For decades, Boots has been as prominent on our TV screens as on the UK high street, but changing viewing habits are subtly shifting the retailer’s media planning across video and CTV.
In this edition of the Buy-Side View, Amy Caven, Head of Media Strategy & Planning at Boots, discusses balancing the brand’s mass appeal with reaching younger audiences, the role of the agency in media planning, and the need for advertisers to insist on transparency in their media buys.
What is your biggest bugbear when it comes to CTV and video advertising?
We get too bogged down in CTV and video advertising jargon and lingo, to the point that we don’t really think about the ultimate goal, which is the end user experience, and what they’re going to take away from seeing your advertising in CTV. So I think we need more of a non-marketer hat on when we’re thinking about CTV and video advertising, thinking about generally, as a customer, what am I going to be most receptive to? And as advertisers, we need to think a bit more like that, rather than getting bogged down in jargon that can tie us in circles and lead us to the wrong outcome.
How much media buying are you carrying out in-house?
We recently in-housed our performance media, so that includes PPC, affiliates and some of our paid social and display. So anything that’s harvesting demand and driving conversion. And we made that change for a few reasons. Obviously as a retailer, we’re very fast-paced, offers get added in daily, so we wanted to be able to react to those and turn on campaigns really quickly. Likewise we can up budgets and downweight budgets based on the trends we’re seeing internally. So there’s definitely that speed and agility piece, having more control over what we do.
The majority of our investment is planned and bought through an agency. And I do think that is important, that we still work with agency partners, because we need to keep that external-facing view. I think the agency brings loads of value in terms of sharing what other brands are doing, keeping abreast of the changes in media markets. They’re great for that external view, and I think it’s important as an advertiser to have that. I think if everything’s done in-house, you can quickly become quite insular.
Which ad tech solution has delivered the most impact for your business?
At Boots we obviously sit on a huge amount of data in terms of Advantage Card customers. It’s really important we use that safely, but we do want to be able to use it and plug that data into as many different media owners as we can. And LiveRamp have been a brilliant solution there, in terms of connecting our data with media partners, and doing it in a safe way, but delivering the scale as well. So in terms of being able to build out lookalikes, expand out that audience base, we’ve seen some great results from those guys.
What advice would you give smaller sell-side companies to help them compete with the larger platforms?
Get to know us. Get to know Boots, our challenges, what our creative is, who our key audiences are. Spend time with the business. The larger platforms have got access to marketing budgets and scale, but both big and small companies have access to the people at Boots, and can spend time getting to know them. And all we want is a media owner that knows us, and can find opportunities that are really relevant to our business needs.
Which do you think video advertising is most effective for: generating awareness and brand-building, or driving short-term sales?
I think it’s mainly awareness and brand building. Video brings a great viewing experience, and it’s very hard to interrupt that to get someone to buy a product. I think you can do it much more efficiently from a cost perspective in performance channels. So drive short-term sales in the performance channels, and let your video strategy do more of that mid- to upper-funnel job, in terms of getting people to fall in love with your brand, reconsider you and all that good stuff.
How is the growth of CTV changing your TV buying strategy?
It’s making us diversify, but not as drastically as you might think. So it’s definitely getting us to think more about putting audiences at the heart of our TV strategy, but because of scale, because of things like ad fraud, it’s not as drastic a change as maybe you read about in some of the headlines. We’re doing more with those CTV partners, but it’s never going to detract away from the bread and butter of our TV planning.
What could brands do to help clean up the industry?
I think brands need to insist on better transparency. So if you’re a brand that will just let your ads run with little care where or who they’re going to, then I think the industry will get worse. As a brand, you have to be insistent that you want to know exactly where that ad is running, who it’s going to, is it a real person? And I think also not investing in fads or gimmicks because they sound new and shiny. Doing the due diligence in knowing what you’re buying is really important.
Which metrics do you value most when it comes to video and CTV advertising?
I would say qualified reach, measured by a verified partner, such as Barb for TV, or a robust panel in other channels. Just making sure we know what our reach is, and knowing that there are eyeballs on that ad. We’re also spending more time looking at attention metrics, because we want to know that it’s a real person engaging with our piece of content.
If you had £1 million to spend and were forced to choose between content marketing, influencer marketing or paid advertising, which would you choose and why?
It’s funny because I do think all three are kind of blurring into one. So my natural response would be paid advertising all the way, those channels that can reach huge amounts of people. But I think what’s more interesting is that within paid advertising, I’m using more and more influencer content. So it’s no longer just a 30-second design-led ad, it will be influencer content that we’re using in more paid advertising channels. That’s where I think the lines are getting a bit more blurred.
Which person in the industry inspires you most today?
I would say Karen Blackett [former WPP UK President and GroupM UK CEO]. She champions female leadership, she’s had amazing progression through the media industry, and she puts people first. I remember going to a talk by her at the start of my career, all about building your personal brand, and it’s stuck with me ever since.
Out of all the video and TV advertising campaigns you’ve been involved with, which are you most proud of?
We ran a campaign back in September, and it’s on air again at the moment, called Make More Room For Beauty. It was the first time we purposefully targeted a younger audience at Boots, normally we’re quite mass appeal, but we said we’re going to go younger.
Creatively it looked great, it was three 20-second episodes that appealed to a younger audience. But then we had to flex our video mix because of that younger audience. So linear TV is still on the plan, but we introduced new partners, including Netflix, did a lot more YouTube and CTV, and we bought way more channel-specific lineups with broadcaster VOD, such as Married at First Sight.
So we just tweaked our AV strategy to appeal to a younger audience, without saying we’re going to turn off all linear TV because younger audiences don’t watch TV, because we know that’s not true. We just got the results back from September, and it was our strongest performing beauty campaign to date.
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