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Status Creative
@BarrettAll
How Digital is Changing the Engagement Equation
In advertising, the future is digital. That’s not a bold statement. We have been told that for years. Digital currently represents 28 percent of U.S. ad spending while television accounts for 38.1 percent of that same pie chart. It’s almost happened already. Digital will overtake television as the #1 form of advertising by 2018, most analysts believe.
It could be sooner than 2018, much sooner.
Why hasn’t it happened already? Change is slow, especially for large companies. They are yachts, not speedboats. It’s harder for them to change course. When they do though, it makes waves. Ok, that’s enough nautical references. You get the point.
A mindset has to be changed. Digital is targeted, able to adapt quickly, able to create real-time results. However, television is still regarded as the best and most consistent way to influence an audience and change consumer behavior. Television is great and absolutely necessary but follow the money and you’ll see that how people digest content is changing.
Netflix is growing, rapidly. Chelsea Handler left E! to create her own late night show for the streaming service. House of Cards, Orange Is the New Black and others have catered to a generation that would rather binge watch their favorite show than view it at a set date and time. NBC’s The Blacklist was the #1 DVR’d show last year. It wasn’t close to being the #1 show in Nielsen’s ratings.
When cable television came, it didn’t drastically change the advertising model. It was still distributed in the same way. Streaming services are made for digital.
If you are looking for the biggest change in the next three years, look no further than how people view creative content. More Netflix, Yahoo, Hulu, Amazon, YouTube and less television. If streaming lands live sports and events, it’s game over for television as we know it. If you are creating content it better be available at any time and be optimized for someone’s phone.
How people view content is just one part of the equation. The content created is the other part. Digital advertising as a medium has to be effective. Television’s most prized commercial spot is the Super Bowl commercial. Smart brands spend over $3 million on a 30-second spot.
That’s an investment. It’s not just for the spot. It’s for the ability to create digital content, before the game. The two weeks before the Super Bowl sees millions of searches for Super Bowl-related digital advertising. Buying a 30-second spot is entry into the club. Although some incredibly clever brands, like Newcastle Brown Ale, found a way to be effective without airing a commercial during the big game.
Most Super Bowl commercials are forgotten 36 hours after the game. How long will it be until you can forget The Ice Bucket Challenge, Dove’s Real Beauty campaign or other effective digital campaigns? When a digital campaign is successful it is described as viral. We never use that term when we describe a successful television commercial. I used to hate the term “viral” because I felt it implied that the success of the campaign was unplanned or accidental. Now, I think it shows the power that a digital campaign has to transcend being a commercial and also becomes a story.
The truth is there are very few accidents.
If you look at creative communications and content, it’s always about being able to be visible against the norm. If everyone is doing the same thing, no matter how creative, it becomes noise. When people started applying for jobs online they thought, “Hey this is great. I don’t have to wear pants and can apply to 100 jobs.”
Right. That was true but also true for everyone else. Eventually HR directors were flooded with one thousand resumes and would only give something a five-second look. The absolute same thing is occurring with social media, articles, all digital content. Everyone has access to create. We certainly don’t lack in information. The increasing challenge will be to capture someone’s attention instantly.
Digital is blurring the lines between public relations and advertising. A digital spot, when done effectively, also becomes a positive PR piece. Expect an intense game of tug of war between major PR and advertising agencies for digital.
What about social media? I’m known for social media and haven’t mentioned until now. That is on purpose.
Don’t be distracted by the new bells and whistles. People still drive technology. We’re human. We get distracted by shiny objects. The new site, the new app provide functionality but in the next three years they will not drastically change how we consume content. Ten years ago it did. Now we are settling in to it, defining how we use it, much like what we did with the Internet.
Social media has power. I use it to seed digital content, create an initial groundswell, build stronger bonds between a customer and a brand. News media will always be more likely to cover the piece of content that already has a million views. Social media is vital but that’s not where the innovation is happening or will be happening in the next three years.
What about Wearables? Aren’t they going be huge? Maybe they will. Maybe they won’t. They have potential. As they currently look, they don’t provide increased functionality. They are still a mobile screen.
However, there is one way that wearables or mobile can revolutionize content and advertising. ANTICIPATION. That is the key.
Imagine you are walking through a mall in 2014. There are apps that create incentives for you to walk in to a store or show you deals. You have to manually use them, search for them.
What if these apps anticipated your next decision? Based on a model similar to Amazon’s suggestions engine, there is value in being able to anticipate what someone needs and personalize it. This is what brick and mortar retail is lacking. Most people don’t want to talk to a salesperson to get advice. They feel that will come with bias. They want it to come to them from technology.
Imagine you are walking through a mall in 2017. You have your phone or wearable device. You tell it you are looking for pants. It does the rest and does it in seconds. It categorizes based on fit, price and other factors. Then it suggests options. Along with those suggestions are incentives from the various retailers for those specific items. It draws you to a store rather than just giving you an incentive for already being there or being a loyal customer.
If you tell me there is a sale on pants, I may not care. If you say, “Jeff, there is a sale on 33 inch waist, slightly hipster pants, that three of your friends like, that these girls will think would look great on your butt and we’ll give you 15 percent off right now” then I am definitely more inclined.
Wearables and mobile have the potential to change the game with anticipation, with suggestions, with incentives. Geolocation is underutilized. As it exists now, most people have tired of manually entering their location. It serves little purpose. However, if geolocation is used better to improve experiences, if it’s used to anticipate and customize information, well then it is powerful.
New technology is interesting. Most of it isn’t a game-changer though. Hyperlapse, for example, is a great new app to create time-lapse videos. Some fun content will be created with it, but it won’t drastically change campaigns or how they are delivered.
The real change comes from changing habits, making tasks easier, understanding humans. Technology is human. It’s not what we make but what we make of it.
Jeff Barrett is an award-winning digital public relations professional and columnist. He has been named Business Insider’s #1 Ad Executive on Twitter, a Forbes Top 50 Influencer In Social Media and has been a columnist for Technorati, Mashable, Hoot Suite and The Washington Times. His first project won Best Use of Video in Social Media from PRNewswire. Since then, as CEO of Status Creative, he has worked with Fortune 500 companies and startups to create and execute digital strategy. He also speaks internationally on how to leverage social and digital media.
Next: Wearable Technology and the News: A Q&A with Robert Hernandez
