Yesterday I was thinking on how digital advertising had changed since my first steps in the internet. I still remember the first floater or Layer banner that really shocked me, It was from Nike. You was navigating a publisher’s website and a Shark’s Fin started swimming around the screen like in the movie, like trying to frighten you, this really kept my attention and finally the Nike logo was displayed with a very catchy phrase that I can’t even remember right now. That was 1999. Simple, creative, catchy.
This days is not that simple to take user’s attentions. In 1999, the total digital investment in USA was about USD 4BB with 124MM internet users (32 dollars media investment per year, per person). In 2019 the media investment per year per person increased 10 times with a USD100BB in media investment and 327MM internet users. So every person receives today impacts for more than 10 times the budget the same person received in 1999, if we consider the average costs (CPM/CPC) going down, you can get an idea of how noisy the market had became.
On the other hand some of those creatives were very cool as entertainment pieces but very inefficient in generating a real business result. For years CMOs where investing in Digital just because they have to not because it was a great business. Very recently digital marketing begun its transformation to become something serious, something that helps companies makes more money and that’s reflected on the increase of the digital ad spend share.
Users today are more selective, so creativity can’t and should not work without the proper information about what it has to accomplished. Is not only not true that creative people don’t care about data, it’s actually the oposite. A had the opportunity to work with creative people several times and it’s shocking to see how much they enjoy and how better they work when they have data. A good ad has to use creativity and data to deliver a personalized story that drives businesses.
When I talk about business I’m referring specifically to business results. Advertising has the capability to convert either directly or indirectly, an impact into a sale (present value) or into and increase the potential client purchase intention (future value).
On the other hand we need to better communicate with our clients with a one to one approach. Adtech and Martech solutions like DMPs, data augmentation, platforms like HeroLens and all the new technologies that are invading the market every day along with Machine Learning Algorithms, generates (let’s out the samesite variable aside by now) an amazing an historically unique opportunity to create stories and experiences that really matters to our audience.