Digital

Marketers may be intrigued by new developments like artificial intelligence, augmented reality and voice search. But plenty worry that they are unprepared to work with emerging tech.

Digital money management features such as automated savings and spending controls will become banks’ tool of choice to attract millennials, according to Business Insider Intelligence’s predictions for 2018.

Grocery shoppers scan a number of channels to find the best way to save a buck or two. And while digital is a big component of how they find and research such deals, many still take the traditional route—circulars.

There’s no question that video is and will continue to be the preeminent media format; all media types, regardless of where they began, now play in the video space, and consumers’ collective appetite for it isn’t slowing down. 

The consumer packaged goods sector faces tough hurdles in 2018. That’s mainly because of long, steady shifts in consumer preferences. But new players are disrupting the market as well, as are changes in the distribution channel.

It is common knowledge that US consumers fill their waking hours with media usage. But how people split up their media time may surprise you.

What will social video look like? Is “peak TV” past its peak? How much will connected TV ad spend grow? A look ahead at some of the key developments we expect to unfold in 2018.

In 2017, I made a big shift.  I moved out of the ad and marketing tech space and became a more traditional mainstream tech marketer.  In doing so, I realized the adtech and martech industries are in a bit of a pickle — a fact that only becomes crystal-clear when you remove yourself from the day-to-day of it all.  by Cory Treffiletti , Featured Contributor

Who is going to win the race to digitally transform the world’s informal economy?

Podcast listeners are driven by an interest in learning new information.

Kids are an anomaly of the digital era. As the younger end of Gen Z, they are digital natives. But aside from tweens, few have smartphones, and their involvement in social media is marginal. Instead, their digital activity is dominated by digital video. The sheer amount of their screen time can feel like a crisis to many parents.

Technology has redefined the ways we communicate, read, bank, listen and shop. In fact, U.S. adults now spend more than three hours a day using the internet and apps via computers and smartphones. That usage represents double-digit growth from last year.

The Media Rating Council (MRC) released new Digital Audience-Based Measurement Standards as part of the work undertaken by 3MS (Making Measurement Make Sense), the cross-industry initiative with the 4A’s, ANA, IAB and IAB Tech Lab. These standards are an important and meaningful milestone for the media and marketing industry as we move together toward cross media measurement – the ultimate goal of 3MS.

As CPG companies look to eliminate waste in their advertising budgets, many are reluctant to sacrifice the efficiency afforded by programmatic ad buying, an algorithm that serves as a cheap cost per impression (CPM) means of reaching consumers. While it’s affordable, such an approach focuses solely on who views the ad and neglects to consider the likely mindset of the consumer at the time the ad is viewed. This may not be the most effective methodology. Marketers who instead mix in relevant context strategies can bolster sales lift and further increase return on investment (ROI) by up to 30 percent, according to a new IRI® marketing innovation report, “Cookies versus Context: How Contextually Relevant Advertising Drives Consumer Impact.”

By GonzaLo López Martí – Creative director, etc. / LMMiami.com

• Marketers have learned the hard way that their brand endorsers and spokespersons must be meticulously vetted.
• The adored football/basketball star of today could be in trouble tomorrow for kneeling during the National Anthem, ODing on a cocktail of blue woody pills & Medellín’s finest or embroiling himself in an illegal dog fighting ring.
• Conversely, we’ve also learned as of late that the public can not only be surprisingly forgiving but also utterly amnesiac.
• The breakneck speed of the 24-hour news & social media cycle does that to people.

It’s all CIOs can do to keep up with each new disruptive technology—blockchain, cognitive, digital reality—and incorporate them into specific organizational domains. But there’s a better way to understand and use today’s profound changes: to see these technological forces as complementary, working in harmony.

Stephen Phillips, CEO of ZappiStore, and Daren Poole, Global Brand Director Creative Development at Kantar Millward Brown, acknowledge that some marketers have doubts about testing digital ads but assert that testing not only improves performance now it helps build learning for the future. They give the example of RB which, working with Kantar Millward Brown and ZappiStore, rolled out a fully automated creative testing process allowing RB to test more content, more quickly and improve results at the same time.  by Nigel Hollis

In the latest episode of “Behind the Numbers,” eMarketer analyst Paul Verna talks about key events in the digital video industry, including programmatic video ad spending and original content.

Computers don’t cry during sad stories, but they can tell when we will.

Facebook and Google command most of the money now being funneled toward video advertising  There’s no doubt that content publishers are struggling with the ongoing dominance of the digital advertising ecosystem by Google and Facebook. And while the embrace of video content—and the higher ad revenues expected to attend the format—was bandied as a possible solution to their problem, the reality is that the duopoly has extended its dominion well into the realm of digital video.