Marketers will be busy in 2017. At the top of their to-do list will be gaining a rapid understanding of the needs, aspirations and behaviours of Generation Z, also referred to as post-millennials or centennials. To be accepted by this key group, now 27% of the world’s population, marketers must develop mobile-led creative content that appeals to their imagination and passions for design and music. Marketers will also innovate to build better brand experiences and connected
consumer journeys. They will focus on developing more engaging content and using more sophisticated, brand-infused programmatic targeting and less intrusive media approaches to play their part in discouraging ad blocking. Finally, they will take advantage of new technologies which enable cross media placements that work together to drive synergies and deliver enhanced ROI.
Marketers who most enthusiastically tackle these challenges and embrace these opportunities will be leading the way in #gettingmediaright
1 Brands will re-think their digital presence to emphasise co-creation, authenticity and transparency essential for connecting with Generation Z
Successful brands will embrace three paradigm shifts throughout 2017:
a. Brands will invest media dollars and focus activity in digital platforms that allow consumers to co-create a shared brand experience. Unlike the personalization coveted by Millennials, Gen Z will be hands-on – they want to try it, take it apart and re-create it.
b. Brands will give their target consumers a deeper look at themselves through owned media (social, apps, and websites). In addition to products and services for sale, brands will share their story, their purpose and details about their production processes so Gen Z can determine if the brand’s values match their own. This narrative will be further cascaded through strategically placed branded and sponsored content.
c. Brands will shift their focus to right-brained influence. The foundations of the internet and digital media were left brain, with a focus on the linear, factual and linguistic. Digital media for Gen Z will be right brain with a focus on imagination through augmented reality and virtual reality; non-verbal immersive formats and stronger visual imagery; and emotive through emphasizing music and narratives. These shifts will help drive brand growth and increase the power of digital as a channel for brands to meaningfully connect with this audience.
2 Brand experience takes centre stage
Connectivity has a fundamental influence on how people consume media and make brand choices. It gives brands the opportunity to increase reach exponentially. But nearly a third of consumers globally report that brands don’t deliver the same level of service online as they do offline, according to the latest Connected Life study from Kantar TNS. Marketers need to better meet the personal expectations of their consumers across different touchpoints.
The consumer journey has changed dramatically in recent years.Different types of consumers take different paths to purchase, and each use the internet in their own way. Diversity of purpose creates multi-modal brand touchpoints, so one shopper’s point of purchase may simply be a source of product information for
someone else, or another person’s go-to place for cool content.
Trends in Europe, for example show that consumers pass from social, to brand-owned, to offline touchpoints throughout the consumer journey. But in emerging markets there is a far greater preference to interact with brands on social at all stages. These differences create big challenges for channel owners, forced to
play multiple roles and juggle numerous requests.
3 Content marketing: a new wave of experimentation
Consumers don’t want brands per se; they want brands that are useful and accessible, or at the very least, entertaining. Marketers will continue to pull out all the stops to counter declining ad receptivity. In 2017, we’ll see more branded content and less regular advertising. Get ready for more native content, short and long form video, branded filters, and emoji and PR stunts. But it won’t end here.
In the New Year, marketers will forge ahead with new technologies like 360 video, augmented reality, virtual reality and artificial intelligence (chatbots performing customer service and sales functions), making the landscape ripe for new creativity. However some of these formats are isolated, not shareable. Marketers will also closely monitor effectiveness as studies start to show which formats consumers find annoying and intrusive, particularly on mobile.
4 The future of programmatic targeting will balance brand and behaviour to identify the most receptive audiences
Programmatic targeting, done well, empowers advertisers to serve their media to audiences who will be most influenced – attitudinally and behaviorally. Done poorly, this targeting can be intrusive, creepy, off-point and ineffective.
In 2017, marketers will focus on finding the right balance between precision and intrusion. Advertisers and their agencies will align on the components of effective targeting based on brand affinity, interests and the appropriate demographics. We will see a shift away from simplistic blunt-instrument targeting based on a single input – be it behaviour (websites visited, items in a shopping cart), demographics, or stand-alone brand affinity.
Most marketers now understand that post-purchase targeting misses the opportunity to influence the consumer before they have decided on a brand. Effective targeting
will successfully harmonize mid-cycle path to purchase variables with the requisite interest-based and demographic variables, and empower advertisers to identify the most addressable audiences for media activation. This shift in approach will help marketers and their agencies focus on brand effectiveness from the moment the media begins.
5 Galvanised by fear, the online advertising industry will more aggressively respond to ad blockers
Digital advertising has had its wake up call and can no longer hit the snooze button. The industry has been jolted into action by the continued rise of ad blocking software across desktop and mobile devices, and forecasts of billions in lost advertising revenue. We predict marketers will fight back with genuine improvements for consumers. In 2015, IAB Tech Lab launched a programme of “lean” ad principles, advocating that digital ads should be light, encrypted, non-invasive, and support a user’s decision to choose what ads they see. September 2016 saw the launch of the impressively broad Coalition for Better Ads, and the industry will soon launch a new ad portfolio which should kill off pop-ups, forced countdowns and auto expands – the most annoying and disruptive of ad formats.
6 Media synergies will become more important than any single channel and the collective weight of all channels
In a media landscape of ongoing dramatic change, advertisers will more aggressively adopt multiple media alternatives to reach and connect with their audiences throughout 2017. Synergies will become more important than any single channel and the collective weight of all channels put together. Marketers will be focused on understanding the role each media plays within a broader plan and how they rub off to produce synergistic effects.
The concept of synergies has been around for some time but what has changed is the planning aspect and the application of a discipline to the selection of channels to maximise its impact. Cross media studies conducted by Kantar Millward Brown show that globally 25% of media effectiveness has been attributed to synergies, and nearly 40% in APAC. These numbers are not only growing but increasingly we are seeing non-TV synergies emerging as advertisers and agencies start to get their heads around this.