In the July edition of Media Leader’s Research Radar newsletter, Amanda Wigginton, independent customer strategy consultant and insight partner to PPA Magnetic – the marketing body for trusted editorial brands – shares what’s caught her attention this month, and why insight specialists are best placed to be the commercial changemakers the industry needs:
Choose Change
I’m not ashamed to say it’s never been a more exciting time to be a media researcher.
Looking at what I have been up to over the last few weeks was an eye-opener. A real mixture of projects and meetings, in which audience insight and data clarity were essential to helping businesses navigate growth.
Yes – the pressures and the challenges are getting bigger, but it provides a brilliant opportunity for insight specialists to be the changemakers businesses actually need.
Right now, we can use customer understanding to solve messy tech challenges, prove that insight is a non-negotiable engine for business transformation, and take a direct role in actively shaping commercial strategy.
That’s why the research I’m loving right now is focused on leading this agenda.
Where change is making a real difference
Collaboration is central to change. The partnership to evolve the AA/WARC Ad Forecast reporting is a great example of industry bodies working together to drive progress – it’s provided better channel representation, and increased the transparency of advertising investment. We also saw this spirit of collaboration again at Cannes with the launch of Radiocentre’s brilliant High Gain Audio study, which was built on Thinkbox, and WPP Media’s groundbreaking Profit Ability 2 research. Crucially for premium environments, audio’s long-term ROI is 30% higher than pureplay digital – signalling to planners that there needs to be a shift in budgets away from low-attention social scrolling.
Changing the narrative so it’s not just about reach at any cost. New research from Dentsu, in partnership with Kantar and Lumen – The Brand Reset Report – makes a powerful case for voluntary attention, where users actively seek out content, rather than just passively scrolling past it. Unsurprisingly, this active intent drives increases in engagement.
Real-world sales impact. This voluntary attention is evident in PPA Magnetic’s Craving Conversion research. Using Ipsos iris behavioral clickstream data, the study revealed that consumers engaging with trusted editorial food brands online are 43% more likely to checkout on a supermarket website, and delivers 3x the conversion rate of social media.
Bringing joy impacts your bottom line. New research from Immediate focuses on the deep emotional engagement of trusted editorial brands. Interviewing 10,000 consumers, The Joy Test reveals how passion-led media brands drive joy, boost emotional wellbeing, and motivate users. Interestingly, scrolling on social media brings the least joy of all.
Learning from others’ experiences. As AI, platform shifts, and changing audience behaviours reshape content discovery, media brands face a critical turning point. The new PPA and Enders Analysis report, Humans and Machines: The Everywhere Equation, sets out a framework and case studies for publishers navigating this disruption. Sustainable growth will be about being more human – creating direct audience relationships and building stronger communities. A place for insight specialists to make an even greater impact.
What’s next on my radar
Cracking the measurement challenge for ‘the small’: This keeps me awake at night. The current measurement ecosystem is built for mass media at scale, leaving us lacking the cost-effective, nuanced solutions needed to prove the value of specialist magazine brands, podcasts, and live events to media schedules. Working with our industry partners to model the gap is essential to drive more commercial value.
Proving ‘the new’: The launch of Atria – the new premium programmatic marketplace uniting the UK’s leading magazine publishers – proved that the sector can build a trusted, brand-safe, privacy-first ecosystem at scale. Now, the priority is establishing the robust frameworks needed to measure its direct contribution and advertiser ROI. Collaboration with suppliers and publishers is key, and exciting conversations are already underway.
Pushing for more measurement relevance: Consumer habits and media channels are evolving faster than ever, yet many of our core industry measurement tools lag behind. Collectively, we need to keep pushing for innovative solutions that continuously evolve. The work I do representing publishers with PPA Magnetic across PAMCo, UKOM, and ABC is key to achieving this. Watch this space for news soon.
