MEDIA SCENE
MEDIA SCENE
From Algorithms To Ai , Kantar Millward Brown Forecasts Sea Changes In The Digital Advertising Ecosystem In 2018 .
By Soumya Saklani
Kantar Millward Brown ’ s annual Media & Digital Predictions highlight continued evolutions in branded storytelling , cross-media measurement and ROI . 2018 is poised to be another busy year for marketers , complete with continued evolutions in communication approaches , media targeting technology and ROI measurement .
How brands communicate with people will continue to evolve rapidly away from just standard paid media . Brands will embrace new storytelling opportunities , look to entertain in innovative ways , and even start experimenting with voiceactivated marketing , but this will also raise new measurement challenges .
Media targeting continues to advance , thanks to improved validation of audiences within walled gardens and the development of new machine learning technology that enables smart outcomebased decisions . “ Over-The-Top ” ( OTT ) streaming content platforms will also enable brands to target customers where they ’ re increasingly watching video and will usher in new TV and cross-platform media measurement opportunities . Following a year where many brands were questioning and rethinking digital investment , 2018 will see more focus on an integrated view of the overall mix , including digital . At the same time , measurement and optimisation approaches will be modified so that ROI becomes more of a journey and less of a destination .
Advertisers will start with the story
Content offers a new approach to storytelling . It transcends the concept of having a big idea as in its longest form , it can serve as a North Star articulation for everything the brand says , does and importantly , believes .
Marketers will stop approaching the world from a perspective of ad executions or campaigns and find new and inspirational ways to tell their brand story with content . This content will be digitally led , and often long form but created in a way that
In 2017 , most advertisers started to reconsider their digital investment and scrutinise its impact . In 2018 they will go one step further and start to question the role digital plays within the entire media ecosystem ; media agencies , publishers and research partners will have to be ready to give an answer sparks a multitude of creative assets that can be customised to Facebook , Snapchat , Instagram , etc . and allows a fragmented audience to decide what they “ let in ”, share and reject .
For Millennials and Gen Z , the digital ecosystem is becoming an environment where cohesive brand stories are being told . It is unlike anything that older generations who watch TV and read magazines have seen before in that it is synchronised , sequenced , snackable and sharable .
So why brand stories ? According to analysis of Kantar Millward Brown ’ s Link ® database , content that tells stories is proven to achieve better results , and analysis found that videos that told a story , versus those with no story , vastly outperformed in terms of expressiveness ( the ability of the ad to elicit an emotional response as measured by facial coding ) and their ability to elicit the active involvement of the viewer .
Since content is about telling stories that people want to receive and potentially share , the brand does not have to shout to be heard . Instead , it can be the bearer of this great gift of content .
Tips for Marketers : Great content development requires a different approach . We need to walk away from legacy decision making and outdated TV-led processes . Content can be king if you invest in the story and then adapt .
22 MAL21 / 17 ISSUE