Ad tech should drive creativity not just execution

The above quotation comes from Jef I. Richards, a professor at Michigan State University (MSU). Richards hits the nail on the head with regards to why online advertising is forcing a change in how we advertise. We have come a long way from the creative houses from the 60’s. Online advertising is not just one man in a room making creative decisions based on gut feel, advertisers have data, lots of data, it is time to use it to inform strategy and create great ads. Ads that are relevant every single time.

Revolution in the advertising industry

The traditional model can be terribly wasteful and offers no guarantees on who gets to see the ad. If a brand shows an advert on TV then there is a good chance that if it isn’t relevant or entertaining to that individual it will not be watched – and the advertiser will never even know.

Digital advertising is presenting brands with another option, namely that of buying single ads based on the person who will see them. Real time bidding has revolutionised the way that advertisers can buy ads because the advertisers can now see and track an action prompted by someone seeing the ad.

The data used by advertising technology means brands can make calculated decisions on where to find an audience at a time when they will be most receptive to the message. There is no point in creating a brilliant, relevant ad if you cannot find the right audience.

The ingredients of great advertising

Traditionally ad tech partners enter the fray late in the process, serving the ad and nothing more. The issue here is that the granularity of data allows for incredibly accurate targeting of niche segments of the population yet commonly few creative options are supplied. For instance, all mums are not the same – some might have twins or children at very different ages yet they will all be shown the same ad. By feeding in the data early on in the planning, advertisers can identify those different groups within each campaign and consequently multiply the relevance of not just their online advertising but across their entire marketing mix.

Let’s consider an example; a large advertiser can use different providers for their advertising needs – a creative agency for ad creative (display ads, billboards, print, TV etc.) and media agency to distribute my campaign(s). To deliver media online, advertisers can end up working with a number of providers spread across mobile, both web and app, social, search and display (to name a few), targeting different parts of the purchase funnel. These providers are tasked to serve the ads usually with a specific goal. The entire process is complex, unconnected and increasingly fragmented.

Instead of creating a feedback loop we have created a one-way ad production system whereby I entrust the creative agency to build ads based on human hypothesis and a finite amount of information and then use advertising technology providers as ad servers. What can we do to change this? By bringing ad tech providers in earlier in the planning process, advertisers can use data to inform creative decisions and begin to make calculated and more informed decisions about my campaign. There is now a real-time feedback loop from online activity to influence not just online ads but the entire media plan - resulting in increased relevancy.

The online revolution represents a massive challenge for the advertising industry, things have to change. Don’t focus on execution and sacrifice creativity - use your execution to inform your creativity.

Amit Kotecha, Head of Marketing EMEA, Quantcast

Tel: +44 (0) 203 322 7863

Email: uk-marketing@quantcast.com

Web: www.quantcast.com

Twitter: @amitkotecha / @quantcast