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The future of marketing is building a privacy-safe world

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By Benjamin Poole

“Privacy regulations, e-commerce integration, customer data platforms, and better ROI optimization enabled by smarter marketing analytics” will be some of the leading trends going forward, according to Ben Poole, head of office of Singapore-based data company Fifty-Five.

Brands are finding themselves in very uncertain business environments, as there is a move towards the post-pandemic new normal. As already experienced, the decisions being made today will chart the journey to the future of digital marketing, and impact long-term successes. Here are some trends that will impact the digital marketing landscape of the present and the future.

Consumer data privacy will reshape digital marketing

Cookies and other available trackers will continue to be compromised by the ‘triple cookie restriction’: legal (GDPR, PDPA); technical (browsers and operating systems); and behavioural (ad blockers and cookie notice blockers). Consumer data privacy is a key concern for regulators and consumers alike, as more turn to online services and platforms to fulfil day-to-day functions. Data privacy regulations are fast evolving in Southeast Asia. For example, Singapore and Thailand have already implemented PDPA (personal data protection act) regulations that comprise requirements governing the collection, use, and care of personal data which protects consumer data privacy.

In 2022 and beyond, countries in Southeast Asia are expected to seek tougher approaches to data regulations. These data privacy enhancements are already leading to a major shift across advertising platforms to develop consent-based solutions. Meanwhile, the ‘walled gardens’ such as social platforms like Google, Facebook, and e-commerce like Lazada will seek to strengthen their hand with first-party data, while the rest of the open web will come to rely more and more on contextually driven targeting solutions.

With the increasing shift to first-party data and modelization, media measurement and activation teams will increasingly employ data compliance experts and data scientists to ensure data safety, data quality, and data actionability. The securing of data, renewal of measurement and targeting approaches, and deployment of a ‘watch-and-innovate’ mindset will become ever more important in 2022.

Ecommerce will change how brands organize themselves and their data

The pandemic has accelerated Southeast Asia’s digital commerce transformation. By the end of 2021, there will be 350 million digital consumers in this region, of which almost 80% of consumers will have gone digital, according to Facebook’s Annual Digital Consumer Report.

In 2022 and beyond, many digital habits learned in the last few months will persist, including e-commerce and grocery shopping – which have seen the most profound change with almost half of all digital consumers in Southeast Asia now shopping online for daily necessities.

The divergence of media investments across digital platforms (Google, Facebook, TikTok) and marketplaces (Lazada, Shopee, Amazon, Tokopedia), has led to increased data and organizational silos, creating challenges around accurately measuring and optimizing digital marketing budgets.

Brands will reorganize to integrate digital media and e-commerce teams while rethinking their data architecture to take into account this increased investment into new e-retail platforms.

The future will be about a unified customer view

As Southeast Asia continues to see a transformation in online user behaviour and digital commerce, marketing investments have diversified across various platforms, leading to data silos that prevent digital marketers from seeing a complete view of customers and their buying journeys.

The customer data platform (CDP) promises to reconcile all channels’ first-party data in a privacy-compliant manner. The CDP creates a more complete view of each customer by capturing data from multiple systems, linking information related to the same customer, and storing the information to track behaviour over time. It contains personal identifiers used to target marketing messages and track individual-level marketing results.

The real question then would be: will all marketers need a CDP? Not necessarily, as there are currently more than 10 technologies such as Google Cloud Platform, that have features that overlap with a CDP existing in the market today that can achieve similar results.

Therefore, when choosing to acquire a CDP, the marketer must first determine if they have access to a large amount of individual-level data to learn how to achieve a higher level of data granularity. Marketers should also consider whether they have the in-house skills necessary to deploy a CDP, whether that be an IT team or knowledgeable marketing technologist.

Evolving shape of brand engagement backed by digital analytics

The future of digital marketing analytics technology is bright. New and improved tech such as Google Analytics 4 will represent a new paradigm in digital analytics. Digital marketers will look forward to more in-depth marketing analytics and e-commerce reports, which will provide the opportunity to create enriched customer journeys that are multi-screen and multi-device.

