How to implement a paid, owned, earned media

strategy
SUMMARY
This article explores how to implement a media strategy capable of stretching across all
types of media touchpoints, paid, owned, and earned.

 Crucial to this thinking is the idea of Share of Experience (SOE), a brand's percentage share of
total category touchpoints, rather than Share of Voice, which encompasses only paid
touchpoints.
 There are now many more data-centric tools on which marketers can draw to measure diverse
Paid, Owned and Earned touchpoints, from traditional surveys to real-time data capture, and
passive social listening.
 As well as Share and Reach, consider measuring Impact, Relevance and Positivity, since the
quality of touchpoints can turbo-charge your media strategy.
 To implement a successful Paid, Owned, and Earned media strategy, marketers need to choose
and prioritise those channels with the most positive impact, which may be channels not
previously considered.
 The paper includes case studies from John Lewis, the UK retailer; the Philippines' department of
tourism; SPC; Macmillan Cancer Support; and the New Zealand transport agency.

TOPICS

 CHANNEL PLANNING, MEDIA MIX SELECTION

 BRAND & CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE
 PAID, OWNED, EARNED INTEGRATION

Jump to:
Definitions | Where to start | Essentials | Case studies | Checklist | References | Further
reading

To make the most of your media spend, it's essential that marketers consider all types of
brand touchpoints, which include those touchpoints in the Paid, Owned, or Earned (POE)
categories. This Best Practice paper provides a useful framework to help marketers
develop a comprehensive and effective POE strategy. In addition to smart media spend
choices across relevant touchpoints, a truly great POE media strategy also requires
penetrating insight alongside a compelling promise, proposition, purpose that differentiates
your brand, and creative work that sparks people's imaginations.
Definitions
Definitions of Paid, Owned and Earned Media tend to focus on brands' paid advertising and
owned and earned digital touchpoints. For Best Practice, we would recommend that marketers
look beyond such a narrow and restrictive definition.

Paid touchpoints include paid for advertising, such as TV, radio or online banners. However, the
Paid category might also include investments in retailer advertising that features the brand, in-
retailer trade displays, and/or online search.

Owned touchpoints are those controlled by the brand, such as the brand's website. However,
examples of other Owned touchpoints with a high potential for marketers are packaging and the
product or service itself.

Earned includes not only social media and online reviews, but also face-to-face conversations,
news articles that mention the brand, or even peer observation of brand consumption and usage.
These touchpoints are particularly potent for driving brand consideration.

Share of Experience (SOE) is a brand's percentage share of total category touchpoints. For
example, if there are 1000 experiences for airlines and Delta Air Lines accounts for 300 of those,
its SOE is 30%. Whereas Share of Voice (SOV) focuses on measuring Paid advertising
touchpoints, SOE encompasses all Paid (including retailer and partners), Owned, and Earned
brand encounters.

Where to start
In the last 20 years, media has proliferated while simultaneously becoming increasingly
fragmented. A shift in power from brands to people has occurred as technology enables
individual people and consumers to play a greater role in the shaping of a brand's destiny through
a variety of newly relevant touchpoints.

The Digital in 2017 Global Overview report, released in January 2017 by We Are Social and
Hootsuite, reveals that more than half of the world's population now uses the internet and counts
2.5 billion social-media users globally. The report also explains that 1 in 4 people utilises mobile
applications for product research, with the highest growth rate for this figure now coming out of
the APAC region.

There is an increasing understanding that generating brand endorsement and buzz helps to grow
brands. As marketers, then, we need to know how to create positive Earned media for our brands.
In "Return on Word of Mouth" (2014), the WOMMA proves that word of mouth (both offline
and online) drives sales, further arguing that of a Word of Mouth impression is "anywhere from
5 to 100+ times more valuable than a paid media impression."

We are also taking an increasing interest in shopper marketing these days. A good Paid, Owned,
and Earned media strategy not only embraces shopper touchpoints along the path to purchase,
but it also accounts for the potential of the marketing touchpoint categories formerly known as
"above-the-line" (e.g. TV) and "below-the-line" (e.g. direct mail).

In the 21st century, event marketing also garners increased marketing investment. The IPA
Bellwether Report (Q3 2016) showed that event marketing rose to 9.9% of all marketing
expenditure in the UK. Marketers now understand that creating a link between their brand and
people's passions can subsequently produce important brand benefits ripe for further
amplification through a variety of Paid, Owned, and Earned media channels.

