Brands and agencies have long relied on the idea of the campaign as a way to deliver messages to their audiences.
Yes, our thinking is evolving, but we're still largely putting the brand at the center of our thinking and strategy development. Media campaigns by nature are static and discrete -- they are typically built around a brand's desire to get a message out to an audience over a specified period of time. But what we need to do is to put the brand closer to the consumer and help create a rich and meaningful conversation.
Although social media seems to naturally fit that role, I want to explore how display advertising can enable one-to-one, personalized conversations while giving brands and agencies some measure of control.
At this point, some of you (especially anyone under the age of 30) might be thinking "She's cracked -- display ads can't do this." However, a new study from ClearSaleing demonstrates exactly this point (see "A Guide to Market Leadership in 2012: A ClearSaleing Online Advertising Study").
The study analyzed the impact of various digital channels -- including social media -- in the consumer's purchase path. Among the findings was display advertising's strength in introducing and starting new customer conversations (as the first touchpoint).
Although the study found that social's presence in the purchase path drives the highest revenue per order (more than double the average), we all know how challenging it can be to scale. In contrast, display advertising, when included in the purchase path, generated order revenue that was almost 65 percent higher than the average.
(Sourced from ClearSaleing)
I don't know about you, but I'd rather go to my boss or client with a highly scalable channel and slightly lower average order.
So, knowing that display can start new conversations, and can scale, who wouldn't want to leverage that power to continue the conversation over time?
