If you haven’t been through the experience of searching for a product or service and then being served ads all over the web for the same product or service, then this is probably your first day online. Welcome to the Internet. There’s a lot more than porn here.
Jokes apart. The way marketers currently use cookie- or sign-in-based ad remarketing makes most users feel like they’re being shadowed. Like their every move is being tracked. Like Big Brother is watching.
For those who came in late, remarketing is the act of targeting users who have already visited your website, or clicked on an ad, or searched for a particular product or category, or interacted with you on social media, or downloaded your app.
It initially began as a really smart idea. Someone who’s interacted with you or your business’ category is more likely to be persuaded if you are able to identify them and serve them an ad based on their earlier interaction with you. It sounded like a beautiful blend of digital marketing and CRM.
And then all hell broke loose.
Here’s the greatest prank I ever heard of.
This is exactly how remarketers work. If the user’s shown interest in spoons, let’s give him spoons. Big spoons, little spoons, silver spoons, gold spoons, plastic spoons, dessert spoons, soup spoons…
Here are some reasons why this kind of remarketing doesn’t work.
It’s as close to online stalking as you can legally get.
The user might have actually already bought the spoons, in which case the ad impression was wasted.
The user may have had only a fleeting interest in the product or category.
So how do you make remarketing more effective?
By making it useful to your users.
Here’s one way to do that.
Suppose you let your user pick what they’re interested in. You store that information – either through a signed-in profile or a cookie or both – on that user’s browser. And then target them with ads focused on those interest categories.
At any point of time, the user can update their interest categories, making sure they’re always being served fresh, relevant ads. They can also – in the interest of privacy – choose to opt-out of this programme.
In a sense, you’re getting your users to optimise your advertising for you. And increasing your relevance to them; and, hopefully, brand equity.
The tough part about leading an agency creative team is that you have to set the direction and the vision for the work that you will do.
The great part about leading an agency creative team is that you get to set the direction and the vision for the work that you will do.
Digital marketing in India has come a long way since I defected from traditional advertising in 2009. Fewer marketers are talking about digital being the future; they’re beginning to see it as a de facto way of life. I, for one, believe we’ve entered a post-digital age, and that all marketing efforts going forward need to accept and leverage that reality.
I think we need to go beyond looking at digital as Internet and mobile. I think we have to look at digital marketing as an intersection of three worlds; and that intersection doesn’t always need to reside in the virtual world.
Digital marketing is an intersection of three previously distinct worlds.
Forgive me, but I’m going to repeat three buzz-phrases you’ve been hearing for a while. They’re the absolute truth.
Content is the new communication. You can’t be a marketer and believe that you’ll achieve brand engagement with a 30-second TVC.
Data is the new oil. Because digital allows us to capture what people are actually doing, versus the focus groups that capture what people claim they’re doing.
Mobile is the new TV. It’s belittling to call the first screen you look at every morning, the only screen you carry wherever you go, and the last screen you look at every night a “second screen”.
The other thing we need to practice is data-driven marketing. If you’ve managed to get past information overload and get someone to actually click through to your content, you aren’t doing yourself justice if you aren’t setting up to reach that person again. Every piece of engagement that you run needs to help you understand something more about your audience.
Marketing today isn’t scientific unless it’s driven by data.
If one understands these shifts, it’s not difficult to see where digital creativity is going in 2014. Here’s my bucket list for the year to come.
We know where you are, what device you’re on, what content you like, your relationship status, your job profile. Which means I can tailor a message to suit you – and just those people similar to you.
This year, content marketing will grow up. Brands will need to create content from things they do, rather than just a philosophy they claim to espouse. Hint: Red Bull Stratos.
Every year, a commentator like me says that THIS is the year of mobile. But, for the first time in my career, I’m seeing brands invite pitches that specifically have a mobile leg to them. It’s getting serious.
Jawbone, Fitbit and Pebble are showing the way. And a new generation of devices, with integrated services, is on the way. How can one ignore a platform that’s touching your consumer’s skin 24×7?
Facebook’s organic reach for Pages is on its way to zero. (They said it, not me.) The millions of dollars spent on vanity metric wars seem like they’re going down the drain, no? Brands will – and are- making the move to their own platforms. Where they, not Mark Zuckerberg, will call the shots.
Data, beautifully visualised, can tell some fantastic stories. A compelling form of content that more and more brands – and journalists – are experimenting with.
Morgan Stanley predicts 75 billion devices will be connected to the Internet by 2020. There’s no better time to build that tweeting urinal, you know.
Interrupt at your audience’s point of need. Solve need. Become part of their life. Easier said than done, but software/utility-based marketing is here to stay.
It’s only recently that Indian marketers have begun questioning the value of their social media communities. I see an increased focus on quality fans, leading to higher engagement and measurable ROI, especially in the retail industry.
And, finally, the elephant in the room. Everybody’s waiting for the public launch. Everybody’s waiting for the open ecosystem. And when it does, we’re going to see a plethora of apps and content developed for and from Google’s futuristic eyepiece.
Well, there’s no question digital agencies are the need of the hour. Unfortunately, not every digital shop has the ability to really think from a brand and business point-of-view. Most are still in the ‘engagement’ business, and spend their time coming up with different ways to give away iPads on Twitter.
The challenge is that the independent digital agencies in India have become acquisition targets for mainline agencies. Given time, mainline agencies will probably begin to truly integrate digital thinking into their mainline processes. Which means that digital shops may end up becoming nothing more than digital production houses.
The big “Unless…” here is that integration may happen the other way around. Where the digital shop may integrate video production, PR and event capabilities. They may start thinking from a brand and business perspective. And suddenly, they’ll be eating into the mainline pie.