Not only is marketing changing, but so are methods of measurement. We now have many more
data-centric tools on which we can draw to measure our diverse Paid, Owned and Earned
touchpoints, from traditional surveys to real-time data capture, and passive social listening.

In fact, the sheer myriad of touchpoints and metrics (e.g. GRPs, click-throughs) can sometimes
make confident and informed development of a successful POE touchpoint strategy seem rather
daunting.

If you look at the world through the eyes of a person who comes into contact with your brand,
however, everything becomes simpler.

Essentials
Share of Experience (SOE) is the new Share of Voice (SOV)

For many years, the Share of Voice (SOV) metric has been used as a guideline by brands to
understand how much money they should invest in marketing and media spend. The rule of
thumb is that you need to generate Excess Share of Voice to grow your brand. If your market
share is 10%, for example, you might want to target a 15% SOV if following this guideline.
However, the SOV metric does not take into account all of those Earned and Owned touchpoints
outside of Paid media spend. In "The Ultimate Marketing Machine" (Harvard Business Review,
2014)[1] Marc de Swaan Arons and Frank van den Driest of Millward Brown Vameer and Keith
Weed, CMO, Unilever, asserted that "in fact, we believe that the most important marketing
metric will soon change from 'share of wallet' or 'share of voice' to 'share of experience.'"

If Share of Experience (SOE) correlates more strongly with market share than SOV, then it could
be argued that marketers should target an excess Share of Experience to grow a brand
successfully. Whilst SOV correlates with market share, SOE shows a better correlation because
it offers a more comprehensive view of brand reach and consideration. This should not be a
surprise when taking into account that Paid Media alone may account for only less than a third of
all brand experiences and remembering that touchpoints like Word of Mouth can have 5 to 100+
times the impact of Paid experiences.

So, the first question to ask is, "How are people experiencing my brand?" "With which
touchpoints are they coming into contact?"

Most marketers can draw a pie chart of their media investment, which may not always include
trade investment. Taking this one step further, though, how many marketers can draw a pie chart
illustrating the experiences picked up by people divided by touchpoint percentages? It is
essential to understand these figures in order to confidently know where to invest your marketing
budget for maximum impact. Many brands have as little as 30% of their media paid and easily
within their control.

Figure 1. Delta Air Lines' Share of Experience

To explain further, if you spend 20% of your paid media on TV advertising and only see 10% of
your Paid touchpoints represented by TV advertising, it's very likely that your TV ads are not
being sufficiently picked up by people, even if you are generating a high level of GRPs. With
such analysis, it is also possible to locate a very cost-efficient media channel within your media
mix. Perhaps the Out of Home (OOH) category, where you are only spending 8%, actually
generates 15% of the total touchpoint experiences. Examining the difference between what your
brand pushes out and what people actually pick up is a great place to start when developing a
growth-oriented media strategy.

Whether marketers take a bespoke way of measuring brand experiences, as described in

"Better Customer Insight—in Real Time" (HBR, September 2012)[2], or simply start with
ethnographic research, it's important to understand the long list of touchpoints experienced by
people and their quantities to determine impact. You might be surprised at the number of Owned
and Earned touchpoints out of the total.

To grow your brand, marketers should try to generate as many touchpoints as possible in the
most cost efficient way possible. Measure the brand's Share of Experience and seek to create
Excess SOE versus those of competitors.

For example, eating, drinking or using a brand is a highly important experience. How many
consumption experiences does your brand generate? Does your Paid media encourage purchase
and usage? Using Real-time Experience Tracking (RET), we have discovered that the
consumption and/or usage experience is normally the most powerful of all touchpoints at
increasing people's brand consideration. Smart marketers generate a self-fulfilling positive cycle:
the more that people use your brand, the more that they will want to use it again.

Impact, Relevance and Positivity

As well as Share and Reach, consider measuring Impact, Relevance and Positivity, since the
quality of touchpoints can turbo-charge your media strategy.

Some insist that any PR is good PR. However, when a brand is in the midst of a PR crisis,
whether caused by a natural disaster or due to the actions of the company, it's important to know
how to respond. Should the brand cut or increase its TV advertising or change its messaging?
Can social channels generate impact and positivity? In the case study at the end of the article, see
how the Philippine Department of Tourism leveraged the economic and environmental trauma of
Hurricane Haiyan to generate global positive experiences as Filipinos thanked the world for its
aid in the #PHThankYou campaign.
Channel selection and sequencing

Of course, not all touchpoints are created equal! Remember, just because some channels are
easier to measure than others, it doesn't mean that those touchpoint channels are the most
valuable to your brand. In your brand's category, retail touchpoints may have the most significant
impact. It is extremely important to ensure you understand the relative impact of different media
channels on key brand metrics.