Expect to see cross-platform material benefits (consistent metrics and dimensions, for integrated reporting across web and app); flexible and efficient (faster event modelling for more granular and flexible analysis); more visual (ad-hoc analysis and improved data visualization for a deeper understanding of your users); more intelligent (machine learning capabilities that automatically surface insights, anomalies and predictions).

A new era in digital marketing beckons, driven by evolving data privacy, emerging consumer behaviours, and technology solutions that will help the modern marketer craft privacy safe, superior customer experiences – all driven by data. The securing of compliant data, the design of new media measurement and activation methods, and keeping a ‘watch-and-innovate’ mindset towards regulatory and platform privacy changes, will be key to succeeding in 2022 and beyond.

The future would be about unlocking the potential of these advanced analytics to give digital marketers more user-centric insights, with a much deeper understanding of individual customer journeys, and how to improve them for better business results.

By Benjamin Poole

Ben Poole is head of office of Singapore-based data company Fifty-Five.

Sourced from The Drum

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How can you effectively measure social media marketing?

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By Jenny Stanley,

Social media ROI is one of the most important key performance indicators (KPIs) in marketing. It is often expressed as a percentage. KPIs allow you to compare and contrast different marketing channels to determine the effectiveness and efficiency of each channel.

Unlike measurements such as likes or shares, which are specific to social media, you can easily compare the ROI of all your social networks to that of your search engine advertising or email campaigns. This is because analysing your ROI across various channels allows you to rationalize the impact of all your marketing efforts with one clear concise single measurement. This analysis helps you identify immediately which social networks are most profitable as well as cost-effective for your business.

How do you measure customer engagement on social media?

Engagement is often considered to be one of the most valuable metrics for measuring lead generation on social media. However, you need to consider a multitude of factors when it comes to customer engagement. For example, are you addressing the right audience, how will your audience interact with your brand, and what does your audience do to engage with your brand and spread your content? A large follower base and many quality posts mean nothing if users are not genuinely interested in what you are offering.

To measure engagement, you need to measure user reactions. The reality of modern social media is that people see a lot of news and fresh content every day. If a consumer is interested in a piece of content, they will take a moment to comment on or like a post. Customer engagement on social media is a one-time thing. In effect, it shows that the user is interested in your brand’s publication in a well-filled community.

Measuring customer engagement

Retweets, likes, bookmarks and time spent watching your stories or videos can be monitored in real-time. To do this, you need to use social analytics software and web tools. You can also measure customer engagement using a specific formula: customer engagement = (amount of interactions/reach of posts) x 100.

Measuring negative customer engagement

Negative feedback is another form of customer engagement. You can know how a customer feels about your company, even with a negative comment. By taking the time to express themselves, the consumer is in a way showing that they expect a correction, which in turn can improve their experience.

How to measure the success of social media marketing?

As stated above, KPIs help in your company’s decision-making process. There are a few indicators that will be discussed in turn below. Each indicator should be monitored according to the objectives you have set yourself. For ease, we will group them into four sub-categories.

Reach

The reach metric lets you know how far your content reaches in terms of audience. In other words, it is an indication of the number of people who have seen your publication once. However, using reach as a metric for success should be done with caution. This is because the reach metric is often an estimated figure. However, the benefit of this is that it allows you to quantify the size of your potential audience. For example, a reach of 10,000 means that 10,000 people will see your publication at least once in their news feed.

Impressions

The impressions metric should be distinguished from reach. It corresponds to the number of times your publication has appeared on the screen. This content can be seen several times by the same person. For example, if your reach is 1,000 as in the previous example and the number of impressions is 10,000, it could be assumed that users have seen the publication 10 times.

Mentions

Mentions are the number of times your content has been mentioned by a person or influencer. This is one way to reach more people. Being mentioned often can mean that your content is liked for its quality. For example, when a person or influencer mentions you in a post or shares your content, they use the @personname feature. You will receive a notification that they have mentioned you.