Verdict: The digital agency isn’t dead…but unless they change their medication quick, they will pass on peacefully in their sleep.
Sure, they’re coming under pressure from digital shops right now. But see above. Eventually, integration – whether driven by traditional agencies or digital agencies – will win out – from a creative, brand, business and economy point-of-view.
Verdict: The full-service agency is visiting the doctor regularly, and the pills are bitter, but the long-term prognosis is still good.
Yeah, look. As much as I choose to send most emails I receive straight to the bin, I have to admit that email marketing is far from dead. Gmail tabs notwithstanding.
Yes, open rates have dropped. But here’s another way to look at it. I was recently tracking Open Rates and Click Rates across a bunch of brands, and sure enough, they’d all declined to some level after Gmail tabs. However, Clicks Per Unique Open were up. Which showed me that I was engaging with my most meaningful customers.
Across all our brands, email marketing continues to drive conversions, cross-sell and up-sell. Based on smart analysis, segmenting and targeting. And it’s working for our clients.
Verdict: Alive and kicking. And don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.
Oreo screwed us all. What started as a single, beautiful (if opportunistic) tweet has snowballed into a flood of desperate attempts to capitalise on news. What Amul did in India on hoardings decades ago, brands are doing now on Twitter and Facebook.
And, let’s face it, 99.95% of all real-time marketing tweets are crap.
They’re a force-fit. A desperate attempt by a brand to sound cool and ‘with it’ by jumping on to an event that the brand might have absolutely no connect with. An event that may not even gel with the brand’s personality. And with creative that will most likely suck.
Verdict: It’s alive, but I wish it were dead so that brands could focus on what’s relevant to them and their audience.
My take here is really simple. The last great innovation I saw on social media was Skyrec (Google it). Right now, I see brands busy spamming News Feeds and Timelines with “engagement posts” and, worse, contests. (More about that here.) It’s still driving clicks to e-commerce, but…
It’s become a numbers game instead of a quality game. Instead of following a funnel from broadcasting to narrowcasting, brands and agencies are sticking to broadcasting. 5 million fans? I have 10 million. And 30,000 Twitter followers to boot. Fuck you too.
Most importantly, Mark Zuckerberg has proved thrice in the last two years what I’ve been saying for a while longer – that social media cannot be owned media. Because you, as a brand, don’t set the rules. First, Zuck reduced the reach of Posts and made advertisers spend money to reach an audience they’d already spent money to acquire. Second, he introduced Timeline, and put paid to all those Facebook apps brands had spent crores creating. Thirdly, he gave image posts the maximum reach last year – and, this April, chopped that down, sending social media managers into a tizzy.
Over time, Facebook will become a brand’s RSS feed. And Twitter will become a brand’s influence marketing platform, once (if) agencies realise that contests are doing sweet fuck-all for a brand’s image and bottomline.
Also, from an agency standpoint, social media management is pretty much a loss-making proposition. Lots of man-hours, piss-poor retainers, ultra-easy to screw up. So yeah, it’s not exactly a bed of roses.
Verdict: Yeah, social media is dead, and I’m kicking the corpse on the way out.
Again. It’s a question of creativity. Most of the content going up on brand blogs and websites is repetitive, redundant and boring. There’s no newness, no novelty, no differentiator. Often, there’s no focus on a brand’s tone of voice. Most content is just clutter.
But, that said, we’ve just begun to explore content marketing. And, every now and then, brands like Red Bull will come along and do a space jump and content marketing will once again be the new darling of the crowds.
Verdict: Content marketing is alive, but just a toddler, and needs some hand-holding to grow up.
Banner Ads Are Dead
The shortest take yet. Yes they are. When was the last time you clicked on one, eh? Or failed to get annoyed by a pop-up, a pop-under or (that new darling of publishers) auto-play video?
Verdict: Save yer money, cut the life support, let banners die. And look for more organic ways to engage.
This kind of a topic sort of demands a poll, so I’d love to know what you think.
The real insight that came out of Kyoorius DesignYatra 2013 was, simply, this:
Digital and Design have a common goal – to solve human problems.
The notion occurred to me sometime on day one, during DigiYatra. It could’ve been sparked by the conversation that I had with a colleague on the flight to Goa. Or by the conference theme itself – Create Change. Or by something one of the speakers on the first day – Sanky, Joao Cardoso Fernandes, Laura Jordan Bambach – said.
You’ll find the proof in any products, digital or design, created by a brand or otherwise. As illustrated briefly below.
A low-cost tablet designed to transform India through Internet penetration.
A drinking filter that kills bacteria as you suck up the water.
A fuel-efficient, reduced-emission biomass stove for the poor.
Inspiring the world to stay fit.
Turning old SIM cards into textbooks for poor students.
You never know which tool you may need.
Teaches you how to save fuel and reduce emissions by driving better.
Never get lost again.
Record a program with a tweet.
Bringing light to dark places, with a recycled bottle, water and chlorine.
Helping people find love through Facebook.
Granted, the scale of the problem may vary wildly, from personal to societal. But the essence is the same.
Identify a problem. Then build something to solve it.
The theme was hammered home on day 3, when Raj Kurup forcefully put a message across.
Everybody is a designer.
It’s true. In our world, you don’t need Photoshop and Illustrator to be called a designer. It’s not about what you do, it’s about the problem you solve.
In fact, tomorrow’s creativity may be all about identifying the crux of the problem, for the solution is often obvious.
The best digital and design agencies do exactly this. Identify a problem, design something to solve it. As do the millions of startups that churn out product after product, hardware and software, to address problems they think are worth the effort.
If those solutions can also solve a brand’s needs, then you have truly great marketing solutions.
It’s all about a human-centric approach rather than a brand-centric one.
What Is An Insight? by Samit Malkani 