Advertising, brands, and conversation

My attention has been caught in a big way by Google’s unveiling yesterday of its new advertising format: +Post Ads. You can see comments about it on Google+, the product’s official page, or read TechCrunch’s thoughts on the matter.

My attention was not caught so much by the fact that this is a Google product, or for being the advertising format to emerge directly from Google+, but by something that I have seen developing for some time now: the creation of an interface between advertising and conversation.

For some time now I have been of the opinion that the brands that will be most successful in the new age of communication defined by the popularity of the social networks will be those able to treat their customers as individuals, not as an indistinguishable part of something larger to be attacked by indiscriminate messages, nor as a collection of segments to which classification rules can be applied. The real challenge in this regard is not so much the advertisement itself, but the interaction that comes after.

Twitter and Facebook have proved to be a revelation for many companies. The Facebook walls and Twitter accounts of many brands have become the place where a lot of customers got if they want to complain about something, find stuff out, ask for help, consult, or see what other customers think. Many brands were initially surprised and unable to cope after opening a two-way communication channe and seeing that it was being used for all sorts of things by their customers. What started out as a place for negative comments, a kind of digital wailing wall, has today, at least in the case of the better managed cases, a showcase for how brands are able to manage real relationships with the users of their products and services.

In the case of both Facebook and Twitter, we have seen several success stories. Both networks developed ways for brands to raise their visibility, as well as advertising formats to facilitate their presence on the channel, and to increase the number of Likes or followers. I am tired of saying it, but campaigns on Facebook or on Twitter work within the two networks, but have little impact outside them.

Some people mistakenly interpreted this as meaning that advertising on the social networks doesn’t work, when in reality, the evidence showed that people who followed a particular brand were significantly more likely to become ambassadors, and thus to be consumers of these brands’ products or services. In many cases, Facebook and Twitter have become the tool of choice to start a dialogue with a brand. Google was increasingly being left out of the phenomenon.

Advertising on Google, whether Adwords, Adsense, or banners, were simply clicks that brought the user closer to a transaction, but rarely led to a conversation. The advertiser was fundamentally interested in a transaction, and was doing everything possible to steer users toward the checkout rather than waste time having a conversation with them. Meanwhile, customers gradually got used to the new channel, and showing their preferences for those brands that aside from displaying their transactional channel, were prepared to establish a personal and direct relationship.

For its part, Google+ is still very much a network. With or without users, with or without activity, Google is still prepared to convert it into its development hub. It was only a question of time before advertising appeared on Google+: it could not stay on the sidelines of advertising that made up 90% of its earnings. On the other hand, it was clear that Google’s traditional advertising formats wouldn’t work on Google+ if it really was aiming for a reasonable click-through ratio, so it was obliged to redefine them in some way.

Which brings us to yesterday’s development, which is a way for brands to say, “this is my advertisement, which aside from providing a photo and a video and other traditional elements, allows you to interact with it, give it a +1 if you like it, comment on it, and even take part in a hangout.

Let us hope that this is done with a degree of common sense to avoid intrusiveness: no pre-activated sound or video, which is something that Google has not really managed terribly well in its traditional formats (spaniards for sure remember its extremely intrusive “death test” campaign, back in 2009). Taking into account the company’s advertising inventory, the potential is huge: while the advertising formats of Facebook and Twitter are basically limited to the pages generated on their respective networks, Google’s offer a panorama made up of a wide variety of pages that are the largest and most diverse advertising inventory on the internet.

So who is interested in this type of new conversational format? In principle, any brand that, as its name indicates, wants to manage conversations with the users of its products and services, and that is able to manage them. Anybody intending to set up such an interaction and who then removes anything remotely critical in the conversation threads will get into difficulties very soon. And anybody who uses them but doesn’t bother reply to anybody will also have problems.

But for some brands, and especially those with products or services that involve complex decision-making processes, the format could prove very interesting. If the buying process of your product or service could benefit from real interaction, during which you can provide data, resolve doubts, or offer additional information transparently, then this is certainly a format with many possibilities.

The interesting thing about a format like this is not so much the format itself, but the trend that it potentially sets. Advertising is changing, and adapting to changing times. Soon, conventional advertising found on television, in newspapers, magazines, or hoardings will be simply about brand awareness, a reminder that the brand exists, and above all, ways to attract users to the channel that really allows for a conversation in a convenient format: the internet.

(Entrada disponible en español, “La publicidad, las marcas y la conversación”)