Another advertising model is possible
My regular Friday column in Expansión, Spain’s leading financial daily is called “Another advertising model is possible” (pdf in Spanish) and discusses how some online formats are trying to reinvent advertising based on new ideas that respect the user.
At this point, all that can be divined are trends in this direction, but I think it is interesting how a company is prepared to pay for placing a well-taken photograph in front of a large number of well-segmented Instagram users, measuring its effectiveness on the basis of how many of them are prepared to click Like, or better still, using the account to see similar photographs, creating in the process a privileged communication channel with the company for as long as the user finds it interesting or doesn’t feel hassled.
Models such as Twitter is proposing, that control excessive repetition for users, and that accept feedback from to avoid advertising fatigue, or Snapchat’s idea to make brands the protagonists as part of a communication framework based on freshness, follow the same line.
What better way to guarantee users’ involvement than them placing their finger on the screen of their smartphone while consuming our advertising? What incentive is there for brands to bombard their customers with the same spot over and again, when what they need to do is find a model so attractive that the user wants to see it? Obviously, such an approach isn’t going to work for all products or companies, but its an interesting area to watch develop.
Below, the full text of my article:
Another advertising model is possible
The advertising models that we’re starting to see emerge on some social networks are very different to those we’ve grown used to in conventional advertising. As opposed to those that simply interrupt what you are doing, along the lines of: “you want to see this, but I am going to force you to watch something else, which in reality, you don’t want to see,” some other ideas are emerging, which are subtly, but importantly, different.
For example, Instagram’s, which was bought by Facebook in April of 2012 for $715 million: users will find advertising mixed in with the photos they are looking at, but the presence of the advertising can just about be described as discreet: it follows the same format as the content, tends not to repeat itself, and simply wants users to click Like, turning them into followers of the brand. The brand is looking for complicity, for a potential client to voluntarily agree to be in contact with it.
In similar vein, instant messaging service Snapchat is looking to set up a similar model: brands try to persuade users to follow them, for whatever reason: to improve their advertisements, because they’re seen as cool, because of their reputation… and because they aren’t pests. The idea isn’t so much, “watch this”, as “I like this, give me more.”
Twitter is trying out something similar: no insistence, and trying to win over followers, persuading them to voluntarily open a conversation. These are all models that could radically change advertising.
It may not be the solution for all companies or all products. But at least it’s a start, a move toward a different approach. And without doubt, a breath of fresh air that might help us rethink many things.
(En español, aquí)