To implement a successful Paid, Owned, and Earned media strategy, marketers need to choose
and prioritise those channels with the most positive impact, which may be channels that you
hadn't previously considered. Categories like peer observation (seeing someone else using your
brand) and retailer advertising (seeing your brand featured in a retailer ad) can significantly
impact on brand consideration, as the Journal of Retailing notes.[3]

Among people looking to buy a home electronics product in the United States, LG Electronics
found that a retailer's TV advertising featuring the brand can often generate a more positive
response than viewing a manufacturers' own TV advertising.

Figure 2. LG Manufacturer versus Retailer advertising

This could be because of the perceived endorsement by the retailer for the LG product. Such an
insight can help marketers to work more effectively with their retail partners. LG, for example,
was the first electronics company to win the coveted POPAI Marketing Effectiveness Award for
point-of-purchase marketing.

Marketers must then systematically consider the combinations and sequencing of different
channels in their quest to create the biggest impact. Remember that in one single evening of TV
viewership, a person might see your sponsorship, a product placement, your own ad, a news
item, and your brand featured in a retailer ad.

In the same vein, the relationship between brand and retailer also raises an important
consideration about channel combinations and sequencing. For instance, is a brand more likely to
create a sale if someone sees 1) a TV ad for a fantastic new LG product followed by seeing the
same product featured in Best Buy's Black Friday ad, or 2) two LG ads or two Best Buy ads
featuring LG? The combination of manufacturer and retailer advertising might not only
communicate product benefits, but it could also help prospective purchasers to know where at
what price to buy this new product. Such advertising combinations across the POE media
spectrum, then, work together to lead the shopper down the path to purchase.

Cost plays a role in selecting the channels in which to invest and activate media spend. For
example, touchpoints with human interaction—such as sales assistant recommendation or
phoning a call center—tend to have more impact on brand consideration, but they might also be
more expensive.

Think about how a brand's Paid media can best generate Owned and Earned touchpoints.
For decades Paid advertising has been used to drive to Owned touchpoints. Think about direct
response advertising and the "call to action" – call us on this number now, visit our store.
Ultimately Paid advertising is designed to sell but the journey it takes people on now is more
sophisticated.

Nowadays almost all communications include website and social media URLs. Often these are
designed to enable a more immersive exploration of the brand, to take the story to a deeper level.
In the digital world, people are one click away from finding out more, with far more convenience
than picking up a phone or going to a store. And people can comment on what they like and
dislike with much greater ease. But it is Paid communications that, so often, trigger these brand
adventures. The response to seeing a trailer for a new movie online is more positive than seeing
the trailer advertised on TV because the person seeing the trailer online is more likely to be
searching for it. However, if the person was completely unaware of the movie, they would not be
searching online for the trailer. The TV ad, outdoor, digital and other paid communications help
to excite initial interest in the film. This is the same for social media. Paid tweets can be very
positively received when well targeted. They can encourage earned media through retweeting
with people adding their own personal touch to the story. So brands need to consider how
"shareable" is the content being broadcast.

Peter Field and Les Binet, in Marketing in the Digital Age, argue that investing in Paid media is
more important than ever because of the ability to trigger more Owned and Earned in the digital
era.

Are your paid touchpoints successfully generating positive earned experiences? See the New
Zealand Transport Agency case study at the end of the paper for a good example.

A Positive Experience can be worth 3 times a Neutral one, and Share of Positive Experiences
more strongly impacts brand consideration than does total SOE. Remember to turbo-charge the
efficiency of your strategy by creating as many positive experiences as cost efficiently as
possible. Related strategies might include using third party tie-ups or activating around events.
Then, try to ensure you are present in the channels with the most impact. Finally, consider the
proposition (message), placement (is the poster at a bus stop or outside a shop?), and context
(responses to a same TV ad on a particular day of the week can significantly outperform
responses on other days). Marketers have control over these factors.

Figure 3: Response to the same TV ad for MORE TH>N, UK

Think about how your brand can harness its Owned touchpoints more successfully. SPC, a tinned
fruit brand in Australia, used its packaging as a media space. Meanwhile, marketers such as John
Lewis, the UK department store, integrate Paid, Owned and Earned touchpoints to create a
multiplier effect. See the Case Studies listed at the end of the article for further details on both of
these strategies.

