In a cookieless future, creativity will be key to rebuilding consumer trust – here’s why
The rapidly changing advertising landscape is forcing brands to radically rethink their approaches to targeting and reaching consumers
Brands that relied on third-party cookies often employed advertising strategies that were both hyper targeted and wildly erratic. This may seem paradoxical, but advertisers were often serving the same creative to a specific group of consumers, targeted and segmented through third-party cookies. This played a huge role in the growing apathy and even hostility towards advertising, with the vast majority of ads we encounter being immediately ignored.
Focus on meaningful conversations
While brands may see this growing hostility towards advertising and come to the conclusion that consumers must be hostile towards all advertising, this is not the case. Consumers actually don’t mind being spoken to by brands, as long as they are being engaged in a meaningful conversation. If brands are able to place the focus back on creativity, they can go a long way to achieving that.
Now that brands are unable to place consumers in neat categories, advertisers are forced to think differently about how they can get their message across and reach consumers effectively. The growth of technology is changing what it means for brands to be creative. Brands should be speaking to their audience at scale while also personalizing their message to fit within the platform that is hosting them. If these players are able to leverage the solutions at their disposal, they have an opportunity to deliver outstanding creatives that drive increased engagement, attention and purchase intent.
The role of AI
Artificial intelligence (AI) is one solution that could be of particular interest to advertisers, particularly to those who may be looking to adopt a contextual advertising strategy. Until recently, the industry had taken quite a blunt approach to contextual targeting, focusing almost exclusively on keywords. However, the technology has now evolved to such a point that it is now capable of analyzing both the written and visual content of a page, taking into account factors such as tone and sentiment.
The evolution of AI has been driven by advances in machine learning. Up until now, contextual AI had been trained by analyzing millions of articles on the open web. This is a process known as supervised learning, where the program is effectively being fed the right answer every time. Some forms of contextual AI are now capable of unsupervised learning, which means they are capable of identifying patterns in content on their own. All of this means that advertisers are now a lot more agile when it comes to crafting creative strategies.
The future of creativity
This improved agility provides advertisers with a unique opportunity to be much more creative with their advertising strategies. Brands are increasingly conscious of the importance of attention and thus are crafting their creative strategies to maximize it. AI allows advertisers to optimize their campaigns in real time, and craft creatives to fit exactly with the message they are trying to communicate. This goes back to the consumer’s desire to have a meaningful conversation with brands. AI will allow advertisers to be more flexible and deliver advertising that is personalized without cookies, instead of bombarding users with the same, irrelevant message.
However, creativity is nothing without context. Arguably the most important aspect of AI is its ability to allow brands to optimize the placement of their advertising in real time. For example, tech partners can see what editorial pages are most read in real time and place the brand’s ad content in the right place, ensuring that they meet consumers where they are and deliver their message effectively, without using the consumers’ personal data.
It also allows brands to adapt creatives around their media strategy. For example, a brand may want to advertise on editorial pages focused on sport. The optimization provided by AI will allow the brand to craft creatives centered around specific sports such as football or golf, ensuring maximum resonance with consumers.
By optimizing their creative strategies, brands are much more likely to be viewed positively by consumers. Studies have shown that ads that are better integrated within the page hosting them are more likely to attract and retain the consumer’s attention and thus lead to a sale. All of this means that for those brands that are able to leverage the right technologies, they are best positioned for the resurgence of creativity and the brave new cookieless world.