You Say Tomato, and I say Tomato

Source: http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1365656

We find it interesting to see how people can arrive at very different conclusions when faced with the same data set. The most recent example we’ve seen was reported in MediaPost’s Online Media Daily last week on the Fall 2011 Advertiser Perceptions report.

For background, the Advertiser Perceptions report is

“the largest multi-client tracking study of media decision makers in the world. The report represents the media plans and perceptions of more than 1,200 U.S. media decision makers surveyed in October through November of 2011. They have an average of 6.8 years of involvement in media decisions. The sample represents a cross-section of leading U.S. advertisers by ad category and media type.”

We love this report, data geeks that we are, and find it provides another benchmark that we use while developing media plans.

But the paradox that the MediaPost story pointed out is the difference in perceptions for spending growth of social media vs. digital. Agencies are more bullish on digital used for branding as opposed to performance, while corporate marketers are more bullish on social media even though most ad executives still rank social as more of a “performance” medium versus a “brand-focused medium”.

We won’t try and explain this difference in beliefs as to why social media is preferred by brands. Is it just because its the “next shiny thing”? Or because CMOs job performance is increasingly being measured on specific metrics? But more than anything, we think this reinforces one of our key beliefs in being media agnostic.