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It’s Time for Brands to Find Their Voice Again

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By John Long

Three ways to rediscover a critical brand asset

So many brands today sound exactly the same. And that’s because the advertising industry has mostly abandoned one of the most powerful assets a brand can have: a distinctive brand voice. Pick up almost any brand style guide, turn to the tone voice section, and I bet you’ll find some variation of these attributes:

FRIENDLY
OPTIMISTIC
CLEAR
HELPFUL
GENUINE

All that’s missing from this insipid list is “useless.” Who would intentionally craft a brand that’s rude, pessimistic and phony?

Another “tone of voice” steer that pops up a lot in brand guidelines is this classic:

“We’re like that trusted, smart friend who always gives you great advice.”

Sorry, that’s not a brand voice—that’s a content strategy.

Everyone speaking in the same CLEAR and OPTIMISTIC tone giving HELPFUL, FRIENDLY ADVICE is making the work less effective. As Amy Kean observed, to their detriment, brands are all parroting the same vapid marketing speak. And this mind-numbing sea of sameness is obviously the opposite of what strong brands do. Because how a brand sounds is just as important as how it looks.

But there are a few brands that still understand how effective a tool brand voice is. And they’re getting noticed for it. Take Oatly.

It's Time for Brands to Find Their Voice Again
It's Time for Brands to Find Their Voice Again
It's Time for Brands to Find Their Voice Again
It's Time for Brands to Find Their Voice Again

Oatly is milk made from oats—it’s a bit of an oddball product. So they leaned into that weirdness and struck an irreverent, playful, somewhat sarcastic tone. And it’s worked. Whether it’s your cup of tea or not, it certainly stands out. And it’s pretty hard to argue with these results.

Now I’ll toot my own horn a bit—or I should say, David Abbott’s.

When I was leading creative at The Economist Group, I was determined to bring back AMV’s great “white out of red” campaign in social and digital. I couldn’t think of a reason why the iconic brand voice Abbott created for the brand—distinctly British, witty, and confident—wouldn’t work just as well as Instagram posts or banner ads. And sure enough, it did.

So how does one avoid the robotic pablum that’s taken over the industry and create a fresh brand voice? Here are three things to try.

  • A former ECD of mine, Cameron Day, had a particularly ingenious method. To create a brand voice, he combined two familiar, but distinct, personalities. A good example of this is the brand Cam came up with for a gourmet grocery store: “Dr. Seuss meets Dr. Frasier Crane.” So imagine a person who is deeply knowledgeable about fine foods—but delivers it with a dash of whimsy. Here’s what that sounded like. Delicious, yes?
  • Let’s go back to that helpful friend, the one always giving you good advice. To give that imaginary confidant a real voice, you have to ask yourself questions such as:

    Is your friend a man or a woman?
    Is she from New York or New Orleans?
    How old is she?
    Does she have a sense of humour? And is it the smart kind or a bit juvenile?

    In other words, you have to imagine an actual person. Brands are like people, and what makes people memorable and likable works for brands, too.

  • Replace that milquetoast tone of voice list with attributes that will give the voice some real character. And keep the list to two or three, not five. Doesn’t a brand that strives to be “irreverent, playful, and sarcastic” immediately seem more impactful than a brand that’s just “clear, friendly, and genuine”? Of course, you can’t just force random attributes on a brand. You have to unearth something about it that makes the voice seem inevitable. This is harder for some brands, to be sure—especially in certain categories—but it’s worth the effort.

Finally, I’d argue that brand voice is especially important in an era in which the business is more and more reliant on stock photography. If everyone is using the same pool of imagery, one way to stand apart from the pack is to give your brand a unique voice. Don’t settle for FRIENDLY.

By John Long of HS Ad

Sourced from Muse by CLIO

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5 Things Service-Driven Businesses Can Do To Impress Clients

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By Serenity Gibbons

In today’s world, it’s not enough to just have great products. To stand out, businesses need to find ways to impress customers so they won’t just be willing to buy their products again, but will also be eager to bring their friends along with them next time.

Keeping things simple and effective is essential with any strategy to remain optimally productive. Whether you are just starting or trying to inject new life into your business, it’s always a good idea to have some principles and techniques you can rely on at any given moment.

After all, what we do today determines where we’ll be tomorrow.

1. Change up your ad game.

Advertising is an essential component of almost all business growth strategies. But even though the industry has been around for a long time, the practices companies use rarely keep up with the latest cultural and psychosocial developments. What worked in advertising five years ago may work half as well today. And yet, many companies still aren’t adapting their methods …

As former Google policy director and book author, Tim Hwang, told TechCrunch in 2020, marketers are being fooled by programmatic advertising and misleading measurement systems, high costs and blatant advertising fraud created by fake clicks. He even goes as far as stating that the online ad industry is in need of a “controlled demolition.”