Community

This indicator corresponds to your number of subscribers. You can follow its evolution. Its increase or decrease should be closely observed as it is directly correlated to the quality of your content. This indicator also allows you to learn more about the profile of your community (for example, their gender, age or location).

To measure the reach of your posts, impressions, mentions and your community, you can use social media tools such as Facebook Insights, Instagram Insights and Twitter Analytics. Each platform has its specificities. For example, with LinkedIn Demographics, you can learn more about the professional characteristics of your site visitors. Facebook Insights will allow you to know the hours of activity of your community.

There are alternatives to the integrated tools for knowing the results of your actions on social networks. This is the case of tools such as Hootsuite or CX Social, to name but a few.

How do I optimize content for social media marketing?

Ensuring an effective presence on social networks is a marketing challenge for all companies. Global login statistics show that potential customers are online more than elsewhere. This means that companies need to get involved in digital, which is now at the heart of marketing strategies.

Methods for social media and optimizing your marketing strategy

While all companies are now present on social media, not all have the same results. Information with high added value for internet users is needed, but the publication medium plays an equally important role. Even when communicating about your products, the approach must be designed to arouse the curiosity of the user.

Adjusting your brand to your audience

On social networks, you must adjust to the sensitivities of your community, depending on the medium on which you are communicating. As a rule, long texts are not welcome. The preferred format on social networks is images and videos, which may explain the growing success of TikTok and Instagram Reels.

When should I post on social media?

The timing, frequency and target audience of each post should be carefully considered.

Some platforms help you to automate your communication on social networks. From one interface you can control all your social media pages, plan and schedule up-to-the-minute posts, and analyse your marketing strategy.

One of the main advantages of such a tool is of course the possibility to synchronize your posts on all social networks. In addition, you can track your audience in real-time to measure and analyse the reach of each action.

Communicating on social networks to make money is a more demanding and complicated process than you might think. Having innovative tools at your disposal to automate and professionalize this communication can only help the company to achieve its objectives.

Conclusion

In conclusion, when approaching your social media strategy, it’s important that when considering all of the factors mentioned above that they are always considered in light of your brand’s marketing KPIs to determine the success of your campaigns.

By Jenny Stanley,

Jenny Stanley is managing director at Appetite Creative.

Sourced from The Drum

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Hit them in the feels: how to generate emotive customer experiences

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By Hannah Atherden

It’s no secret that creating amazing customer experiences is a key component of all brands’ marketing strategies. If that’s not the case, then quite frankly you’re missing a trick. In 2021, where the majority of a customer’s interaction with a brand is online, customer experience (CX) becomes even more important. eMarketer’s 2021 Customer Experience report finds that 93% of US adults described themselves as very likely to make more purchases from companies across all industries that provided ‘very good’ CX. On top of this, the Global State of Customer Experience report tells us that three-quarters of consumers switch to a brand competitor after just one bad experience. In short, if you want to retain your customers and drive more sales, a positive customer experience is key.

Customer experience covers an extremely broad area, as it can be defined as every touchpoint that a customer has with your brand, from pre-purchase, to the purchase process (if they get that far) and consumption, to post-purchase interactions.

So, if you’re looking to improve your customer experience, where should you start?

Hit them in the feels

In my opinion, creating emotive experiences is one of the key considerations for driving exceptional CX. Customers respond well to brands when they feel heard and understood, or when they are surprised and delighted by the experience they have with a brand. A study conducted by Forrester and Focus Vision showed that the way customers feel during a brand experience (delight or disgust) has 1.5x more impact on the actions they take with that brand (for example, purchase) than the way they think about the brand (for example, it fitting in their with lifestyle). The study also found that increasing the average number of positive thoughts or feelings about a brand increases a customer’s likelihood to purchase in the next three months by 11%, and their likelihood to advocate for your brand by 15.4%.

