Some level of contextual relevancy is essential if you want to connect with -- rather than tune out -- young consumers.
Today, virtually every RFP for an online brand advertising campaign includes an invitation for out-of-the-box thinking. But it's not just a request, it's a demand.
A good online media plan is no longer good enough. Developing a great plan requires media planners to become more and more creative, not just in where they strategically allocate limited media dollars, but in how brand creative is tactically executed on the web. The client mandate is to spend more online but spend it wisely. This is made even more challenging as planners and buyers with limited resources are confronted with a vast landscape of web properties competing for ad dollars.
With CPMs high and inventory low on top-tier sites, understanding how to effectively navigate the Wild Wild West of the mid-tail for brand advertising is one way to separate a good online media plan from a great one.
It's not that every great plan requires buying into the mid-tail, but it's a great place to secure integration of advertising message and editorial content within a narrowcast environment. The result is an optimal mix of reach, relevancy and return.
For a while, contextual relevancy appeared to add value. But matching creative-to-context or message-to-medium has been a standard procedure throughout the illustrious history of advertising and media, and therefore not that big of a deal just because we're now applying it online.
Running an ad for the film "The Pursuit of Happyness" on a film site is the most obvious form of relevancy: endemic placement matching product-to-product category. (Note: all endemic placements are contextually relevant, but not all contextually relevant ads are endemic.)
Running the ad on a single parenting site goes deeper into the demo/psychographic dimensions of matching the content of the film to the profile of the user, and it would appear somewhat more insightful. Today, it's possible to achieve this using search and automated keyword programs through such offerings as Google AdSense and IntelliTXT.
But the granularity offered through automated relevancy isn't foolproof and carries some risk. Solving a brand marketer's problems is not always as easy as developing a mathematical formula or algorithm; it requires a dialogue between advertiser and medium to ensure a good fit. For "Happyness," if the keywords "single parents" were used to automatically identify relevant sites, the ad could end up on a dating site including content such as "never date single parents," egregiously missing the mark to the point of backfiring. On the other hand, there'd be missed opportunities: a popular quiz site may have a thousand quizzes on "sex, pets, cars, clothes," etc., but none of these words reveal its core demographic of women 21-44.
Other weaknesses of automated relevancy include lack of transparency, no guaranteed SOV, and ad placements way down into the long tail on sites that you'd prefer to avoid.
There remains the need for some level of subjective (human) judgment as to what constitutes a good fit and what doesn't. The action this year is in managing prime locations in the mid-tail, which can be achieved only by those who straddle the worlds of both advertisers and web publishers. Only certain large rep firms are in this unique position, otherwise a planner has to deal with individual webmasters who may or may not be a pleasure to work with.
Where contextual relevancy takes its most impressive leap is with creative integration. To IAB or not to IAB? The question is: how to go beyond the banner and other standardized IAB units to synthesize marketing message into editorial content through creative integration. This can be achieved through custom editorial/advertorial, contests, quizzes, micro sites and more. Integration is critical, whether you're buying in-market film enthusiast sites to procure the favor of alpha fans to evangelize a film, or you're buying a single parenting site with strong psychographic relevancy.
A navigation bar with "Happyness" graphic assets, incorporating an interview with Will Smith and his son, developing a contest for these single parents and their kids to win vacations, this is how online media planners become rock stars. They make the message part of the intended destination as opposed to an intrusion. Going deep into content deepens the level of emotional response and delivers on the promise of engagement.
Of course, achieving integration throughout selected mid-size web properties can be a real pain in the tail and is more easily conceived than accomplished. It demands direct relationships between an agency or rep firm and web publishers, appreciation of the strategic value and pricing of implied endorsements and transfer of brand equity, and tactical expertise in production, timing and delivery. Just because you want to do it, doesn't mean a web publisher can do it.
The value proposition of such a labor-intensive effort to a publisher is quite often different than that for the advertiser. It's not just the money but the production time and duration of the program that factor into these decisions. Ongoing publisher relationships and communications are key in successful execution of these powerful tactics, and automated networks are unable to deliver.
These days, some level of integration is almost essential if you want to truly connect with consumers, especially younger ones who are already tuning out banner ads. Most users know that real editorial content is rarely ever presented across the top (usually a leaderboard) or down the right side (usually a skyscraper) of a page. We know that human perceptual systems are necessarily eliminative. What this means for advertising on the web is that the sooner one perceives where extraneous information is usually located, the sooner it can be eliminated to allow focus on the real meat. This is all happening online at a much more accelerated rate than we've seen offline.
But let's not go too wild. While integration can make a good campaign great, it can also lead to going too far out of the box and into the fire. It can heat up your message, but if you overdo it, you can get burned. Too often, media planners approach proposals thinking bigger and splashier is always better. Many times, it's the more subtle sponsorship or simple interactive option that is most effective in engaging the user. To lift a good plan up to the level of a great one isn't as simple as "more is better."
Like any other tactic, integration has its appropriate place in an overall campaign. The art and science of media planning requires experience in allocating budget for reach (impressions) with investments in depth (integration), and then striking just the right balance to make a great plan perfect.
Aaron Broder is co-founder and CEO of Gorilla Nation Media, LLC, one of the largest online ad sales rep firms. Read full bio.