What the Rio Olympics Can Teach US Marketers about Targeting Sports Fans

BOSTON, Aug. 24, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Digilant, a leading global programmatic media company that partners with brands and agencies on custom programmatic advertising solutions, today released new on-line behavior data analysis on US sports fans of the Rio Olympics. Powered by Digilant's proprietary data science solution -- Consumer Persona -- the study reveals key differences between general and target sport audiences. For example, consumers who are rugby fans and skiers are 154.23% more likely to be fans of targeted and less mainstream Olympic sports. For marketers, the findings demonstrate missed opportunity, and underscore the importance of leveraging advanced programmatic targeting technology to better reach an audience.

The Rio 2016 Olympics garnered the attention of millions of Americans this summer, and more people than ever went online to take-in the sporting extravaganza. Naturally, marketers have been trying to target US Olympic sports fans as consumers. But according to Digilant's new data analysis, marketers probably don't really know this audience because they target them as one group.

"This is a classic marketing mistake," said Alan Osetek, CEO, Digilant. "Marketers try to use programmatic to target a distinct group of consumers – such as US Olympics fans – but they do it with a broad-brush stroke, and treat the target audience as one big group. In other words, they fail to factor-in differences in behaviors, interests, and attitudes that can create important segments within an audience. Our advanced targeting technology enables marketers to drill-down into their core target audience and uncover new key segments, so they can better understand who they really are." 

To help brands, agencies, and marketers better understand the importance of using advanced programmatic targeting technology, Digilant leveraged their proprietary data science solution – Consumer Persona – to examine the online audience behavior of US Olympic sports fans. Their efforts revealed that the US Olympic sports fan audience is comprised of at least two key segments with vastly different interests, attitudes, and behaviors:  General Olympic sports fans and Targeted Olympic sports fans.

Knowing the differences between these segments should be meaningful to marketers. For instance, the General Olympics sports fan segment tends to watch mainstream Olympic sports such as swimming, track, and gymnastics. They also tend to be politically active value shoppers who like to cook at home. On the other hand, the Targeted Olympic sports fan audience segment has an affinity for lesser-known Olympic sports like rugby sevens. These consumers are typically new parents with a military affiliation who like to buy prepared meals. More details on the attributes commonly shared by each of these audiences are listed far below.

Osetek continued, "At the end of the day, marketers are leaving money on the table because they are using outdated programmatic technology. Our custom data science solution enables brands to drill-down into audiences with tremendous granularity, uncover key segments, and dynamically target them in real-time. Doing exactly that will help them drive performance, extend reach, and boost efficiencies."

To view the analysis, click here. For more information about Digilant, please visit www.digilant.com or follow the company on Twitter @Digilant_US.

About DigilantDigilant, a global programmatic media pioneer, partners with the world's leading agencies and brands to provide customized and scalable programmatic media solutions. Powered by insightful and actionable data science, Digilant's display, video, mobile, and social solutions are delivered through a world-class service offering. The company's advanced technology platform, which includes a data management platform (DMP), connects brands with relevant and unique audiences by activating first party, third party and its own proprietary data. Headquartered in Boston, Digilant has offices in Barcelona, Bogota, Lima, London, Madrid, Mexico City, Milan, Monterrey, Santiago de Chile, Sao Paulo, and across the U.S. For more information, please visit www.digilant.com or follow the company on Twitter at @Digilant_US. Digilant is an ispDigital Group Company.

About ispDigitalispDigital is a technology-based marketing services holding company driving innovation and solutions at the intersection of earned, owned and paid media. Together Acceso (earned), Antevenio (owned), and Digilant (paid) provide cross channel and cross device, closed loop marketing solutions. Headquartered in Boston and Barcelona, ispDigital has offices in Brazil, Chile, Colombia, France, Italy, Mexico, Panama, Peru, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the United States. ispDigital is majority owned by Inversiones y Servicios Publicitarios (ISP), an investment company fully owned by the Rodés family. For more information visit www.ispdigital.com.

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SOURCE Digilant