Matt Wasserlauf is the CEO of MyBlockboard, an ad distribution and management platform that eliminates fraudulent views. During a recent conversation, Wasserlauf spoke about two effective strategies to boost the reach of ads that still work in 2022.

“First, original video production is king these days. In a world of social media and thousands of new channels to drive content, good video is lacking. Quality, original production – coupled with effective distribution – is a great way to increase reach and effectiveness,” he said.

“Most importantly, you should find an effective distribution platform. While Google Ads and many other big ad distributors are getting swamped with billions of fake views (at least 25%), there are also providers that only enable real human viewers and thus can save you a lot of money. Choosing the right partner and platform is essential.”

2. Welcome (and respond to) criticism.

As a business scales, it will inevitably have customers who find faults with its products and service. Such criticism might sting, but it’s actually a great sign and opportunity for your business to grow and gain confidence in itself. Politely respond about why the choice was made and you’ll be one step further along to finding your core customer base.

Whether it’s on your website’s review section or social media posts, don’t ignore critical reviews. Instead, use them as a chance to clarify your choices. Be especially mindful of tone while doing this, but when done successfully, you not only diffuse negatively but give deeper insights into your brand’s values.

You can’t please everyone. In fact, attempting to do so might send an overgeneralized and muddled message. Accept that you don’t need everyone on your side — just the right ones.

3. Be transparent.

Transparency about sourcing, design features and deliverability timelines aren’t just nice add-ons in the business world — they have become standard expectations. Business leaders like Elon Musk have made everything from patents to long-term plans open and transparent to the public.

“We believe that applying the open-source philosophy to our patents will strengthen rather than diminish Tesla’s position in this regard,” Musk said in a 2014 Tesla blog post. “My money isn’t on the ideas, it’s on the execution.”

This kind of confidence attracts attention and new customers, as it gives the public an unfiltered vision of the brand’s present standing and future path. With the world supply chain still struggling to get fully back on its feet, delays have become incredibly common for virtually all industries. Don’t promise things you know you can’t realistically 100% know to meet.

Be upfront and transparent about where your business is at, and let your customers see behind the curtains a bit. Customers appreciate this kind of candour now more than ever.

4. Be proud of your price point.

If your product and services are quality, then their price will reflect this.

Rather than shy away from the discussion, attempt to downplay the pricing or promise discounts, defend your decision regarding price point proudly. No matter what your industry is, in a digital-first economy people note and appreciate confidence like this. It automatically associates your brand with quality.

If you keep adjusting the price, it’s obvious that it isn’t set in stone and customers will notice. This isn’t a good look, so find a price that prioritizes keeping your business afloat.

5. Don’t be afraid to shake things up.

It’s human nature to fall into a steady rhythm, whether in social media strategy or event schedules. This is all fine and well sometimes, but once a month or so, fly in the face of your normal conventions.

Do something that snaps both your team and customers out of any lull they might have fallen under. Shake up the content type, do an impromptu event or seminar — anything out of the ordinary.

Be silly, be bold and be not only whatever your business is but what it can be. Let the customers who support your brand know that real, breathing humans are behind the wheel. They’ll appreciate this and you’ll learn from their reactions.

Brand authority isn’t built in a day, but it is the culmination of successful strategies applied each day. If you want a future with new and excited customers, then turn your attention to impressing those whose attention you have today.

Feature Image Credit: Keeping things simple and effective is essential with any strategy to remain optimally productive. Getty

By Serenity Gibbons

Check out my website.

Serenity Gibbons is a former assistant editor at The Wall Street Journal. The local unit lead for the NAACP in Northern California and a consultant helping to build diverse workforces, Serenity enjoys gathering insights from people who are creating better workplaces and making a difference in the business world.

Sourced from Forbes

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‘Reading your mind’: How eyes, pupils and heart rate could be used to target ads in the metaverse

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By Aisling Ní Chúláin

If we’ve learned anything about new means of communication over the last century, it’s that where technology attracts people’s eyes and ears, advertisers won’t be long chasing after them.

It’s been the case with radio, cinema, TV, the Internet and social media, so it seems almost impossible that it won’t be the case in the so-called metaverse – the new fully realised, shared universe that companies like Meta are proposing to build.

In perhaps a sign of things to come, a host of brands have already dipped their toes into gaming metaverses, hosting virtual fashion shows and dropping exclusive collections in game.

Luxury fashion houses like Louis Vuitton, Valentino and Marc Jacobs have all designed digital items for the social simulation game Animal Crossing – and Balenciaga has collaborated with Fortnite on an exclusive drop of wearable skins for in-game characters, to name but a few.

