’Tis the season for meaningless lists
Posted on 10 December 2009
I sat in the audience of the DPAC Awards show this week employing my college algebra to calculate the length of the event by amount of Lucite sitting on the table next to the stage. I was pulled out of this haze by a heartfelt acceptance speech from the CMO of Bush’s Baked Beans who, as he thanked his agency, The Marlin Company, confessed that he didn’t know “beans” about digital advertising. No one does, it’s changing too damn fast for anyone to stay on top of everything, but it doesn’t stop some of us from parroting what we have heard from others. So here’s my, and people that I trust, take on the upcoming year…
2009 may have been a bear in terms of advertising spending, but it has also been a bull for investment and innovation in digital media technology. As we welcome 2010 we should scan the horizon for the opportunities that will shape our reality next year and in years to come.
Moving from managing media to audiences
For the last 18 months the buzz has been building over audience buying and optimization. Demand side platforms (DSPs) like MediaMath, Turn, Invite Media and DataXu are elbowing their way into the spotlight. Together with replicant providers like BlueKai and eXelate they are shifting the paradigm on buying non premium inventory and also putting agencies back in the media buying driver’s seat with private networks. Burned by being bypassed in the adoption of Search 7 years ago, agencies eager to leverage the new technology may shift 30% or more of media dollars away from the ad networks in the coming year using DSPs and real time bidding. No longer is content a proxy for audience.
Dynamic creative targeting & optimization
I have been screaming about this for years now. ”One-to-one marketing” has taken several big steps forward in 2009 with products from Tumri, Teracent (recently acquired by Google), and Eyeblaster. Publishers are also getting on the ball and leveraging their user insight to enable more accurate messaging; Yahoo’s Smart Ads program is a great example. Honestly, I would be happy if agencies would simply develop multiple creative and auto optimize. Baby steps.
Finally, the promise of digital
While both of the above are individually exciting, their combination is a game-changer. At long last the true potential of Digital can be harnessed — Delivering right message to the right person at the right time. Add to this perfect storm of creative optimization, audience planning and real-time ad exchanges, and feedback loops to apply learning from past campaigns… and finally the budget floodgates may open and speed the transition of dollars from traditional to online.
Campaign verification
For years agencies have been buying media and blindly trusting publishers to live up to their commitments. Ten years ago this is why we developed 3-pary ad serving. Today, agencies use campaign verification services from companies like DoubleVerify, Media Trust and AdSafe Media to make sure ads for premium brands are not located next to questionable content, to validate various targeting commitments, to uncover undesired placement allocations, etc…
Privacy legislation
I flamed out on this in a recent post. As we contemplate benefits of the right message, right person, in real time, the privacy issue looms even larger. The European Union adopted a law recently requiring user consent before companies are able to track user behavior via any storage and retrieval method (i.e. cookies, Flash Shared Objects, etc.). On this side of the pond a bill is in the works from Rep. Rick Boucher, D-Va., chair of the House Energy and Commerce subcommittee, would force marketers to disclose what and how information is gathered by cookies that they use, with a possible opt in clause. Anyone concerned about the future of this industry should take an active interest and inform themselves about the value exchange between marketers and consumers. Check out organizations like Future of Privacy Forum, Network Advertising Initiative and IAB.
Much maligned in-stream video sees a brighter day
In-stream video advertising (e.g. pre-rolls) has been around for a while now, but 2010 is likely to be the defining one for this important channel. Budgets will begin to follow eyeballs from TV to online as media consumption changes. In 2010 agencies and brands brave enough to do this will be rewarded by a more streamlined and standardized process as more publishers adopt third-party serving using the IAB VAST and VPAID standards.
I keep hearing that Mobile is going to be big.
We’ve all heard it before, but there are several developments in this channel that would allow it to come closer to the mainstream. Cross channel campaign management and serving of mobile ads across multiple mobile publishers and devices will become much easier as agency-side and publisher-side players increase integration efforts. Tracking and analysis of mobile activity is also maturing quickly and will be catching up with display standards as companies like Ringleader enable unique tracking across publishers. In 2010, we will also see growth in the use of rich media advertising in mobile devices.
Social campaign management and tracking
I think it’s impossible to misunderestimate the importance of social media in the marketing mix. Over the last two years we’ve seen numerous approaches to social marketing experimented by marketers including Facebook apps, branded widgets, in-banner tweeting, YouTube video uploads from ads, and many more.
Though 2009 may have been a trial run for many companies using social media, CMOs expect social initiatives to have a direct impact on their bottom lines in 2010, according to a study from Bazaarvoice and the CMO Club.
Nearly three out of four CMOs (72%) who did not attach revenue assumptions to social media in 2009 say they will in 2010, according to the survey; in addition, 64% of CMOs say they plan to invest more in social media in the next year.
Holistic channel strategies
With the explosion of outdoor digital media outlets in places like billboards, elevators, taxis, etc. the advent of scalable outdoor digital advertising is inevitable. What could expedite growth of this emerging channel is the development of tracking technologies. Image processing technology companies like Quividi are able to measure not only audience reach, but also viewer attributes like gender and age and even estimate the level and duration of active attention to ads. Let’s not forget about live Twitter feeds!
You tell me…
2 responses to ’Tis the season for meaningless lists
Hi John – as good a list as any. In re campaign verification, however, I had to call out that AdXpose is missing from your list. Raising awareness one blog at a time…
Thanks Kirby…. Dear readers, please note AdXpose’s rightful place on my capricious list.
; )