Kantar Millward Brown predicts changes in digital advertising ecosystem in 2018

Kantar Millward Brown, a global research agency that assists businesses in brand building has made predictions for 2018 and said that the New Year is poised to be another busy year for marketers, complete with continued evolutions in communication approaches, media targeting technology and ROI measurement.

Looking at digital marketing, it specifically said that following a year where many brands were questioning and rethinking digital investment, next year would see more focus on an integrated view of the overall mix, including digital, while measurement and optimization approaches will be modified so that ROI becomes more of journey and less of a destination.

According to the research agency, in 2017 most advertisers started to reconsider their digital investment and scrutinize its impact. “They will go one step further in 2018 and start to question the role digital plays within the entire media ecosystem; media agencies, publisher and research partners will have to be ready to give an answer”, it said.

Emphasizing that Media ROI will be about the journey, it said that in 2018, real media ROI will become a fast-paced iterative journey where creative (all content, not just Ads) and media (partnerships, not just insertion orders and exchanges) work more in tandem, with the express goal of achieving continuous improvement in sales and brand outcomes.

“Marketers are now keenly focused on ensuring that they understand the impact of their investment, particularly given that digital now accounts for more than 30% of global share of investment,” said Pablo Gomez, Media and Digital Director, Kantar Millward Brown NASEAP in the report. “It’s up to industry players to answer the $100 million dilemma: how could that money be invested better – and not cut – so that it achieves the desired impact?”

“The challenge with non-traditional forms of advertising is how to prove effectiveness; whether the objective is to make people more aware, change perceptions, or take action,” said Jane Ostler, Managing Director, Media & Digital at Kantar Millward Brown in the report. “The impact and return on investment can be compared directly with other brand and behavioral metrics, but brands must be clear about their objectives and consider how to measure effectiveness early in the process.”

Kantar Millward Brown further said that how brands communicate with people will continue to evolve rapidly away from just standard paid media.  “Brands will embrace new story telling opportunities, look to entertain in innovative ways, and even start experimenting with voice-activated marketing, but this will also raise new measurement challenges”.

“Marketers will stop approaching the world from a perspective of ad executions or campaigns and instead find new and inspirational ways to tell their brand story with content”. It said branded entertainment will take center stage.  “More brands will start to use film to communicate their messages in an entertaining way. Voice will spur the adoption of smart devices: As connected devices look to gain mass acceptance among consumers, the advent of voice control could supercharge adoption, provided manufacturers can bridge the divide between devices”.

It predicts that marketing will evolve from algorithms to AI: The last decade of digital marketing has been ruled by the companies with the most compelling algorithms. While that will certainly continue to be true in 2018, “ we are  starting to get our first glimpse of functional artificial intelligence being applied to marketing challenges in new and interesting ways”.

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