‘Think about it as placement in the product instead of product placement’

But now that Meta, a targeted advertising powerhouse, has staked its claim to the metaverse, some experts are raising the alarm about the specific implications immersive advertising will have for user privacy, safety and consent.

“When you think about advertising in XR, you should think about it as placement in the product instead of product placement,” Brittan Heller, counsel with American law firm Foley Hoag and an expert in privacy and safety in immersive environments, told Euronews Next.

“The way that advertising works in these contexts is a little different because you seek out the experiences. You like the experiences,” she explained.

We’re rapidly moving into a space where your intentions and your thoughts are substantial data sets that have technological importance in a way that they didn’t before.

Brittan Heller
Human Rights Counsel – Foley Hoag LLP

“An ad in virtual reality may look like buying a designer jacket for your digital avatar [but] that’s an ad for a clothing company that you are wearing on your body”.

“It may look like buying a game that puts you into Jurassic Park – [but] what better way to advertise the movie franchise than to actually put you in the experience of being in Jurassic Park?”

What is biometric psychography?

The problem here, according to Heller, is that in the metaverse, the capability for harvesting biometric data and using that sensitive data to target ads tailored to you, goes far beyond the considerable amount of data Facebook already uses to build our consumer profiles.

If the technology that Meta is promising comes to fruition, the possibility exists that a form of targeted advertising which tracks involuntary biological responses could be proliferated.

The risk that I think we’ve learnt from Cambridge Analytica is that privacy risks come into play when you have the combination of unanticipated data sets, especially when you’re looking at emerging technology.

Brittan Heller
Human Rights Counsel – Foley Hoag LLP

For VR headsets to work in this environment, Heller says, they will have to be able to track your pupils and your eyes.

This means advertisements could be tailored according to what attracts or holds your visual attention and how you physically respond to it.

Heller has coined a term for this combination of one’s biometric information with targeted advertising: biometric psychography.

If an entity had access to biometric data such as pupil dilation, skin moistness, EKG or heart rate – bodily indicators that happen involuntarily in response to stimuli – and combined it with existing targeted advertising datasets, it would be “akin to reading your mind,” Heller said.

“The type of information you can get from somebody’s pupil dilation, for example – that can tell you whether or not somebody is telling the truth. It can tell you whether or not somebody is sexually attracted to the person that they’re seeing,” she explained.

“We’re rapidly moving into a space where your intentions and your thoughts are substantial data sets that have technological importance in a way that they didn’t before”.

“The risk that I think we’ve learnt from Cambridge Analytica is that privacy risks come into play when you have the combination of unanticipated data sets, especially when you’re looking at emerging technology”.

Regulating the metaverse

Heller believes that biometric laws in the United States are insufficient in protecting users from use or misuse of this kind of data because “biometrics laws in the States are defined by protecting your identity, not protecting your thoughts or your impulses”.

With the metaverse, the risk remains that the pace of development of the technology will outstrip the ability of institutions to regulate them effectively as has arguably been the case with social media platforms.

In light of the fact that companies hoping to build the metaverse are multinational and operate across borders, Heller believes the most effective way to deal with these issues of user protection is a “human rights based approach”.

“There are many stakeholders in this, there’s civil society, there are public groups, there are governments and then there are intergovernmental organisations as well,” she explained.

“A human rights approach has been the way that we’ve been able to bring all of these players and their concerns together and make sure that everybody is heard”.

But what can companies do to protect people in the metaverse?

If tech organisations are serious about guaranteeing users’ digital rights in immersive environments, it will depend on them being open about the technology they are developing.

“I would want companies to be more transparent with the functionality of their technologies, not just their intentions and their business plans, but how this will work,” Heller said.

“That will help lawmakers ask the questions that they need to protect the public and to cooperate with each other for trans border technology”.

By Aisling Ní Chúláin

Sourced from euronews.next

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Why The Ad Industry Needs More Of A Collective Consciousness

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By  

 

By now, it is little surprise that the programmatic advertising marketplace underwrites lots of nefarious activities, including various forms of ad fraud, organized crime and a variety of publishers of misinformation. But who knew it was all being funded by legitimate advertisers? Apparently, NewsGuard did.

To put some dimension around the role legitimate advertisers play in supporting illegitimate information publishers, NewsGuard teamed with Comcscore to conduct a unique analysis correlating NewsGuard’s database of bad actors with Comscore’s estimates for digital advertising value. The result: advertisers are sending $2.6 billion annually to misinformation sites.

While the report does not make a case that many — if any — advertisers are doing that wilfully, it sheds light on the unintended consequences Madison Avenue plays in disrupting the world’s knowledge by placing programmatic media buys to reach the right audience, but in the wrong places.