Driving emotive customer experiences doesn’t necessarily come easily. I believe there are three key considerations to keep in mind to achieve this:

  1. Empathize with your customers
  2. Surprise and delight your customers
  3. Make your customers feel unique

Empathize with your customers

The best customer experiences are born from an outside-in approach: listening to your customers and responding to their needs. Collecting data from your customers (including from social media comments and product reviews) is a great place to start. However, it’s not just about listening – it’s about hearing what your customers have to say and empathizing with them. Sometimes they will tell you something you don’t like, or something unexpected; adapting your strategy based on their genuine feedback is the way to win.

Bloom & Wild demonstrated a great example of this in 2019. Despite Mother’s Day being the busiest day of the year for florists, for some Bloom & Wild customers persistent email marketing reminding them of the occasion was upsetting. Bloom & Wild heard this and were mindful of the fact that Mother’s Day can be a difficult time for a variety of reasons. In response, Bloom & Wild adapted its CX, giving customers the chance to opt out of Mother’s Day-specific marketing, while still receiving the same offers and discounts. This resulted in 18,000 opt-outs of the Mother’s Day campaign, and over 1000 responses from customers to thank Bloom & Wild for its thoughtfulness – a perfect example of pivoting your CX through empathy.

Surprise and delight customers

Many brands now offer a similar standard of customer experience, especially digitally, in response to the Covid-19 pandemic. Driving joyful, unexpected experiences for your customer is a great way of standing out among competitors. No one particularly enjoys having to interact with brands, and contacting brands directly is typically out of necessity or to complain. Using a direct contact opportunity with your customer to surprise and delight them can tap into driving up their positive thoughts or feelings. As mentioned previously, this could increase the likelihood of future purchases and brand advocacy.

Octopus Energy have done a brilliant job here. Max McShane, head of digital, recently talked at Econsultancy Live about their focus on “outrageously good customer experiences”. Its strategy includes treating customers to personalized hold music based on the year they were born in a bid to up their positive feelings about the brand while they wait. This has worked wonders, with McShane claiming: “Every week we get a comment that says, ‘can you put me back on hold, I’m listening to an absolute banger.’” Identifying even the smallest moments where your brand can increase a customer’s positive feeling can be the difference between a good CX and a great one.

Make your customers feel unique

Staying on the theme of personalization, making your customer feel unique is another way of generating emotive customer experiences. Spotify has always done this well. Ever since it started creating its ‘Daily Mixes’ for its customers, personalization has been inherent to its CX. However, it took this up a notch recently by launching its ‘Only You’ campaign. This campaign uses your listening data to highlight the artists, songs, genres and listening patterns that are both unique and important to you. With this campaign, Spotify doesn’t just make the customer feel special – although it has done the same for everyone, there is novelty in the idea that this is ‘just for you’ – the content that comes with it is also very shareable. Spotify’s retention rate is also benefited by this unique customer experience, as the creation of ‘Only You’ playlists gives customers ready-made content that would be a lot effort to replicate on a competing music streaming service.

Key takeaways

  • The importance of great customer experience is not going away, so brands must ensure CX is considered as an integral part of their marketing strategy.
  • With that in mind, creating emotive customer experiences can be extremely powerful, especially as research has shown the effect positive customer feeling has on interactions with brands.
  • Collect as much data as you can that helps you to understand your customer’s needs and desires, and pivot your CX strategy accordingly.

If you are keen to explore how improved CX can drive growth in your business, then get in touch with Capgemini Invent.

Feature Image Credit: Capgemini Invent provides tips for marketers looking to improve their customer experience

By Hannah Atherden

Senior marketing consultant at Capgemini Invent.

Sourced from The Drum

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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 has unveiled its Clubhouse challenger and here’s what you need to know

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By John Glenday

Facebook is looking to find its voice with the roll-out of a series of audio features over the coming months.

A new category of audio products and features serves as a battle cry to Clubhouse, the invitation-only audio platform that has generated significant word of mouth, as Facebook joins increasingly aggressive moves to bend the ear of listeners.

What is Facebook launching?

