This week, advertising leaders will gather in New York City, the heart of the advertising world, to share ideas and key learnings, and rub shoulders with the best and brightest in the industry. As digital marketers, we've had a seat at the table for quite some time now, but each year we, as an industry, seem to revisit the important question of how online creative can more effectively connect with consumers. While we've certainly made progress in the last decade, it's clear that there's still plenty of work to be done.
To illustrate this point, we often put our colleagues on the spot by asking for examples of memorable television campaigns that in some way made a personal or emotional connection with them. People never have a problem coming up with at least one example. Apple, Nike, Coca-Cola -- the list goes on. Now, if you ask that same question about a memorable online campaign, people definitely have to give it a lot more thought. Not ideal, to say the least.
The good news is that today's online marketers have a lot to work with when it comes to building campaigns that create emotional connections with their audiences. They can take advantage of widely adopted ad formats that include video and rich media, as well as new technological enhancements that transform static advertisements into ones that are exciting, engaging, and relevant for consumers based on what they like. Of course, today's advertisers also benefit from huge audiences spending more time than ever online, and insights that allow for smarter programming than ever before possible.
Giving them what they want
Take branded entertainment for example. McDonald's promoted a commercial-free "prime time" on Hulu, where all shows from all networks streamed without advertising, except for a branded frame advertising the McCafe. When users clicked on the McCafe display ad, they were directed to a microsite where they could pretty much do anything except taste the coffee. Again, it's about associating a brand with a "feel good," entertaining experience.
Another example: Let's say you're a huge fan of daytime television, but don't have time to watch due to your busy schedule. Well, Yahoo's original program "Daytime in No Time" lets consumers get their fix of the best daytime television moments in three minutes and, at the same time, allows the advertiser, JCPenney, to reach its core female consumer.
Keeping consumers engaged and simultaneously interacting with your brand can be tough, but as these examples show, it's being done and evolving day by day.
The technology component
Programming and creative are obviously critical parts of the engagement equation, but what about the role of technology? In many ways the choice of technology is just as important as the creative itself. There has been an explosion of new formats and tools that give advertisers the ability to combine rich media, advanced targeting, and optimization in a way that delivers more personally relevant advertising than ever before.
For example, when a major film studio is rolling out a new film around the holiday season, it may want to show the action-oriented scene to18- to 24-year-old men who live in the Midwest and like sports. For the romantic scenes, they would perhaps tap 24- to 35-year-old women who blog on networks forums like Yahoo Shine. Think about the opportunity that technology enables -- film studios being able to show different scenes from the same movie to these different audiences in real-time. What's personally relevant to a sports enthusiast will be different from a lovestruck surfer on a women's blog network.
There's also so much more to be done to improve the search experience for users and advertisers. The line between search and display is blurring thanks to new ad formats that allow advertisers to execute search campaigns with the same engaging creative assets they may have used for their display campaigns. Advertisers such as Hewlett-Packard have taken advantage of these formats by including video, images, and custom search boxes within the search results. It's all about being creative. Whether it's enabling consumers to scroll their cursors over an ad to discover more details about a product or putting video where a blue link used to be, being creative means engaging consumers.
So as the industry once again gathers to discuss how we as marketers or technologists can do a better job developing emotional and impactful creative advertising, my advice is simple: Let's play to our strengths. We have an opportunity to engage consumers in new ways. So, try the new technologies. Try branded entertainment. Don't be afraid to experiment. The next big memorable online campaign could be yours.
Mitch Spolan is vice president of North American field sales at Yahoo.
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