The Future of Digital Media Marketing with Peter Babiy
I had the pleasure of interviewing Peter Babiy, the founder and CEO of eVeek, a Seattle-based digital media network with over 875 million annual views. He’s also the creative director behind various eVeek projects, most notably, Updato.com.
Chris: Thank you so much for doing this with us! What is your “backstory” of how you become involved in the adtech or digital media space?
“My family and I immigrated to United States when I was 11 years old. I have to give all the credit to my dad. He was quick to realize the potential importance of computers in the future. He scrimped and saved to buy me my first PC, and then gave me an investment of $100 and told me to go learn from Bill Gates and start a company.
Fast forward 5 years: I’m 16 years old and working at a warehouse when an unfortunate accident occurs — I run a forklift into a pallet full of milk cartons. Needless to say, I was graciously fired. My boss called me into his office and said, “You don’t belong here.” Then, to my surprise he continued, “I’ll find you an office instead — just go and do your internet thing.”
I remembered my dad’s $100 investment, so I cashed it out and started a small mobile software company making apps for then-pioneering BlackBerry smartphones. As BlackBerry took a plunge a few years later, we were forced to evolve, and we’ve since developed into a multinational media network specializing in conceptualization, development, and marketing of various online ventures.”
Chris: What do you think is the most interesting thing that has happened to the industry thus far?
“As I see it, the best thing to happen to ad tech so far is not a single product or service, it’s the merging of various technologies that is currently breathing new life into what was becoming a staid advertising ecosystem devoid of innovation.
I’m talking about the convergence of blockchain, AI (particularly in voice recognition), and AR, all of which together have the potential to change the face of our industry in really interesting ways. It’s all still extremely new, and nobody knows for sure exactly where it’s going to lead — but maybe that’s what I find so exciting about it.
A term like “blockchain” may still be considered an industry buzzword, but the technology behind it is quickly disrupting the advertising ecosystem by changing the way marketers approach issues such as transparency, authentication, and auditing.
AI, with respect to voice recognition in particular, is changing how consumers interact with brands and products through some of the most personalized advertising experiences ever.
Then there’s augmented reality — we’re immersing ourselves in the digital world more than ever before, and we’re blurring the lines between it and the real world more and more. AR is revolutionizing the digital world and bridging the gap between the two, right in front of us.
Through emerging AR technologies, we are now able to integrate digital information right on top of our material world. Companies like IKEA are already showcasing this capability, giving us a glimpse of what we can expect in an as yet unrealized future by letting us place AR furniture directly in our homes, allowing us to find just the right pieces simply by holding our phones in front of us. Although inherently different, applications like Google Lens are a great example of what AR means for the future of advertising — the ability to take a picture of a real world item to find out where and how to buy it online will potentially be a game-changer.
So how does it all come together? To be able to image a world, place augmented products, move them around and envision them, and then tell Google Assistant to order them for you, all the while delivering transparency for the user, as well as authentication and auditing for the advertiser — that utilizes aspects of AR, AI, and blockchain to solve problems and make all of our lives easier.
These technologies are changing the way we shop — we can buy clothes without fitting rooms, decorate homes without designers, all while establishing new trust and data validity. Ultimately, this allows brands to showcase their products in a way that complements but doesn’t intrude on users’ lives.”
Chris: What are your “5 things you think will change or should change over the next 5 years in adtech and digital publishing” and why?
“In the next five years, I see 3 fundamental things change:
- WHAT / The nature of content will change — humanization in creative digital advertising.
2. WHO / The focus will change from broad to user-specific — personalization with AI.
3. HOW / Content delivery channels will change — native ads and user-generated content.
Also, 2 other factors worth noting:
1. Amazon makes a move
2. A/B and automation
1. WHAT
We exist in the digital age. We are bombarded with ads left, right, and center. So much so that we’ve become almost immune to intrusive advertising. Digital advertising will have to become more humanized if it wants to regain the attention of consumers. Brands will increasingly move towards telling stories, sharing emotions, taking social stances — in other words, connecting to real customers rather than just showing off their products. The product won’t be the spotlight so much anymore.
A great example of this is Budweiser’s “Folds of Honor” ad. It achieves something truly special, particularly when compared with traditional advertising methods. At first, I didn’t know what the video was advertising, which might seem like a bad thing, but almost a year later, I‘m still talking about it. The ad connects to viewers on a much deeper level, delivering effective and long-lasting impressions.
With so much advertising all around us, marketers often forget that a user’s time must be earned. And so digital advertising needs to become more interactive, more emotionally-engaging, and more entertaining. Then it can become more valuable, relatable, and as a result, more effective. Products get old and features go obsolete, but ads that connect with us on a human side will have an ever-lasting imprint of the brand.
