Reaching A Touchpoint Turning Point: The Value Beyond Paid Media

A new WPP Media report focused on (and titled) How Humans Decide highlights how the most effective channels integrate paid media with owned, shared, and earned touchpoints (OSE), which are “nearly 3x more powerful than paid media alone in converting someone from bias to purchase.”

“When a primed consumer reaches the active stage of the journey, the role for brand communication shifts to conversion — either to confirm the choice that 84% have effectively made, or to attempt to divert the 16% who may be considering another brand,” the report says, finding that such OSE touchpoints as word-of-mouth recommendations, reviews, and an email CRM were as influential as online ads during that active stage

 (Source: WPP Media)

WPP Media’s recommendation to integrate the fuller range of influential touchpoints (“not just paid-media reach plans”) that prioritize influence requires the following:

• Investing in long-term brand priming
• Paying attention to “category-specific receptivity
• Recognizing more than reach, but influence “as a core planning metric.”

All of this is a timely reminder, as MediaPost’s Joe Mandese writes, that it’s “still fundamentally about how human planners and buyers place ads that influence human consumers to think about and buy their human brand customers’ products and services.”

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