“The data underscore the scale at which online misinformation and disinformation is unintentionally bought and paid for by major advertisers, who place their ads on thousands of websites using programmatic advertising, a byzantine, computerized process — leaving brands with little idea where their ads are appearing and what messages they are financing,” NewsGuard states in the report, adding an even more ironic implication: that much of that spending is coming at the expense of authentic publishers of information: newspaper websites.

According to NewsGuard’s analysis of data from eMarketer and the Pew Research Centre, “for every $2.16 in digital advertising sent to legitimate newspapers, U.S. advertisers are sending $1 to misinformation sites.”

Now, after covering media planning and buying for more than 40 years, I know as well as anyone that when it comes to such things, Madison Avenue doesn’t have a collective consciousness — or a conscience — and that the results of this unintended underwriting of bad actors is at worst, simple negligence driven by ignorance, marketplace pragmatism, or most ironic of all, misinformation.

But maybe it’s time for advertisers and agencies to develop more of a collective approach to solving this problem. We are already seeing some signs of that in both individual agency (some of the biggest have already signed up to NewsGuard’s data to create whitelists and blacklists for filtering misinformation sites from their media buys) and industry initiatives like the World Federation of Advertisers GARM (Global Alliance for Responsible Media).

Those efforts aren’t just good corporate citizenry, but also good business practice. For a variety of reasons, including economics and especially in regard to one of the ad industry’s favourite Holy Grail acronyms: ROAS (return on advertising spending).

How do I know this, because I was also sent an analysis conducted by audience research lab MediaScience, which found that ad spending on legitimate news outlets outperforms ad spending places on illegitimate ones.

The analysis measured 5,350 participants and ran across 42 newspaper print runs and 252 websites for a total of 6,037 unique brand exposures, comparing a variety of brand exposure and lift metrics for ads placed on news publishers vs. ads placed on Facebook and YouTube.

The results:

  • Newspaper ads outperform Facebook ads of all types by up to four times.
  • Combined news formats are twice as effective as combined Facebook formats.
  • Ads in news are as good as (or better than) ads on YouTube.
  • News offers a stronger ROI than social media.

Sourced from MediaPost

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Embarrassing Coca-Cola design fail bemuses the internet

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By ,

Corporate Pride strikes again.

One inevitability of Pride month is what’s (un)affectionately known as Corporate Pride – which, as the name suggests, involves all manner of brands paying lip service to the cause with rainbow logos and the like. One of the slightly more creative efforts this year came from Coca-Cola – but it appears to have backfired spectacularly.

The company’s new custom bottle creator lets users personalise a rainbow-coloured Coca-Cola bottle sticker by entering a word, name or phrase of their choice. But the list of banned phrases, as well as some that are allowed, has proven somewhat questionable. (Check out our best print ads for some bold advertising that actually works.)

Coca-Cola

Coca-Cola’s custom bottle creator (Image credit: Coca-Cola)

If the user attempts to create a bottle with one of Coca-Cola’s prohibited words or phrases, they’ll receive the message: “Oops! Looks like the name you requested is not an approved one. Names may not be approved if they’re potentially offensive to other people, trademarked, or celebrity names. We’ve worked hard to get this list right, but sometimes we mess up. If you think this is an error, please contact our Customer Care team. Otherwise, please try again, keep it fun and in the spirit of sharing!”

And, naturally, users have been testing the limits of what Coca-Cola considers “fun and in the spirit of sharing”. In one of many eyebrow-raising examples, ‘White Lives Matter’ = fine, whereas ‘Black Lives Matter’ = not fine.

“We’re continuously refining and improving our Share A Coke personalisation tool to ensure it is used only for its intended purpose,” a Coca-Cola spokesperson told CNN Business. “Actual bottles are not made with words that are inconsistent with the program’s intent. We have clarified in the tool’s preview mode that proposed language may require further review.”

While we appreciate the company’s desire to filter out offensive phrases, one can’t help but wonder whether Coca-Cola’s half-hearted censorship mechanism is actually better than no mechanism at all. Like McDonald’s tasteless coronavirus-themed logo, Coke has ended up, no matter how well-intentioned, with a bonafide marketing fail on its hands. Still, at least it’s in good company this year – who can forget Burger King’s abysmal attempt at humour on International Women’s Day a few months back?

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Sourced from CREATIVE BLOQ

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If You Believe Advertising Works Then Don’t Argue Against the UK HFSS Ad Ban

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By Amelia Torode,

Presenter Vanessa Feltz’s BBC Radio London researcher messaged me last week asking whether I’d be happy to give an industry insider response on-air to the news that, in an effort to curb childhood obesity, the British government had enacted a new watershed TV and online ban on high fat, sugar and salt (HFSS) food advertising.

I’d seen the official industry response, and it had made me uneasy.

