Social media gets a lot of buzz and an increasingly large slice of media budgets. But is that spend optimal compared with other media channels?

In an article for The Media Leader last week, EssenceMediacom's chief strategy officer Richard Kirk revealed new research that suggests brands are spending three times as much on paid social than is most efficient.

Kirk and Olga Zaitseva, EssenceMediacom's head of media science and modelling, join Jack Benjamin to unpack the findings.

According to the pair, paid social receives more attention from marketers than is strictly necessary, and if AV budgets were increased, campaign effectiveness would likely improve.

"We're starting to see multiple pieces of research all pointing in quite a specific direction," says Kirk. "And I would hope that those things combined start to lend real credence to this idea that maybe the industry has gone too far in one direction and needs to correct."

Highlights:

1:09: How surprising are EssenceMediacom's findings?

5:00: Reasons brands are overspending on social media

18:46: Caveats: different results for SMBs, production budgets

23:14: AV channels are underinvested. A look at other media channels

30:20: How research should be communicated to CMOs and CFOs

Related articles:

Brands could be spending three times too much on social. You read that right

Advertising generates profit, but not all media channels are equal

Thinkbox's Media Mix Navigator tool, which uses the same data as the EssenceMediacom study, can be accessed for free here. It provides econometric data for 2021-2023 from 141 brands across 14 product categories and 10 media channels, enabling advertisers to explore the impact of budget allocations on revenue and return on investment.

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