Jens Barczewski – Mediaplus Group

Jens Barczewski is the Managing Director of the Insights division at the Mediaplus Group, a subsidiary of the Serviceplan Group, and is responsible for the strategic media and brand research in the DACH region. Before joining Mediaplus, he worked for 8 years at GfK and GfK nurago as the Head of Digital Market Intelligence Germany and prior to that as a market researcher at Deutsche Telekom AG in the business units T-Online International AG, T-Home, T -Com. The Mediaplus Group was founded in 1983 and is today the largest independent and partner-managed media agency in Europe with over 25 locations and partnerships and around 1000 employees worldwide.

KPIs for brand growth

The Mediaplus Group has many different KPIs, which are mainly divided into branding and sales KPIs. Branding KPIs include, for example, the classic brand funnel of brand awareness, brand recall, brand image, relevance set and first choice. In terms of sales the crucial KPIs are sales data, customer reach and loyalty: “Due to the size of the agency and its wide-ranging customers, the relevant KPIs used to measure success are very different. It depends on the customer’s questions and of course there are a wide variety of questions. These two KPI categories cannot be dealt with independently of one another. Branding KPIs and sales KPIs are closely and reciprocally related. Everything that has to do with branding should of course be reflected by the customer’s sales revenue in some way. And sales and performance should also always have a brand focus.”

Working with data is the new norm

Working with data is quite normal at agencies these days, almost a must-have, says Jens Barczewski. At the Mediaplus Group, data is used to monitor internal KPIs, but also to carry out customer projects. For this internal and external data sources are used: “Data-driven is one of the many buzz words at the moment, but for me, it means that I can make decisions based on a continuous flow of data and up-to-date database. The topic is also becoming increasingly important for our customers. We have a large amount of our own data that we generate from campaign measurements, but we also use many validated external data sources. This way we can see whether we have achieved customer-specific campaign goals. The harmonization of data and the continuous flow of data are essentials when it comes to using data. You also have to be able to distinguish dependent and independent variables. “

“Working with data is quite normal at agencies these days, almost a must-have.”

Regarding innovation, many of the ideas and inspirations on how to use data emerge in-house, says Jens Barczewski. But only those ideas that help the company develop further are implemented: “Creative ideas and ideas about what we could do with data often come from us. We pitch it internally to the management and they decide whether it will help us with customer acquisition, customer care or differentiation.”

The greatest challenges

For Jens Barczewski, quality, harmonization and availability of the data are some of the greatest challenges: “It is not always easy to have the right data in the right quality and at the right time. Sometimes it is not possible to carry out data-based analyzes, for radio and print for example, because the baseline survey is only carried out quarterly or biannually. In those cases, you are more or less flying blind, while you have daily data available for online and TV. There are also difficulties with data harmonization, the completeness of the data and ensuring a smooth process. You depend on the fact that data is continuously supplied in the right quality, so that you are not constantly busy adjusting the data.”

“It is not always easy to have the right data in the right quality and at the right time.”

Looking into the future

The success measurement, marketing automation and creatives optimization, especially in relation to the consumer journey, are some areas in which DDDM is playing an increasingly important role, finds Jens Barczewski. What also is becoming more and more important, is the analytical ability to derive the correct hypotheses and interpretations from the data. Therefore, there is a growing need for specialists who can operate and use these new tools, as well as specialists who understand the output. For Jens Barczewski, sectors that play a leading role in DDDM are especially FCMG and the telecommunications industry.