The Advertising Association declared themselves to be “dismayed” by the news. The Food and Drink Federation said that they were “disappointed …the proposals would make it difficult to advertise many products that have been carefully reformulated or created in smaller packaging. … Many food and drink companies won’t be able to advertise new product innovations … and larger food-on-the-go, pub and restaurant chains may not be able to tell their customers about their menus.”

Elsewhere, the IAB wrote that the ban “will create untold damage to the advertising industry” and that banning ads online will achieve “next to nothing in terms of reversing children’s obesity rates.” The News Media Association declared the ban “draconian.”

I am aware that I am in a position of privilege in so much as I work as an independent strategy consultant, so I’m not beholden to a global agency network and can consequentially give my opinion and not have toe the party line. But there comes a point when we all have to be honest about what we’re hearing and feeling.

At a fundamental level, we have to make a choice: either we believe advertising works or we don’t.

The moral issue

If we think advertising does work, then we probably shouldn’t be getting to upset about a pre-9 p.m. junk food advertising ban aimed at children. If, however, we believe that advertising doesn’t work then we’re probably in the wrong business.

When I posted about the HFSS ban on Twitter, the strategy community seemed divided and conflicted. I was warned about culture wars, told that “no government should be allowed to tell me what I can eat or drink,” that obesity has nothing to do with advertising. I had Jeremy Bullmore, author and former chairman of JWT London, quoted at me as saying, “Advertising’s role is to provide the best advice to clients to meet their business objectives. It has no remit to take a stance on issues.”

Really? I felt so sure this quote was not something Bullmore would actually say. So I emailed him, and he said the quote is fake.

“I’m pretty sure I’ve never written anything along those lines. It’s meaningless anyway since a company’s known stance on issues can help or impede the meeting of its business objectives,” he responded.

I have also heard a lot of anger at the perceived hypocrisy of our industry. Anger at (unnamed) IPA Effectiveness winners declaring at an ISBA conference that HFSS advertising had no significant effect on consumption.

HFSS food pun intended, our industry wants to have our delicious cake and eat it.

During Cannes Lions, when our industry is heartily patting each other on the back for the brilliance of our social purpose advertising campaigns that have apparently changed hearts and minds around the world, it just seems funny how advertising doesn’t do anything when it comes to HFSS.

Thank you for smoking

There’s a brilliant dark comedy Thank You for Smoking in which Aaron Eckhart, the lobbyist for Big Tobacco, tries to remain a role model for his 12-year-old son while simultaneously doing his job standing up for the cigarette industry. Spoiler alert: He fails.

The language that our industry is using around HFSS and children seems to be remarkably similar to the language the self-titled MOD (Merchants of Death) Squad tobacco, firearms and alcohol lobbyists use in this damning satire. It got me thinking about whether we use the same language back in 2003 when cigarette advertisements were finally banned.

Trying to understand from a client that was grappling with the new implications and impact of the ban, I spoke to Ross Farquhar, CMO of cult mochi ice cream brand Little Moons.

Ross and the Little Moons team worry this ban is devastating. “For a company like McDonald’s, Dominos or Unilever, they can side-step the ban because they can still run brand adverting that doesn’t show product. Our brand isn’t that widely known yet so we can’t do that.”

One of the loopholes would be that a company like McDonalds, so long as they didn’t show hamburgers, would be fine. In fact, they can actually advertise chicken nuggets as those fall within the acceptable HFSS range.

Farquhar’s point was that for a company like Little Moons that has yet to break into the mass mainstream and doesn’t have the brand awareness has to talk about product, especially when it’s a Japanese product that is not very well known. Now they’ve lost that opportunity on television.

There are a number of other loopholes and exceptions. OOH advertising is still permitted; small- and mid-sized businesses with less than 250 employees will not be impacted by the ban. However, Little Moons produces all their ice cream in the U.K., so while they are a small company, their headcount takes them above the magical 249 number and they’re therefore applicable to the new ruling.

My overarching view remains the same. We have the most overweight children in all of Europe. It’s a health time bomb of epic proportions, and we need an honest approach to tackling it, of which advertising is a part. For our industry to deny that advertising can shape desire and prompt purchase is simply mealy-mouthed.

By Amelia Torode

Amelia Torode is a co-founder of The Fawnbrake Collective.

Sourced from ADWEEK

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The on-demand economy will fuel shoppable video

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By Thomas Hobbs

The global pandemic has boosted consumer appetite for shoppable video and accelerated the move towards an on-demand economy.

At The Drum’s Digital Transformation Festival, during a fireside chat, Stuart Heffernan, head of e-commerce at Pernod Ricard, and Nicola Spooner, vice-president of strategy for Unruly, asserted that post-pandemic consumption habits were here to stay and would fuel a shoppable content boom.

