The evolution of branding online
We need to show advertisers that digital can offer more than simply eliciting a response and creating a sale, says InSkin Media’s Steve Doyle – it can also provide deeper engagement that is more meaningful than any other form of brand advertising.
Over the past five years, an increasing number of branding options have become available for advertisers in the digital display space. This growing competition within the digital advertising sector has outpaced that of traditional media, as new formats vie for marketers’ advertising budgets.
While conventional display advertising remains dominated by direct response, and the price of display advertising decreased during the recession (especially for traditional publishers), there is now a brave new world of interactive units in the market, pushing for a share of advertising budgets.
This competition is not confined to the digital space, but extends to anywhere considered by marketers to be a ‘branding environment’. The traditional, and obvious, place to start is TV, which is a long-established branding medium; it has a heritage in the mind of the consumer and occupies a comfort zone with advertisers. Its appeal is decades old, and there is an army of marketers who simply trust it. Commercial history also keeps it at the forefront of the mechanics of media buying.
The challenge is to show advertisers that digital can offer more than simply eliciting a response and creating a sale. It can provide deeper engagement, more meaningful than a TV ‘impact’ or any other form of brand advertising.
Online is considered the ‘accountable medium’. That’s great, but why is it still mainly accountable to sale rather than any other metric, when its applications can be so much broader?
Simply put, it is because there is more advertising space available on the internet than could possibly be filled by advertising demand. Economics have devalued traditional ad space online, whereas elsewhere that is not always the case.
Press circulation is down. Cinema, radio and other media are flat at best. There is no doubt that supply has ballooned in digital (not least in the era of multiple device ownership – a whole different topic) and stayed sky high. Consequently, DR campaigns become cheaper and cheaper, cannibalising online revenues away from higher value online branding buys.
As a result we have seen the rise of the DSP/RTB, a natural evolution. Why not automate the most automatable type of advertising? Economies of scale, using technology to improve buying practices and reaching a high number of people at the touch of a button are all now part of display media in 2013.
It makes sense for marketers to pursue this route for the bulk of their spend, but how can tech businesses and publishers stay ahead of this curve, and what does that mean from an online branding perspective?
The first thing that needs to be made clear is measurement.
The conversions we generate for our customers are around environment, creative execution, animation, engagement and, ultimately, time spent with the ad. We know these are the ingredients that, mixed together, make a tasty online branding cake.
However, against the backdrop of response, the tendency is still to drive spend based on click-through-rates.
Many senior industry people understand that this is not the optimal system of measurement for brand advertising, but nevertheless it remains a key metric for advertisers. Why? Their focus is to drive traffic to their chosen campaign destination, be it their website, social hub or other landing page.
The essential consideration for brand advertisers therefore is that large traffic volumes are important and interesting, but simply landing on a page is not enough to affect brand metrics and ultimately increase purchase intent.
Consequently, judging a campaign purely on CTR gives a one-dimensional view of success. Persuading a consumer to engage with advertising is hard and expensive; to make those clicks count, consumers need to remain in the campaign environment and gain a lasting impression of the brand in order to deliver value – branding ROI, in the industry parlance.
Advertisers need quality traffic, and campaign results need to be assessed on depth of engagement.
Sticky and engaging content is, of course, key. The genuine, unique opportunity that high-impact, online branding formats offer is the integration of that content into the ad unit itself. They have longer dwell times than standard DR units, leading to more considered clicks; ultimately ensuring that users who do click are genuinely engaged with the advertiser’s message.
The lean-forward mentality of a computer user ensures that engagement, so assessment based on dwell times and interactivity levels, in conjunction with the volume of traffic, is a valuable approach. Making brands see that value, and persuading them to measure it in an optimal way, remains the key challenge for this small but thriving sector of the market.
Steve Doyle is Commercial Director Europe, InSkin Media.