  • Over the coming months, Facebook will unleash a succession of audio-centric features, such as Live Audio Rooms for people to participate in live conversations – a direct ’homage’ to the popular Clubhouse app.
  • Reportedly ready for an April launch, the literal chat room also bears more than a passing resemblance to Twitter’s Spaces feature.
  • The full-throated embrace of sound waves also includes the launch of Soundbites, a utility for people to generate and share brief audio clips of their own making.
  • Both facilities are expected to be made available to a small number of creators in a matter of weeks with users also able to make money from either format, although Facebook hasn’t clarified if this will be open to anyone or solely established creators.
  • Last but not least, Facebook will also permit members to listen to podcasts without leaving the confines of the walled garden.

Why should marketers care?

  • Facebook’s enthusiastic embrace of a new medium of communication closely mirrors that of competitors such as the invitation-only Clubhouse app to enable natural-sounding, real-world engagements.
  • The resulting opportunities span the full spectrum of human speech, providing Facebook with a megaphone to amplify its utility as a home for speeches, lectures, conversations and conferences.
  • Calls to embrace sound have only grown louder since the imposition of lockdowns, while the rapid growth of Clubhouse has provided ample proof that public demand is rapacious.
  • Laying claim to his share of this growing market, Mark Zuckerberg told The Verge editor Casey Newton at the launch: ”Audio as a medium just allows for longer-form discussions and exploring ideas. You can get into topics that frankly are a lot harder to with other mediums. And audio, I think, is just a lot more accessible because you can multitask while listening.”
  • Zuckerberg’s ears doubtless pricked up upon hearing that Clubhouse has been downloaded 4.7m times since its April 2020 (according to Apptopia), with 3.7m of those installs occurring in the opening months of 2021.
  • This rush of sign-ups was further fueled by an appearance by Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg on a Clubhouse talk show, further elevating its profile.
  • Clubhouse operates using an ad-free model but offers marketers the chance to host events and discussions of their choosing, enabling them to target very specific audiences.
  • This has already been embraced by Pernod Ricard, which hosted a series of themed conversations to coincide with Black History Month, joining other brands such as Milk Bar, Kool-Aid and Politico which have built a presence on the platform.
  • The Drum’s own Sam Scott recently delved into the opportunities presented by this soundscape for brands by exploring the opportunities and the pitfalls of opening your mouth.

By John Glenday

Sourced from The Drum

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Can Out of Home ads really create PR fame – or will high expectations hurt the industry?

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By John McCarthy

Rarely a week goes by without an inspired billboard, bus-shelter poster or bus livery going ‘viral’ on social media. You’d almost think the work was made for that purpose. Social media’s provided somewhere for impactful out of home ads to further resonate but is the congratulatory feedback loop blinding marketers to the true value of the medium – reaching real people?

If you are in the smallish circle of social-media active marketers who gleefully share nice ads with captions like “clever that”, you’ll have noticed last week a clever exploding ‘dynamite’ Marmite ad, complete with a huge scattered lid, and a mocked-up ad for KitKat from One Minute Briefs contestant Sam Hennig, who was absolutely struck by the warm reception for his idea.

Both ads drove applause and debate. Only one ran in the real world.

Some onlookers questioned whether you even needed to run the physical OOH ad. Why not just mock it up and tweet it? More questioned whether the top of class OOH executions are supposed to reach real people – or merely awards juries.

In the last decade, the medium’s purpose has evolved, The Drum explores why.

Pain with gains

UK out of home ad spend was 61.5% of 2019 levels, even buoyed by a huge government comms drive, according to the IPA. Meanwhile, industry body Outsmart said the revenue decline in the first half of 2020 sat at 44.8% year-on-year. Lockdowns swallowed OOH footfall and strangled marketing budgets. Similarly, marketers were obsessed with finding at-home screens however they could.

Alistair MacCallum, chief executive of out-of-home specialist agency Kinetic Worldwide says footfall didn’t fall as low as many assumed. Only 30% of people could actually work from home, for example. “19 million people still went to work every day, 30% of school kids were still in school. Many of us went to supermarkets once or twice a day just to talk to someone.”