On-demand e-commerce

“This past year has been revolutionary for e-commerce,” said Heffernan. “In the space of a year, on-demand retail and players have boomed globally.”

Uber’s acquisition of the drinks delivery platform Drizly, Pernod Ricard’s recent stake in on-demand grocery platform Glovo and the rise of delivery apps in mature e-commerce markets such as the UK all suggest this trend will continue.

Heffernan also remarked: “On-demand will stick around because people get hooked on convenience and are prepared to pay a premium for it. Uber Eats’ alcohol sales have increased significantly – that’s a premium price point for standard products because it is pure speed and convenience.”

Connected TV growth

The two also spoke about the rise of ‘hometainment’ and how it dovetailed with the rise in super-fast, on-demand e-commerce.

Spooner said: “Consumers are accessing more content in an on-demand capacity than ever before. We don’t predict that slowing because now that people have trialled that kind of method of indulging in content, they’re not going to want to let it go.”

She added that while she could foresee a consolidation in subscription services, there would always be a thirst for on-demand quality content. “For brands, that brings an exciting opportunity because we’re delivering a lot of creative shoppable solutions.”

According to a recent study from Unruly, 72% of UK advertisers say connected TV (CTV) is a key part of their video advertising strategy. There is also a huge amount of optimism about the medium’s future, with all media agencies and 77% of brands saying they plan to invest more in CTV during the next 12 months.

The pandemic-induced boom of branded ‘hometainment’ experiences, such as showing how to make cocktails or advice on pairing food and wine, has readied consumers for shoppable content from brands.

Heffernan argued that this would continue to be the case even after lockdowns ends.

“Even if the pandemic has completely gone away by January next year, it will still be cold and wet and I will still be sitting at home. So, if a Jameson brand ambassador reaches me through the right media targeting, then yes, I will engage because it’s something to do on a Wednesday night.”

Unruly’s Spooner said that making branded content shoppable and serviceable by the on-demand apps consumers have grown to depend on during lockdown will induce impulse purchasing.

According to Unruly and research consultancy MTM, 90% of digital advertisers plan to increase their CTV spend in 2021.

“Shoppable content really opens the doors to impulse purchasing,” said Spooner. “If you are watching content around cooking and there is the contextual placement for Jameson’s cocktails or Viejo wines, I – as a consumer – could be inspired and take action immediately.”

From awareness to conversion

Both panellists agreed that TV is no longer about brand-building but about conversion, adding that advertisers should now augment campaigns with shoppable elements.

“There are plenty of ways to add shoppable elements to campaigns,” said Spooner. “It could be a light touch brand bar over the top of an amazing TV creative or an on-screen QR code so that consumers can scan it with their phone, which is location-enabled, and have that experience in their front room in moments.”

Ultimately, shoppable video will allow marketers to build video into every stage of their marketing plan rather than simply viewing it as an awareness boosting tool.

By Thomas Hobbs

Sourced from The Drum

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Facebook tests ads in virtual reality headsets

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Sourced from BBC

Facebook has begun displaying ads in its Oculus virtual reality headsets, despite the founder of the platform saying it would never do so.

In what the social network described as an experiment, ads will begin to appear in a game called Balston with other developers rolling out similar ads.

It said it would listen to feedback before launching virtual reality ads more widely.

It also revealed it is testing new ad formats “that are unique to VR”.

In 2017, shortly after Facebook bought Oculus, creator Palmer Luckey told the Next Web: “We are not going to track you, flash ads at you, or do anything invasive.”

But in a blog on Oculus’s website, the firm said: “We’re exploring new ways for developers to generate revenue – this is a key part of ensuring we’re creating a self-sustaining platform that can support a variety of business models that unlock new types of content and audiences.”

Users will be able to hide specific ads or those from a certain advertiser and Facebook promised that its privacy policy would remain the same.

“Facebook will get new information, like whether you interacted with an ad, and if so, how… for example, if you clicked on the ad for more information or if you hid the ad.”

It encourages customers to share their feedback via the Oculus support page.

Barrier to adoption?

Last month the firm began testing ads in the Oculus mobile app.

Leo Gebbie, an analyst with CCS Insight, said the move was unsurprising.

“Ultimately Facebook is built on advertising revenue and if there was any expectation that it wouldn’t build it out into virtual reality, then that is a little naive.”

Oculus Quest 2 headsets start at £299, and in the US are also offered for $299, and that price means it is being sold at “incredibly low or even loss-leading margins,” said Mr Gebbie.

This could mean Facebook becomes the dominant player, as others are unable to compete.

“The long-term goal is for Oculus to be a platform for virtual reality and augmented reality, with Facebook keen to get as many people as possible using it,” he said.

