As dmexco took over Cologne for two days last week, Pierre Naggar, Managing Director, EMEA, at Turn discusses some of the prevalent trends there and how they are impacting the marketing industry.
1. Joining the advertising dots
Marketers at dmexco are all facing the same challenge; engaging the short attention span of the modern day consumer. Simultaneously though, consumers are looking at more content and across more devices, so there are more chances to engage them. In fact, the average UK internet user visited 2,518 web pages across 81 domains and 53 sessions in November 2011!
These complex consumption habits mean the advertising experience today has to cross all channels. Brands cannot think in silos, they need to ‘join the dots’ because consumers are looking at content everywhere and on a different device each time. By taking a cross-channel approach brands can ensure their advertising is relevant to the whole journey the consumer is taking.
Data is key to identifying where those ‘right time, right place’ opportunities are along the way– no matter what channel. Only with information about how audiences move between devices can brands tailor campaigns to that specific user journey so joining the dots is crucial.
2. Data for knowledge
Everyone at dmexco is talking about big data. However, actioning that data is where most brands fall down. Marketing technologies today allow brands to get under the skin of their customers, understanding their preferences and browsing habits.
These insights are universal too, they’re not just for the marketing department. Marketing is rising on the agenda of corporate strategy because its insights can be used by the whole business. We are speaking alongside our customer Kraft at dmexco about using anonymised data about existing customers to create content that meets their needs and to find new audiences. By looking at browsing habits, Kraft can understand its customers by brand affinity, cohort, geography, income break, and even interest so it applies these insights about existing customers to engage new ones.
Data brings valuable business knowledge, but it’s up to marketers to communicate its importance so that it can be used to develop new products, make stocking decisions and inform the strategic direction of the company
3. The rise of Programmatic TV
Marketers are already using data insights to plan programmatic campaigns across video, social and mobile, but TV is the next format on the agenda. Expected to grow to $230bn by 2016, TV remains the largest and most powerful ad market so it holds lots of opportunity for brands.
Programmatic TV will allow brands to reach particular audiences based on data-defined profiles. It will reverse the traditional TV model – instead of using data about programming to find desirable placements, marketers will be able to use data about their audiences to find those placements.
There’s lots of buzz around how programmatic will change the TV industry, however there’s still some way to go in Europe before the technology necessary to automate TV buys is matched by the industry infrastructure required to enable it. What’s clear at dmexco is that the advertising market is forever innovating; it’s becoming synonymous with forward thinking in technology. Marketers are open to change, and there’s plenty of room for more innovation in programmatic.
By Pierre Naggar
Managing Director, EMEA,
Turn
www.turn.com
