Global Radio gains insight into advertising sales and scheduling

Smart is...

Using real-time analytics to monitor advertising schedules and minimise unsold spots
Global Radio wanted to gain insight into the way it schedules advertising ‘spots’ across more than 80 radio stations throughout the UK. Analysing advertising revenues from different brands, stations and transmitters would for the first time allow the company to calculate the true value of each slot.

Global Radio worked with Artesian Solutions, an IBM Business Partner, to implement a real-time analytics solution based on IBM Cognos 8 Business Intelligence. The solution draws live data from the scheduling systems for each station (and even each transmitter), helping the company see which adverts are playing where and when, and what impact this has on revenues.

Business Analytics and Optimization

Instrumented: The solution pulls information on each station and transmitter from commercial scheduling systems into a data warehouse, and matches it with financial data from the accounting system.

Interconnected: Decision-makers from the business can use PCs or even iPads to log in to the Cognos portal and perform powerful real-time analyses.

Intelligent: Real-time insight into the value and saleability of advertising spots enables Global Radio to optimise its scheduling and sales strategies, helping clients aim advertising more precisely at target demographics.


Global Radio is one of the leading players in the UK’s commercial radio sector. Headquartered in London’s Leicester Square, the company owns 80 local and national radio stations, including major brands such as Classic FM, Heart, Capital, Choice, Gold, LBC and Xfm. More than 1,200 people work for Global Radio, and its stations broadcast to a total audience of just under 20 million listeners across the country. Source: RAJAR Q3 2010, Total Global Radio (UK) TSA, All Adults 15+

The trouble with spots
Like all commercial radio companies, Global Radio’s business model depends on its ability to sell advertising ‘spots’ – airtime that is used to broadcast commercial messages during radio shows. Scheduling these spots to deliver appropriate adverts to audiences of the right size and demographic is a complex business, as Mick Ayling, Business Intelligence Analyst at Global Radio, explains:

“Our advertisers range from small independent businesses that want a few spots on a local transmitter, up to large advertising agencies working on national campaigns for major clients. Each advertiser wants to ensure that their message gets broadcast to the right people: for example, it’s no use running a spot for a small local car dealership on a national station, or advertising retirement plans on a station like Xfm, whose demographic is young adult listeners.”

Solving a complex equation
To maximise efficiency and deliver value to its clients, Global Radio needs to schedule spots to ensure that each client’s advert is played the right number of times at the right times of day on the right stations to reach the right number of listeners. Inevitably, since the scheduling equation is so complex, some slots may remain unsold. When this happens, the station must broadcast ‘fillers’ to avoid dead air. Global Radio wanted to investigate how much these unsold spots were actually costing the business.

“We wanted to find a way to analyse data from our scheduling and financial systems to give us a real-time view of schedules and revenues – both overall and broken down by brand, station, or even individual transmitter,” says Ayling. “We considered extending our existing reporting solution to meet this need, but the software wasn’t very flexible or easy to use, so we decided to evaluate other options.”

Finding a solution
During its research into available reporting products, the Global Radio team saw a demonstration of IBM Cognos 8 Business Intelligence, and realised that it could be a good solution for their needs.

“What we saw with IBM Cognos was a solution that allows you to be flexible with reporting, and drill through from one set of data to another to build a really convincing narrative about what’s happening in the business,” explains Ayling. “With business analytics, getting the numbers right is only half the battle: you also need to be able to present the information in a way that decision-makers will really take on board. Cognos seemed to provide the best of both worlds: a powerful analytical engine with an easy-to-use graphical interface that makes the results compelling even for non-technical users.”

Building a partnership
As an implementation partner for the project, IBM recommended Artesian Solutions, an IBM Business Partner that specialises in business intelligence, performance management and enterprise planning solutions. Artesian helped Global Radio implement the Cognos solution in a three-stage project over several months, integrating it with the Microsoft® SQL Server® databases that support its financial and scheduling systems.

“We didn’t have any experience with Cognos in-house, so finding the right partner was vital,” says Mick Ayling. “The Artesian Solutions team have been fantastic – they brought a lot of experience to the table in terms of both technical expertise and business consultancy, and they put in a lot of effort to really understand our complex business model. In addition to the implementation itself, they provided three months of in-depth training, helping us learn how to manage the solution ourselves and create our own reports.”

Now that the solution is live, the company has made a strategic decision to use IBM Cognos as its platform for all new business intelligence projects.

“We’ll gradually phase out our old reporting system and extend the use of Cognos,” explains Ayling. “We’re also working hard to replace a number of spreadsheet-based processes. The main thing is to convince people within the business that we can help them. For example, one of my colleagues was complaining to me about a reconciliation report that took him hours to compile each month. I told him it would be easy to build a report in Cognos that could access the same information in a few clicks. These are the kinds of enhancements that can genuinely make a huge difference to people’s everyday productivity.”

Delivering vital insights
The solution delivers a number of key reports about the scheduling of advertising spots, helping analysts find patterns and trends that identify where unsold spots are occurring, and help business decision-makers create strategies to minimise their occurrence. These reports can be generated on an ad-hoc basis, using data that is no more than 15 minutes old – providing a real-time picture that helps the company react quickly.

“We’re already seeing big improvements in transparency and efficiency on the scheduling side of the business, and we’re looking to do the same for the sales side,” says Ayling. “We’ll soon be working with Artesian again to integrate Cognos with Salesforce.com, which will help us analyse the performance of individual sales teams and analyse customers geographically, among other advantages. We’re also planning to introduce iPad-based dashboards for our senior managers, to make the solution even more attractive and promote its use within the company.”

He concludes: “We believe IBM Cognos 8 Business Intelligence provides a powerful and versatile tool for both business intelligence professionals and key decision-makers throughout Global Radio. Artesian, IBM and our in-house team deserve a lot of credit for creating a solution that offers immediate benefits to the business, as well as a sound platform for future development.”

The Inside Story: Getting There

“We didn’t have any experience with Cognos in-house, so finding the right partner was vital,” says Mick Ayling. “The Artesian Solutions team have been fantastic – they brought a lot of experience to the table in terms of both technical expertise and business consultancy, and they put in a lot of effort to really understand our complex business model. In addition to the implementation itself, they provided three months of in-depth training, helping us learn how to manage the solution ourselves and create our own reports.”

Now that the solution is live, the company has made a strategic decision to use IBM Cognos as its platform for all new business intelligence projects.

“We’ll gradually phase out our old reporting system and extend the use of Cognos,” explains Ayling. “We’re also working hard to replace a number of spreadsheet-based processes. The main thing is to convince people within the business that we can help them. For example, one of my colleagues was complaining to me about a reconciliation report that took him hours to compile each month. I told him it would be easy to build a report in Cognos that could access the same information in a few clicks. These are the kinds of enhancements that can genuinely make a huge difference to people’s everyday productivity.”

Solution Components
Software

• IBM Cognos 8 Business Intelligence

• Artesian Solutions

To learn more about services and solutions from Artesian Solutions, visit: artesiansolutions.com