But, he noted, there would probably be a backlash against ads on the headset.

“Facebook doesn’t have the best track record on privacy and there is a concern that it will continue to push the boundaries and creep towards something that is invasive.”

Piers Harding-Rolls, research director of games at Ampere Analysis, said VR offered big opportunities for the tech firms.

“If people are spending more time using this technology, those that dominate the online advertising opportunity – including Facebook and Google – want to be well-placed to take advantage of any shift in consumer habits, so that they can follow the audience with their advertising networks.”

But they needed to be careful about balancing advertising with a good user experience, he warned.

“While there is nothing exceptional about having advertising in games, the intimate and immersive nature of VR means that the consumer experience is likely to feel a lot different and that might represent a barrier to adoption.”

Sourced from BBC

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Google is totally changing how ads track people around the Internet. Here’s what you need to know.

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It’s a common sight: Ads from that time you Googled flights to Cancún, or visited Nike to look for new running shoes, following you around the Internet.

Much of that tracking is made possible by cookies — little bits of code that jump off websites and lodge themselves in your browser, allowing new sites you visit to see where you’ve been before. Facebook and Google, the two most profitable advertising companies in history, use cookies to show ads across the Web based on info gathered on their own sites and social media networks.

But that’s all changing. Google has vowed to block cookies completely on its Chrome browser, which is used by around 70 percent of the world’s desktop computer owners, by the beginning of 2022. The decision, announced last year, sent shock waves through the advertising world, which has maintained revenue from tracking is necessary to fund a largely free Web.

Google says it has solutions to allow advertisers to keep showing relevant ads, but in privacy-protecting ways. Taken together, the company’s proposals are meant to let Web publishers, e-commerce companies and advertising agencies continue using targeted ads to make money, while assuring regular Internet users their data isn’t being stockpiled by an ever-growing list of companies and websites.

But privacy activists have already started poking holes in Google’s ideas.

And it may not matter. Advertising technology companies such as the Trade Desk have already taken the matter into their own hands, banding together to create new tracking tools that use email addresses. Other major companies have shown signs of pushing back against Google’s proposals, such as Amazon, which is currently blocking Chrome from collecting data on which users go to its websites. (Amazon chief executive Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post.)

Meanwhile, politicians and antitrust investigators in multiple countries have raised alarms that Google’s move could hurt competitors and further cement its power. And for regular Internet users, this largely behind-the-scenes change could have major implications for how private companies hoover up our data and make decisions about what we see online.

Here’s what you need to know.

How did we get here?

Cookies were written into early browsers to cut down on some of the inconveniences of surfing the Web. They allowed passwords to auto-fill, or websites to remember payment information so users didn’t have to type theirs in every time they came back. They also created a trail of breadcrumbs that the burgeoning online ad industry eagerly ate up, helping free websites make money.

But as the technology advanced, social media took off and consumers’ lives were lived increasingly online, it got creepy. Privacy advocates have always criticized the model, and more and more regular people have become aware of the issue, some expressing their displeasure by downloading ad blockers.

Google isn’t the first to make this change. Apple in 2017 started limiting and eventually blocking third-party cookies completely from its Safari browser. Mozilla’s Firefox followed soon after. But those two browsers make up less than 20 percent of the market, according to research firm eMarketer.

Despite Google’s own reliance on advertising and tracking for roughly $180 billion a year in revenue, chief executive Sundar Pichai admitted during a 2019 congressional hearing that people don’t like to feel they’re being tracked around the Internet. And in January 2020, Google said it too would block third-party cookies on Chrome within the next two years.

The changes come as politicians in the United States and elsewhere step up their attempts to regulate privacy. The European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation has forced companies to ask permission before tracking people online since 2018. In 2020, America’s most populous state instituted the California Consumer Privacy Act, which gives California residents the right to ask companies to delete whatever data has been gathered on them. As is the case with other consumer-focused regulation, the California law has essentially become the default nationwide.

Feature Image Credit: (Washington Post illustration; iStock)

By Gerrit De Vynck

Sourced from The Washington Post

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13 Smart Ways For Marketers To Leverage TikTok

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Sourced from Forbes

TikTok continues to surge in popularity. As of January of 2021, the platform had more than 680 million users worldwide. With so many users on the short-form video app, it’s quickly become a relevant channel for advertising. However, it can be a challenge for brands to create a short video ad without it coming across as run-of-the-mill, highly produced commercial.

If you’re considering using TikTok in your marketing efforts, it’s important to understand how to effectively reach your target audience on the platform. Below, 13 members of Forbes Agency Council detail the best ways to grab consumers’ attention and gain their trust by leveraging TikTok to market your business.

