It’s no secret that we are bombarded with advertising every
which way we look. With digital
marketing becoming an increasingly larger portion of company’s media budgets, we’re
exposed to so many online ads that our eyes are almost becoming trained to
glaze right past them. It’s more challenging
than ever to have effective ads that actually yield engagement and conversion. Wayne Friedman (Variety) suggests that online ads are “out of control,”
particularly referring to showy entertainment advertising. On the other hand, digital
agencies claim that consumers don’t mind being faced with these kinds of ads
since seeing an ad that includes a video trailer or sneak preview for an
upcoming movie/TV show is relatively enjoyable.
Another digital advertising executive emphasizes the importance of this
kind of content-based promotion by rightly pointing out that “the entertainment
industry lives on the power of sampling.”
The issue at hand is not only getting the ad to be noticed amongst all
the clutter, but to increase the level of engagement. To address this, “disruptive” advertising has
become increasingly popular. For
example, you go to a website, such as CNN.com, only to be faced with a film’s
ad as an over-lay that temporarily takes over the entire site and even might
immediately begin playing a movie trailer.
Marketers hope that consumers are more likely to click on this type of
an ad as opposed to a simple banner that appears at the top or side of a
website. This type of “in your face” advertising
may be more successful than traditional digital marketing, but with many online
ads only getting a CTR of around 1% (compared to 2-3% for search engine advertising), additional strategies
to boost effectiveness must be developed.
One such strategy Variety mentions
that about 100 advertisers have experimented with in ad-support video content
is called the “Pool” where the viewer is presented with 3 different ads and
they are asked to choose which one they’d like to view. Research shows that these video ads have 300%
more awareness for consumers as opposed to one video that they are forced to
watch. The hope is that after
experiencing this, consumers will more likely opt to visit these “friendlier”
sites as opposed to others that have more imposing ads. From personal experience, I can see why this
strategy can be successful; the consumer instinctively tunes in more to the ad
as a result of feeling empowered since they had a say in what they’re
watching. This method also targets the
ad more effectively, further increasing the chances of engagement.
As far as other potential methods for the
future, I believe advertising should and will become even more integrated with
social networks, particularly outside of the facebook environment. The key challenge will be figuring out how to
do this effectively without making the consumer feel like their privacy is
being intruded on.
Variety Article: http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118054915?refCatId=18
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