The Experience Model shown below is designed to provide a blueprint for how to grow your
brand through harnessing Paid, Owned and Earned touchpoints.
Figure 4. MESH Experience Model

However, whilst this model provides a useful framework, it is just a starting point. To create a
truly great Paid, Owned, and Earned media strategy, you will need penetrating insight, a
compelling brand promise/proposition/purpose, and creative work that sparks people's
imaginations.

Reminder checklist

1. Understand all paid, owned, earned brand touchpoints that people experience. Think
beyond traditional paid and digital owned/earned to retailer advertising, packaging and
peer observation.
2. Measure your Share of Experience (SOE), and then use Excess SOE as a way to
determine investment levels.
3. Generate as many brand experiences as cost efficiently as you can.
4. Invest disproportionately in the touchpoints that impact most on key brand outcomes.
5. Use Paid experiences to drive Owned and Earned experiences. Ensure relevant links to
response routes (e.g. website or phone) and to spread the word via social media.
6. Create strategies to deal with negative Earned experiences.
7. Create positive experiences through considering proposition, placement, and context.
8. Consider touchpoint combinations and sequencing to pull people through the path to
purchase.
9. Think about how you can harness your owned touchpoints more successfully.
10. Ensure that your brand purpose, campaigns and creative strategies express themselves
successfully through carefully chosen Paid, Owned, and Earned touchpoints.

Case studies
Paid, Owned, Earned: the multiplier effect

John Lewis and Monty the Penguin: The media strategy behind the UK's favourite
Christmas campaign.Event Report, Mediatel Connected Consumer Conference, June 2015.

John Lewis, the UK department store, has created an annual event with its Christmas TV ad. In
2014, "Monty's Christmas" featured Monty the Penguin not only in TV advertising, but also in
store windows and Monty's Den, an in-store space in partnership with Samsung. The penguin
also starred in story books, online apps to create Christmas cards, and of course, you could buy a
cuddly Monty as a gift. And if a cuddly toy wasn't what you were after, there was a whole array
of merchandising from mugs to cushions in which to indulge. Monty even had a "thing" going
with Mabel the Penguin via Twitter, Match.com, and Tinder. A link with the World Wildlife
Fund additionally encouraged people to sponsor a penguin. See also: John Lewis: Monty's
Christmas, Cannes Creative Lions, Grand Prix, 2016.

Using people and Earned (social) media to generate positive impact

The Philippines: #PHThankYou Warc Prize for Social Strategy, Shortlisted, 2015

When Typhoon Haiyan hit the Philippines in 2013, it threatened the country's tourism and
economy. In response, the Philippines Department of Tourism utilised the Filipino people in the
#PHThankYou social media campaign, where Filipinos thanked the rest of the world for their
help. The campaign resulted in 1.28 billion impressions worth around $2.6M.

Leveraging Owned media

SPC: #MyFamilyCan The Communications Council, Silver, Australian Effie Awards, 2015

SPC Cans, a 100-year-old Australian company processing fruit, successfully used the packaging
on their cans to feature local Australian growers as a way to combat the threat of cheap, imported
canned fruit through the hashtag #MyFamilyCan. With limited budgets, 4 million cans became 4
million conversation starters.

Harnessing Paid, Owned and Earned media around a theme to generate people power

Macmillan Cancer Support: Not alone Cannes Creative Lions, Entrant, Creative Effectiveness
Lions, 2015

Macmillan Cancer Support successfully galvanised the UK population with its "Not Alone"
campaign, which was designed to ensure that people didn't need to face cancer alone. The
message was delivered on a broad front – PR and broadcast, social media and website, leaflets
and merchandising – as well as through events like the World's Biggest Coffee Morning. The
campaign encouraged friends and family to help with simple things like taking someone with
cancer to a hospital appointment as well as generating funding for Macmillan nurses.

Paid content to drive Earned media

New Zealand Transport Agency: Mistakes The Communications Agencies Association of

New Zealand, Gold, New Zealand Effie Awards, 2014

The New Zealand Road Safety campaign, "Mistakes," captured the attention of the world. Within
one week, it received 10 million YouTube views globally. The Gunn Report ranked the
campaign the 3rd most awarded film campaign in the world, and TED Talks named it as one of
10 "Ads Worth Spreading" in 2014.