1. Entertain Before You Try To Sell

Leverage TikTok by making authentic content that aims to entertain first and sell second, if at all. As the adage goes, “If you’re going to crash a party, bring champagne.” To stretch that analogy a bit, modern audiences are smart enough to know if you’ve brought champagne or a cheap bottle of Cava from the shop down the road. – Dan Cullen-Shute, Creature

2. Leverage Influencers And Branded Hashtag Challenges

One way to engage audiences on TikTok in a contextually relevant manner is to work with TikTok influencers to promote your brand or product. The platform has a creator’s marketplace to help you search for influencers that best fit your brand, audience and desired outcome. Another option is the branded hashtag challenge ad format, which encourages user-generated content about your product or brand. – Greg Garunov, Sightly

3. Drive Emotion And Connection

TikTok is built off of driving emotion and connection with the viewer. Marketers can easily leverage authentic influencer content from this platform that could become explosive on other platforms at a lower cost, yet still has a higher impact than even a Super Bowl commercial, as we’ve seen with the viral TikTok leggings, for example. – Logan Rae, Argon Agency

4. Share Practical Advice

Short-form video has been around for decades in the form of video news releases or news segments, with little care paid to it. Instead of trying to sound smart, share practical advice that helps another person level up personally, professionally or emotionally. Raw, unedited advice will captivate an audience that’s willing to listen. – Brad Ginsburg, Global Communication Works (GCW)

5. Give Them A Reason To Watch

Authenticity is key for any platform. TikTok is still purely entertainment; the ad world hasn’t bombarded it—yet. That means two things: The ad value is under-priced, and the audience is growing rapidly. If your marketing doesn’t appear entertaining, they will flick right past you. Remember the give/get model here for a path to success: Give them a reason to watch, and you’ll get an impression or an action. – Rob Fallon, Bluewater

6. Follow The Trends

Part of the magic of TikTok is how the content is created. It’s meant to be fun, not perfect. Brands need to understand that a perfectly produced ad will most likely stand out on TikTok, and not in a good way. Brands need to create content that is native in format and follows the trends that other users are following. That will get you into a conversation, rather than ruining the conversation. – Brian Meert, AdvertiseMint

7. Be Timely And Relevant

TikTok trends live and die overnight; what’s popular today may not be tomorrow. The smartest brands on the platform have mastered creating timely and relevant content by jumping on trends within hours of them becoming popular. The great thing about TikTok is that content doesn’t have to be polished or professionally shot. Many brands create content on their mobile devices, with minimal editing. – Charlie Grinnell, RightMetric

8. Find Inspiration In User-Produced Content

It is crucial for brands to engage with the audience in a way that’s endemic to the platform and not like standard ads or social channels. Get inspired by user-produced content (i.e., paid talent), and don’t worry about trying to piggyback on the latest thing. Be creative and design your own tropes that are fun, engaging and relevant to the brand while encouraging the audience to do the same. – Jason Parkin, Compose[d]

9. Lean Into The Creator Community

TikTok can be a powerful channel for creative storytelling and marketing opportunities. Brands should lean into the creator community and co-create content that provides value in terms of entertainment and/or education. Each brand is unique; some brands might create behind-the-scenes content or a sneak peek at a new product, while others provide entertainment or education. – Paula Bruno, Intuition Media Group d/b/a Blissful Media Group

10. Tell A Story

Take your lead from viral TikTok creators and use the power of a story. By using text on top of a video, you won’t come across as overly polished, but you will catch their eye, even if the sound is off. Start with a short bit of text that establishes a problem plaguing your ideal customer, ideally a fear or concern. Then drop in text to help solve their problem step by step. – Samantha Reynolds, ECHO Storytelling Agency

11. Mirror Your Audience’s Interests

Don’t be something you are not, regardless of medium. Ask yourself, “Why is my audience on TikTok?” What are they looking for on the app? Create content to mirror their interests. If they are there to be entertained, post something entertaining. If they are there to learn, offer educational tips or tricks on how to use your product or service. A good rule of thumb is to make it 80% information and 20% ad. – Sara Steever, Paulsen

12. Try Using The Duet Function

TikTok has a more creator-driven aesthetic versus the “produced” approach we see on other channels. To be successful, brands have to adapt their content to trends and do creative, in-app editing instead of pushing out canned content. TikTok users can easily sniff out inauthenticity. Also, using the TikTok Duet function and filters provides a more genuine way to connect with the platform’s dialled-in audience. – Mike Popowski, Dagger

13. Get Your Team Involved

Stick to using in-app features, and commit your team to only filming with their mobile devices. Encourage your team to find content that they can do a TikTok Duet with, or trending content they can do their own versions of, such as challenges or dances. Even supplying your team with swag they can wear is enough to feature your brand without looking as if you’re trying too hard. – Bernard May, National Positions

Sourced from Forbes

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