Can Media Buyers Change Their Models?

The population is getting older, the older are living longer, and they are spending more, too. Yet, the holy grail of advertising appeal is to the younger demographic. It just may be that the 18-49 year old audience may not be the ideal group to reach and advertisers may be missing the true mark. In fact, age may not even be an important variable to the mix. CBS certainly believes so. "Age and sex don't matter when it comes to TV ad effectiveness, said CBS Corp. Chief Research Officer David Poltrack, who has teamed with Nielsen to create what he called a historic move to replace demographics with a new model for TV planning and buying, based on viewer behavior and attitudes." But can media buyers change their behavior and attitudes to try a new approach?

It certainly makes sense knowing the psychographic tendencies of the audience you are trying to impress. And new research tools make it much easier to aggregate and analyze this information. "The growing use of single-source data like that from Nielsen Catalina and TRA Global, which combines set-top box and shopper-card data, has started to have an impact even before this, Mr. Poltrack said. That data led marketers to restore advertising budget dollars -- to TV in particular -- faster in the recent recession than in prior ones, he said." Better targeting of messages, especially to heavy users, often lead to a higher ROI. Yet, there is nothing like simple reach and frequency to break through the clutter, too.