FEATURE10 February 2020

Channelling difference

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Features Impact Media UK

Advertising budgets are being squeezed, but Channel 4 is using extensive research tools to demonstrate the benefits and innovative opportunities associated with advertising on its channel. By Katie McQuater

There is something distinctly on-brand about walking into Channel 4’s Victoria headquarters, past the iconic ‘4’, to meet Martin Greenbank, the broadcaster’s head of advertising research and development. We are on comfy couches in a central, glass-walled office and it feels like we’re in the thick of it.

Greenbank leads the team in charge of advertising research and its stakeholders are the ad sales team, responsible for revenue generation. This is one of the four areas that make up Channel 4’s insight, the others being data science, audience research and insight, and strategy.

In an open media marketplace, Greenbank’s team needs to prove why Channel 4’s audience is valuable to brands and measure the effectiveness of media investment – from campaign effectiveness, sponsorship and tracking to econometric modelling. 

Research can open doors with advertisers and convince them that Channel 4 is a good use of their carefully guarded media budgets. “It leaves them with a sense that Channel 4, or any other media ...