Could the Creative Bring about the Renaissance of Adtech?

Mobile ad blocking is at an all time high in our country. More than 40 percent users have mobile ad blockers installed. This makes me ask do consumers hate ads or do they hate the way they are done? When you dive deeper into the problem, you realize that users do not dislike the concept of ads. In a study carried out by HubSpot of ad blocker users, 83 percent actually said that they would be ok to see ads if intrusive ones were filtered out. 63 percent interestingly said that most online ads today do not look professional and often take their intelligence for granted.

Here’s where Adtech is getting it wrong. There are hundreds of companies that have focussed on improving targeting – who, when, where. Another 100 odd focussed on easing out the buying and selling of banner ads. Billions of dollars worth of technology is focussed on showing ads to people in ad spots they detest. Another research study suggests that 86 percent of the users are just blind to banners. Thats enough evidence to suggest that the most popularly used ad formats today (full screen interstitials, banners and pre roll videos) are broken.

Because of the broken format,the creative has taken a big hit too.Do you recall any digital ad? I m certain you recall accidentally clicking on one. The Creative is the soul of an ad. It connects brands with consumers at a direct and often personal level.

Look over briefly at the TV industry – do you remember any ads from here? Sure, there are so many. The iconic Fevikwik commercial where a fisherman caught fish by applying glue to the stick, the Cadbury girl who funnily dances into the cricket field, Aamir Khan’s Thanda Matlab Coca Cola ad – the list goes on. Creative story telling built these brands and etched a place in consumers hearts. Digital ads just do not have that effect. Why?

It’s simple. Digital creatives are lagging behind because brands and agencies do not put enough time energy and love in producing it. This happens because digital allocation (in our country) is always less than 10 percent of the overall media budget. So until digital is given over 30-40 percent of the over all budget it is going to continue to get bastard-child treatment. Till then TV/Print/Outdoor ads will be repurposed for Digital.

Producing mobile creative requires a new approach. The creative has to be visually rich and crisp given the short attention span and on-the-go use.

However that will change in the near future. It’s been proven time and again that media budgets eventually follow eyeballs. Time Spent on digital (mobile in particular) surpassed TV time in 2016 and given the pace of innovation on mobile, that time spent is only going to increase. A study by Mobile Marketing Association and Group M projected that mobile advertising industry will touch Rs.10000 crores in 2018. This makes mobile the third largest medium after TV and Print in terms of ad spends.It is evident that brands cannot ignore the rising power of the mobile screen.

Producing mobile creative requires a new approach. The creative has to be visually rich and crisp given the short attention span and on-the-go use. The creative could also integrate the various sensors and features available on the phone to make the brand experience more immersive and engaging. Imagine an AR experience where users could take a selfie and try products on themselves. Or a light VR experience, where a user could be teleported inside a car and pans his phone in all directions to experience the view from the drivers seat. There are also various motion gestures – tap, swipe, scratch, pinch, flip, pan, tilt – that could be used to bring out the brand’s message. The audience is becoming more discerning so the creative has to do more than just say – “hey check out our new product”.

A well-thought creative targeted to the right user in a non intrusive format will change the users perception of mobile ads. This may have users rethink their ad blocker choice and that may just bring about the renaissance that Adtech needs.

For example, recently Flipkart ran an interactive mobile advertising campaign for a newly launched phone whose USP was its battery. The creative was built around the anxiety users feel when their phone batteries are running low. The messaging featured typical moments when you do not want your battery running low – like when your old crush calls. The campaign was uniquely targeted to users who had low battery on their phones when the user was exposed to the ad, making it contextual. The campaign experienced 16x higher engagement rate than static banner ads. This is an interesting example to show the potential of contextual story telling among masses which are now highly intelligent and discerning.

This article was first published in Silicon India Magazine and can be read here.