Will Advertising be dead by 2025?
It might sound extreme to suggest that advertising could die but if serious actions aren’t taken soon the advertising industry is going to turn off consumers for good. Consumers are fed up with intrusive ads that aren’t relevant to them, and ad blocking has become a serious threat to the industry. So if advertisers want to improve consumer receptivity to advertising, things need to change.
What should advertisers be doing to ensure message receptivity?
Provide Quality Communication: Currently there is no real value placed on the improved return on investment of less cluttered and higher quality online publisher environments. Less clutter means stronger response to advertising but it takes a brave publisher with a great sales team to push down this path, and make it work economically. Therefore advertisers need to play a bigger role in requiring and rewarding placements with less clutter, and more evaluation work to prove their value. This will improve the audience experience, protect receptivity and perhaps quell the blockers.
Max the Mix: In today’s world brands need to assess and then use the right moments to talk. This means using the media mix to increase the likelihood of reaching a receptive audience and identifying entirely new moments to talk through media. Kantar Millward Brown Cross Media studies show that brands using a media mix – which extends to PR and point of sale for example – increases brand uplifts.
Engage, don’t threaten: Audience targeting needs to become more qualitative because if it’s used in the right way it can be positive. The Kantar Millward Brown AdReaction Video study showed that consumers themselves are slightly conflicted in what they want and the sources of data that they’re happy for brands to use. The solution is for brands to use data to target judiciously and to focus on the consumer’s experience of what they are delivering over the volume of interactions they deem to be “engagement” (which may simply be irritated consumers clicking to try to clear the ads away).
Listen to the consumer: Positive consumer feedback should be the test before any content in any form in any media goes live. However you choose to measure it, the consumer voice matters. It’s a small price to pay for a more assured return on investment, and to avoid worthless advertising pollution.
Go Native: Native advertising – sponsored branded content – has more potential than is currently being explored. Media owners have some amazing skills which advertisers should work with to make the format work better, rather than allow it to become ad spam. When there is match between the advert and the platform receptivity possibility is relative higher coherence helps in creating affinity between consumers and content.
Be remarkable: It might sound obvious, but now more than ever, when there is so much competition, brands need to focus on creating truly remarkable ideas and experiences in order to cut through. Good creative lasts a long time and delivers a higher ROI.
If advertising is going to have a future, we should act now. The most precious asset for advertisers is the audience’s willingness to engage with their brand. Advertisers and media buyers need to change if they want to communicate with a receptive audience. So what can we do to ensure receptivity? Make sure your advertising is relevant, interesting or inspiring enough that people want to engage with it. Get your media mix right – according to Kantar Millward Brown there is a negative correlation between ad clutter and ad memorability, or in other words, more clutter, less impact.
Mike Umogun