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Get a Handle on Your Competition
Posted by Sheree Johnson on Tuesday | December 20th, 2011
Communicating direct to consumers is becoming increasingly important as healthcare reform sends millions of individuals and small groups shopping for health insurance. It is likely most health insurance providers (as well as emerging competition like Walgreen’s and Walmart, and other private exchanges) will be turning up the volume in terms of advertising spending direct to consumers.
Over $500 million dollars is estimated to be spent by the end of this year in measured mass media by health insurance companies. Understanding the competitive media spend in a Blue plan service area will be critical, including taking into account the local value of the millions of dollars spent by competitors like UnitedHealthcare with media vehicles like Network Television.
Recently, the Meers’ Business Intelligence team evaluated competitive tracking tools and methodologies on behalf of our Blue clients. After a thorough review, we became a licensee of the most comprehensive competitive tracking service available, Kantar Media Intelligence.
Now, our Business Intelligence team is able to prepare customized Competitive Spending & Messaging Reports for any given Blue plan, organized it into meaningful strategic insights as follows:
- Overall annual spending trends
- Percent spending by product (<65 Individual, Medicare, etc.)
- SOV (Share-of-Voice) estimates and trends on a month-to-month basis
- Media mix usage, percent spending by medium
- Seasonality via percent spending by month, by quarter
- Geographic emphasis (national, local, by market, etc.)
- Messaging, brand positioning, campaign focusThe media measured includes the following:
- Network TV
- National Cable TV
- Syndicated TV
- Local/Spot TV
- National Hispanic TV
- Network Radio
- Local/Spot Radio
- National Newspapers
- Local Newspapers
- Hispanic Newspapers
- National Sunday Supplements
- Consumer Magazines
- Local Magazines
- Hispanic Magazines
- Business/Trade Publications
- Outdoor
- Internet (Display)
- Internet Search (Google Only)In addition to spend for any of the above media channels, digital clips of TV/Radio spots can be included in the analysis, along with selected digital ad tearsheets and sample online ads. While some data is available sooner for some media types vs. others, the information is typically available within three months after the advertising ran.
If you are not currently doing any kind of quarterly tracking report on your competition, 2012 would be the year to start one. With the broad range of media channels available to consumers, competitive insights can help identify untapped strategic opportunities in terms of timing, media mix, product emphasis, messaging, visibility, differentiation and more.
For more information on setting up a tracking report customized to your needs and its corresponding cost, contact Sheree Johnson, Director of Business Intelligence, at shereej@meers.com.