Not all regions locked down equally. Anonymised mobile data tracked population activity to offer helpful heat maps and work out worthwhile sites. Meanwhile, OOH networks worked to digitise their networks and buying platforms. Buyers can now run hyper-local campaigns within the hour without even lifting a phone. And digital out of home sites, have doubled in number in the last four years in the UK. They also account for a third of spend in the US. Marketers are also excited about the creative opportunities afforded by the outdoor screen.

There’s more incentive to show off, too. Over the last two decades, most people acquired phones, with cameras, linked to mass audiences through social media. People on ’active journeys’ could suddenly, and immediately, share good outdoor creative. In the moment they could be promoted to search a homepage or buy something. Some sites even had QR codes to encourage camera activity.

MacCallum says: “The role of out of home is far more multifaceted than it was. The ways you can utilize the channel is increasingly much more varied.”

Stunted growth

As we saw from last week’s examples, good OOH creative can inspire PR fame.

Real people engage with and share good OOH ads. They interact with said brand on social and even inspire earned media. If people are talking about a billboard, there’s a news story there.

MacCallum says: “There is no other channel that has the level of creativity and innovation. Nobody is taking pictures of banner ads are they?”

Kelly Taylor, head of new business and marketing at creative agency Creature, believes tighter budgets forced marketers to be more effective with the medium. But with the closure of the real world, marketers “finally grasped that social and digital are not add-ons to campaigns, but intrinsic parts of the comms, reach and amplification.“

Any outgoing’s on quality OOH would need to resonate beyond the street. Taylor says: “With the amount of time people are spending online up by 32mins compared to pre-lockdown, there are plenty of eyes looking for content to get them through the groundhog days. And OOH and social is the perfect pairing. Both rely on the ability to tell a story in a single impactful post and both want to grab as many eyes as possible.”

One example that cropped up several times was The Drum Out of Home Awards Grand Prix winner ’#MyHeroes’. It gave the public a platform to thank the NHS, bringing social content onto the big screens, and sometimes, back on to social.

It is a modern opportunity that understands that OOH, like memes have to resonate with a mass audience in a single frame. But Taylor warns: be wary of “viral success,“ and be wary of “brandter”.

“There’s a fine line between nurturing engagement and forcing it”, she says pointing to Marmite’s try-hard social team, which she says unfortunately “diminished the original work”.

An OOH campaign “must be able to work in isolation and deliver real results for the client to be successful, not just fame”.

BBC Creative’s award-winning Dracula placement evolves as day becomes night. It won headlines and drove a halo effect around a wider, multi-faceted campaign. It was more than a billboard.

Great ideas

Nick Ellis, creative partner and founder of brand agency Halo believes that OOH is the “pinnacle of the advertising craft, a single idea, executed with the acuity of message and creativity.” The best work is appreciated even outside of industry circles.

He talks up executions that create unmissable moments like Carlsberg’s beer tap billboard. Few people may have seen it in the flesh, but on social, we felt the reactions by proxy.

“These moments transcend what we expect from advertising. And advertising itself becomes art. Instead of being intrusive, it reaches people in a truly creative and disruptive way.“

McCann’s Fearless Girl may be the ultimate example, he says “part of the fabric of a city and a significant cultural moment”.

It is because the idea was executed in real life that it “gives the brand a tangible solidity in a way social channels can’t“.

Jay Young, head of creative solutions at Talon, says the “the world literally is your oyster with OOH. You’re not confined to a certain number of pixels on a page”.

He’s used to thinking outside the box with the medium. He says it is big, unskippable, and real. It has power. And impact. And it reaches 98% of the British public (usually).

Extra love on social or adds value and “boosts the credentials” of OOH. In another broadcast media, TV, extra reach is sometimes wrongly called waste. Young’s sector clearly has a form of that too now.

He’s not worried that marketers will be photoshopping up billboards any time soon.

“You really do need to create something in real life for it to achieve the ‘Wow, that’s clever’ moment and escape our industry echo-chamber. People care far more about things that actually happened. They want brands to be honest and authentic.“

To show the impact of great work, he referenced the reaction to his Pepsi Max ‘Unbelievable Bus Shelter‘ campaign (we‘ll allow it). He acknowledges that bespoke builds are “tricky” to get right. They have to be bold and impactful, and people need to live with them. More often than not, they‘re worth the sleepless nights.

