Why branded content will supplant traditional advertising

The volume of branded content will continue to grow because UK consumers simply don’t like ads, writes Jane Ostler

Marketing communications is undergoing a paradigm shift. Brand messages are slowly but surely moving away from the ad break and deeper into consumers’ lives.

The motivation for this change is clear. AdReaction: Gen X, Y and Z which compares the attitudes and behaviours of consumers from Gen Z (aged 16-19), Gen Y (aged 20-34) and Gen X (aged 35-49) towards media and brand messaging, reveals that consumers have a more positive attitude towards brands that are useful and accessible or, at the very least, entertaining.

The study highlights the extreme challenge facing marketers in the UK as Gen Z becomes more important to more categories and sectors, and demands that brands behave differently in the way they communicate.

Gen Z in the UK is typically less favourable towards all advertising versus the global average, with TV ads scoring a positive score of 14% compared to a global average of 26%, but their receptivity for standard digital alternatives is much worse.

Globally and in the UK, Gen Z prefer shorter ads (50% of UK Gen Z are more positive towards relevant ads that are 10 seconds or less), while Gen X is more tolerant of videos of up to 20 seconds.

In this world of declining ad receptivity, brands must find new ways to reach consumers beyond the confines of traditional advertising and will be aided by media owners who are, in turn, desperate for new revenue streams.

Content such as tutorials, expert reviews, social media, branded events or sponsored events are all viewed more positively than ads by UK Gen Z. These formats also allow consumers to engage with brands by letting them, for example, co-create or vote for outcomes.

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In the UK, Gen Z is 28% more likely to be positive about content that allows them to vote for something to happen, like making decisions about the ending, the story or the characters.

The logical conclusion is that marketers need to spend more time developing branded content and less time on traditional advertising. In time, branded content will evolve too and we are likely to see an increase in native content, short and long form video, branded lenses and filters, branded emojis, and PR stunts.

The opportunities for branded content have never been greater and now also extend to new technologies such 360 degree video, augmented reality, virtual reality and artificial intelligence – chatbots performing customer service and sales functions, for example.

Geotargeting offers another opportunity: KFC has used Snapchat geofilters instore and Snapchat is using geofilters to let people know where to find a Snapbot vending booth for its glasses.

To take advantage, brands need to move quickly into customised/personalised creative content, delivered in a targeted way via programmatic buying.

There are huge opportunities for more sequential content as marketers use retargeting for a more strategic and persuasive catenation of consumer messages. Consumers don’t want to continue to see ads for a mattress they searched for, and bought, two weeks ago.

All this creates an unprecedented landscape for marketers who are willing, able and empowered to be creative. But as well as being bold, they will also need to be disciplined, closely monitoring the effectiveness of new formats, which may only have a limited life or which may start to annoy consumers as other brands pile in.

The goal will be to use this new data-driven ecosystem to create a longer-term bond with consumers while also re-imagining the way consumers encounter brands. Far from a controlled, traditional advertising consumer view (TV, outdoor, in store), marketers face a complex, multi-platform, multi-device, walled-garden world, which will all provide different consumer experiences and challenges.

Making this new approach a reality will require marketers to inform their decisions using consistent metrics. As branded content booms, the lines between media and creative content will become blurred, and attribution (short/long term, brand/sales) will become more important.

The pressure on marketers to measure and account for investment in new forms of consumer communication will become more extreme. Reach, traffic and the nebulous ‘engagement’ are topline measures that don’t add to the sum of human knowledge and will have to be replaced by metrics that explain the short and long-term impacts on consumer perception and behaviour.

What they will need are metrics that allow marketing programmes to innovate efficiently for Gen Z, while not alienating other consumers. Such questions can’t simply be outsourced to a media or creative agency but require internal knowledge and understanding.

Ultimately, marketers will come under increasing pressure to reserve some budget for experimentation with content that will appeal in new ways to their consumers.

Jane Ostler is managing director for media and digital at Kantar Millward Brown UK