2. WHO
Personalized campaigns through data and AI are becoming undeniably important, and will be absolutely essential to staying relevant and delivering ROIs in such saturated space. Long gone are the days of “one size fits all.” In the next five years, advertisers will master the art of tailored campaigning by utilizing data and artificial intelligence as well as location tracking to deliver personalized campaigns to the right user, in the right way, at the right time.
This is undoubtedly a bit scary, but it’s sure to be effective. When we’re building our campaigns, we almost always utilize layering of audiences, behavior, and interests, combined with keyword refining and location-triggered serving. With the help of AI, those methods are only going to get more intelligent.
We’ve been paving the road for this type of advertising for years now. But an increase in the use of data-tracking-enabled devices and services (such as smartphones, home assistants, and social media) is going to enable far more personalized advertising than ever before.
3. HOW
In the next five years, I believe we’ll hear words like “collaboration” and “partnership” far more frequently than “advertise” and “sponsor.” Expect to see far less traditional ad space advertising as consumers become even more oblivious to it. Native advertising and influencer-generated content (especially video — YouTube, Facebook, live TV) will become even more popular, and, more importantly, systematic and streamlined — that’s to say, easier to arrange and execute.
Why native and influencer-generated ads? Users are simply losing trust in the marketing slogans and empty promises of big brands. They want transparency, unbiased opinion, and recommendations based on real experiences from people they trust. Would you rather buy the new Samsung Galaxy S9 because you saw an ad while browsing the web or because a friend of yours (or your favorite vlogger) can’t stop talking about how much they love theirs?
Influencer marketing is word of mouth for the digital generation.
Collaborating with social media influencers, bloggers, and opinion leaders in your particular niche not only builds credibility but also meaningful engagement and a loyal customer base. This is something traditional advertising clearly lacks. The moment the process is streamlined, I think this form of marketing will see exponential growth.
4. Amazon makes a move
Although Amazon’s current share of the digital ad market is insignificant in comparison to the mega platforms that are Google and Facebook, it seems likely that Amazon is going to challenge that duopoly over the next few years. As Google and Facebook work on cleaning up their acts, Amazon is going to reinvent its ad business and establish itself as the next big player. It’s already growing at a faster rate than both of its rivals combined.
As one of the world’s largest ecommerce platforms with a consumer-obsessed culture (I’m one of them), and a well-established level of trust, Amazon is uniquely positioned to offer brands and advertisers a safe and lucrative alternative, not only to sell more products but to collect invaluable data through every phase of their funnel marketing.
I live in Seattle, WA, about 20 minutes south of Amazon’s headquarters, and I can almost feel it happening right in front of me.
5. A/B and automation
Lastly, I think (or at least I hope) publishers are going to see new automation technologies emerge to streamline the process of ad optimization. Basic monetization, thanks to Google, is already very simple. All you have to do is open an Adsense account, generate a code, and paste it on your site where you want the ad to appear. The real revenue, however, comes from optimization — a tedious and never-ending process of a/b testing.
In the years ahead, I believe that a/b testing and optimization will be a thing of the past. Companies like Ezoic are already trying to address this issue, although its solution is still far from ideal. Google is also already thinking about it, as evidenced by its recent introduction of Auto Ads. While we don’t use Auto Ads — as the platform needs time to mature — I certainly think it’s the future.
It’s easy to imagine a future where all I’ll have to do as a publisher is paste a single bit of code onto a site and watch the magic happen. AI could take over the whole process, analyzing my audience and their behaviors — their habits, location, browser, device, time of session, duration, mouse tracking, and everything in between — before intelligently experimenting with every possible ad type, size, and placement.
The use of machine learning to process data and handle repetitive tasks (like experimenting and optimizing) will free managers from their more mundane responsibilities, allowing for more creative work. This also gives teams greater insight into understanding their audience and what’s driving their business.”
Chris: Tell us something you or your company is doing to stay up to date in adtech (maybe making changes to comply with Better Ads Standards or GDPR, working on your header bidding stack or testing new types of ads)
“As our audience evolves and matures, behavioral patterns change, and what worked before may no longer work now. So we have to constantly adapt by experimenting with less intrusive ads, and embracing the concept of seamless advertising. While still continuously optimizing our ads (types, sizes and placements), our primary objective is developing, refining, and perfecting the art of influencer marketing and native advertising by figuring out what it means to craft meaningful, impactful campaigns.
More specifically, we’ve been heavily focusing on video content and how we can use it to tell stories and connect with wider audiences on a deeper and more emotional level. Figuring out what works and what doesn’t, and then translating that into an effective dialog with brands and demonstrating how we can deliver greater value to their marketing efforts as opposed to traditional banner advertising.”
Chris: Is there a person in the world, or in the US, who you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why?
“I’d have to say, Bill Gates. He may not be the most original choice, but it’s always been a dream of mine to meet him, ever since I was a kid, ever since my dad told me I should learn from him. You’d think I would have run into him by now, being in the same city and all, but I guess Bill and I move in slightly different social circles. Maybe in another life!”