“We’re not working on a closed movie set. We’re likely working on the side of a busy road, in the middle of the night with multiple stakeholders to please.”

This old-school movie magic might clash with the industry‘s new hope, a reinvention around real-time buying for a generation of marketers raised on Facebook ads rather than 48-sheets.

But even in DOOH, PR and reactive marketing could play a larger part.

Young says: “You can see a cultural moment blow up on Twitter at 9am. You‘ll get a reactive ad on DOOH across the country by the time you log off for the day. I still love the Specsavers campaign we ran in reaction to the Moonlight Oscars blunder. We could never have achieved the same impact with static OOH going live days later.”

Marketers are giving real thought to optimising OOH creative based on location, time and the weather – there’s more opportunity for impact ahead. But they‘ll need to remember, real business outcomes are more important than LinkedIn shares.

 

Feature Image Credit: The Drum explores the relationship between social, PR and OOH. Above: Playstation‘s own OOH effort

By John McCarthy

Sourced from The Drum

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The future of media in driverless cars depends on who owns the data

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By Sara Fischer

The media and advertising industries are anxiously awaiting driverless cars because they’ll create more opportunities for people to view media content and advertising.

The bigger picture: With a finite amount of time in a day, the media industry is doing whatever it can to capture and monetize more of your attention. Driverless cars are supposed to free up hours for people who were previously spending their time behind the wheel.

Yes, but: It’s not clear whether people will be able to fully take their eyes off the road to consume more content.

  • Right now, driverless cars require drivers to pay attention. As they become more autonomous, the level of attention needed would likely change. The media industry is planning for all scenarios.
  • Most models have digital screens, but some are designed to help drivers pay more attention to the road by providing better directions, places to stop, etc.
  • “Others are built for passengers that don’t need to pay attention to driving whatsoever,” said Daniel Castro, vice president at the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation.

Driverless cars will dramatically change the way some industries think about marketing and serving content.

Billboards and terrestrial radio, for example, will need to focus their technologies on targeting less-distracted passengers and connecting drivers and passengers to the world around them with more dynamic ads that are targeted by location.

  • Andy Sriubas, CCO of Outfront, one of the largest billboard companies in the U.S., says these changes, and other changes in tech, have forced the billboard industry to adapt. “I don’t think of us as truly a billboard or transit company. We’re a location-based media company,” he said.

The video industry will reshape the way people consume TV and movies in cars. With 5G connectivity, streaming video will become a seamless experience.

“The question will be what the car company will control in terms of the viewing experiences versus what you can just access on the internet.”
— Gary Shapiro, president and CEO, Consumer Technology Association

For the $190 billion U.S. advertising industry, the opportunities are endless, but privacy around data-targeted ads remains a big concern.

“[P]eople should not ignore how the public will accept the privacy implications of these emerging data-driven technologies and ads.”
— Dan Jaffe, Group EVP government relations, Association of National Advertisers

Between the lines: The U.S. has fewer consumer data rules, so car companies, media companies and advertisers have a lot of room to experiment. Europe has strict data laws, making innovation in autonomous vehicles and the entertainment experience more difficult.

What’s next: Right now, drivers own their own data. But because cars will have different levels of driver participation, there’s no consensus around the future of data ownership.

  • In the future, the car company could own the data (think GM or Ford, who already ask consumers to opt-in so they can share their data with retailers). In the shared economy (think Uber or Lyft), the ride-sharing service could own it. If stricter privacy laws are enacted, the consumer could own it.

And tech companies that own autonomous vehicle firms are well-positioned to get into the advertising game because of their map data, says SafeSelfDrive founder Jim McPherson.

The bottom line: Whoever owns the data will ultimately decide who controls the content and ads — or at least who gets the revenue.

By Sara Fischer

Sourced from AXIOS

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