Media Direction and Method Media lifted Sen Soy conversions almost sixfold by linking TV and online

Media Direction Group and Method Media helped Sen Soy optimise its media budget with a new solution. It seamlessly synchronises broadcast TV and OLV impressions. The user no longer needs to take any action for advertising from the TV screen to "catch up" with them online. The project team told Sostav how this helped grow conversion and reduce the bounce rate.

Goals and objectives

Sen Soy, a brand of pan-Asian sauces and food products (owned by the Sostra group of companies), set itself a goal: to increase conversions from video communications and optimise the media budget. To find a solution, the company approached Media Direction Group and the agency Method Media.

The experts found that the company faced a problem common to the market: the absence of a convenient and logical way for broadcast TV and digital channels to interact. Existing methods of moving a viewer from broadcast TV online (via a QR code or HbbTV technology) require additional action from the user. This complicates communication and reduces its effectiveness. In addition, with the traditional approach, audience contacts are often duplicated and frequency cannot be controlled, which leads to budget overspend. As a result, advertising investment loses payback and ROI deteriorates.

So the main task of the project team was to reduce the share of non-targeted digital impressions and abandon outdated mechanics that require active action from viewers.

Yulia Makeeva, Marketing and Advertising Director, Sostra Group (Sen Soy brand)

We had long been looking for a way to connect TV and digital so that a positive synergetic effect would emerge in media. This case showed that the technology really works, and we can already see how it changes perception of the Sen Soy brand for the better.

The classic FMCG website parameters were chosen as evaluation metrics: bounce rate, time on site, and conversions to the "Where to buy" page.

Solution

Media Direction Group and Method Media proposed an alternative video contact architecture, synchronising TV and digital on TV viewing data. The experts built a system that aggregates data on actual viewers of the ad and on broadcast monitoring from Mediascope using Stable ID technology. This provided accurate identification of users who had seen the ad and made it possible to build targeted digital retargeting.

Unlike the usual mechanics for OTT and IPTV (where the viewer is identified through the digital broadcaster's ecosystem), the Sen Soy project was implemented on broadcast TV, where such synchronisation had not been applied before.

What the whole process looked like, step by step:

Step 1. We planned and ran a campaign on traditional broadcast TV with an effective contact frequency — three or more contacts of one viewer with the ad per campaign flight.

Step 2. After the TV flight ended, using a big data provider we obtained a list of hashed anonymised data of unique people who had seen the ad on broadcast TV. These were specific people, not a look-alike audience, unique users or an audience portrait.

Step 3. Each person who saw the ad was assigned to a group by the number of contacts with it (0–1 contact, 1–2 contacts, or 3 or more contacts).

Step 4. These segments were passed to a programmatic platform that served additional OLV impressions to the selected audience.

Step 5. Additional OLV impressions for those who saw the TV ad ran at the following frequency:

• 3 or more contacts with TV — one additional digital impression;
• 1–2 contacts — two digital impressions;
• those who did not see it or had one contact — three digital impressions.

Step 6. In parallel, the marketers used a control group with a classic combination of TV and OLV placements, without regard to TV impression frequency.

Thanks to this placement scheme the video media strategy became flexible and manageable. Each digital impression was precisely aimed at the audience that needed an additional contact. This made it possible to optimise the budget and eliminate excessive frequency. The result: directing investment towards more effective contacts.

Pavel Moroz, Head of the TV Department, Media Direction Group

Retargeting the audience that has already seen classic TV advertising N times is something the industry has long been striving for. We were the first to implement it with the Sen Soy brand. And today our technology solutions go beyond this case: we can do retargeting on broadcast TV too, cutting off frequency tails, as well as on digital TV.

Alexander Tarasenko, CEO of Method Media

We had long been thinking about creating seamless end-to-end TV and digital communication. Traditional solutions on classic TV were inorganic and caused difficulties for the audience, while similar capabilities on digital TV are characterised by insufficient reach. We developed an approach in which the viewer does not need to take any action to automatically enter the communication funnel and be involved in a managed chain of marketing touchpoints. This is not just retargeting but a full synchronisation of TV and digital with managed frequency and a clear logic of weighting. We consider it a technological breakthrough for the industry.

Results

At the end of the campaign the Sen Soy brand achieved the following results:

• conversion to the target action on the site (going to the "Where to buy" page) increased 5.5 times compared with the traditional approach;
• the bounce rate fell by 15%, indicating greater engagement and higher relevance of the audience obtained.

But beyond conversion growth, Sen Soy received a scalable solution in which digital touchpoints organically complement TV contacts. A managed approach to digital frequency not only cut excessive impressions but also increased the return on every ruble invested in media. This can become a benchmark for FMCG brands seeking to maximise the efficiency of reach and budget management, believe at Media Direction Group.