Podcast: The Star Tribune’s Brian Kennett on the Esri & The Science of Where
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Podcast: The Star Tribune’s Brian Kennett on Esri & The Science of Where
Vice President of Digital Advertising Brian Kennett recently sat down with the Esri & The Science of Where Podcast to explain how the Star Tribune is using digital intelligence to target audiences in new ways.
Kennett spoke with Esri Commercial Services Lead, John Lenahan, about how the Star Tribune is navigating a rapidly changing media landscape and exploring new capabilities to drive better ROI for customers.
Helping advertisers take advantage of the Star Tribune’s 11 to 15 million unique monthly visitors first means understanding who those visitors are, how they interact with content, and where they are located, Kennett said.
That can take the form of helping a local business to target customers based on where they live using Geographic Information Systems. Or it can mean analyzing things like past purchases and past memberships and helping advertisers make important decisions based on that data.
The Minnesota Timberwolves is one example of a client for whom understanding audience behavior helped determine the best ways to advertise with the Star Tribune.
The team needed to know what the demographic and psychographic information looked like for a single ticket purchaser versus a season ticket holder, and how best to reach both of those segments, Kennett said.
“At the core… it's helping them understand, ‘how do I reach more of the people that are working, and we do that with their data?’” Kennett said.
The Star Tribune’s shift into the digital world has also changed the kinds of content advertisers of all sizes have sought out in recent years, Kennett said.
He pointed to the University of Minnesota Medical School, which, along with the Foundry425 team, put out Where Discovery Creates Hope, a content campaign featuring its research and the real-world impact it has.
The Medical School was focused primarily on print just a few years ago, Kennett said. But this campaign combines digital, print, video and storytelling elements to bring the work of the Medical School to life.
“We help them create the content from concept through production through execution,” Kennett said.
“We help them design their full advertising campaign: how they talk to prospective patients about cancer treatment or whatever that might be, and then all the way through to helping them understand for their board and for their donors, what that means in terms of results.”