a conversation with Rubén Somoza, Head of Digital Strategy.

What actions should be essential for brand building in the digital environment?

It is important that, within the market, we stop seeing brand building and performance as completely isolated things. It is in that fusion where the crux of the matter lies: we have to consider branding and performance as an integrated approach that will help us shape future demand, while collecting existing demand. It is also important to understand that each brand needs a different strategy because it is in a different process and at a different time: what works for a start-up is not scalable to what a mature company needs and vice versa.

Working in compartments, either dividing “traditional” from “digital” or, as in this case, separating branding from performance is counterproductive. It is essential that we consider brand strategies as a whole, working in a cohesive way. This is the only way to maximize effectiveness, because this is about finding the combination of channels that best fits each brand, its audiences and its objectives.

New propensity measurement models like the one we use at UPartner Media are essential for us to understand what the best opportunities are across different types of channels and formats, because they allow us to detail what is working best to focus on each individual brand objective and the overall business outcome of the company.

It is a 360 approach to communication that we can carry out because as a company, at UPartner Media we are collaborative and flexible.

What is your 360 vision of the digital world?

UPartner Media’s 360 vision is not only limited to the digital world. As I said before, if you work on communication in compartments, you will never be efficient.

We rely on a strategy that works based on objectives and use the most appropriate channel to achieve them. We are efficient in this selection because the decisions made in this step are not random or based on intuition, but on a great technological solution that uses machine learning to always optimize, improve and increase campaign results. Although this does not mean that our team loses influence on the process. On the contrary, our developments allow them to employ their time in having a greater strategic vision.

My team and I have a more digital-focused set of skills, but we coexist and collaborate with all other parts of the agency such as creative, more traditional media or strategic planning so that our partners have the best integrated product so that the team as a whole can generate value for our clients.

How does UPartner Media use data and technology to improve campaign results?

UPartner Media has an ecosystem based on technology, where we unify all the client’s activity, not only in terms of media but also in terms of the results that each action has on their business results. We are able to track the entire funnel, including its middle stages, which is where we are truly differential.

This allows us, with extensive granularity, to know which activation works best not only in terms of ROI but also from a complete view of brand and business objectives.

Therefore, the campaigns we activate for our partners can be very profitable economically: we measure everything and we measure it through a real single-source view, which allows us to optimize every euro invested according to the results that the activation seeks to obtain.

Is integrated measurement between on and off channels possible?

That depends on who you ask. Our partners will always tell you yes, because it is our main obsession and the differential value we offer as a company. When UPartner Media was born in 2017, this was our first obsession.

In all these years, we have worked and bet on making a strong investment in the development of a comprehensive measurement, monitoring and planning system that offers our clients a unique vision of all their investment in communication, justifying every euro invested, even in items such as, for example, branded content, which have traditionally been very difficult to quantify.

What new forms of segmentation are emerging for the future without cookies?

We, as a company, have been working with IDs for at least two years, so we are prepared for when the decision is made to implement the cookie removal measure. Having an understanding of how the ID world works for so long now has given us a head start and space to beta test various methodologies and ultimately develop propensity models. These models help us determine how close each entry is to our brand.

It’s almost like a game of hot potato, the closer to our brand that ID is, the more effort we can afford to put into getting them to perform a certain action. Based on this we are able to, for example, create differentiated activation segments at the most efficient touch points, with different messages for each one.

About UPartner Media

UPartner Media is a media agency with end-to-end services that works to add value to brands’ business results, through a partnership relationship based on trust, transparency and involvement. Its proposal is based on a solid team, data solutions and innovative technological products, all at the service of communication.