Event report: Reaching the connected consumer
“We need to target people and not just devices,” explained Specific Media’s Gavin Johnson as he opened up day two of MediaTel’s annual Connected Consumer conference on Wednesday.
Set atop the Nomura offices, overlooking a very muggy London, a panel of experts, chaired by media journalist Raymond Snoddy, kicked off the day by discussing the challenges that brands and advertisers face when it comes to reaching the connected consumer.
With platforms changing faster than marketing technologists can keep up, and consumer behaviours changing even faster, what can the industry do to engage their audiences?
Reaching out
Before venturing that far, let’s ask how we even define a connected consumer today. Jon Block, controller of digital products for ITV, says we’re about to move between two distinct worlds. “It’s gone from being all about connected devices and where that connection is based in silos, to a world where it’s actually about our user needs; where we don’t actually care about what device we’re using.”
Indeed, people habitually now swap devices throughout the day, Johnson explained, and this should tell us that the ongoing siloing of various connected devices – creating separate marketing strategies for smartphones, tablets or connected TVs is not the way forward; if the consumer is always connected via a range of devices, then strategies must take account of that behaviour, no matter the difficulties it presents.
“Consumers now have an omni-channel life,” says Michael Bayler, director of strategy at SapientNitro. “I hate that term and we should find a new one, but it explains the behaviour very well, and we need to understand that a device like a mobile is only one part of that.
“As soon as we isolate one of these channels, it goes wrong. TV. Mobile. Carrier pigeon. Omni-channel is the only word I can think to use. To say something like ‘m-commerce’ – or any of these silos – is meaningless today.”
And it is the omni-channel behaviour of today’s connected consumer that presents a huge challenge to brands. The acceleration and scale of change is so great that it becomes almost impossible to keep up – we are, Bayler says, “in a business environment of perpetual disruption.”
It’s like a game of chess, he says, where your strategy will never work because the pieces keep moving each time you blink.
“I don’t think we even know we’re connected,” argues Rockabox CEO and founder James Booth. “We live in a way where we expect and automatically assume that we’re connected.”
Take the example of young people today, Booth says. They connect automatically, naturally – and this makes it very difficult for advertisers, particularly as devices become smaller and more personal.
“Gone are the days of just dumping an ad on someone; it’s hugely hard to penetrate something someone values so much and views as deeply personal.”
The problem with reaching the consumer, Bayler argues, is not that consumers aren’t willing to engage with brands, but rather the speed at which change is happening.
In fact, according to Specific Media’s own research, 84% of the UK population connect to their wi-fi as soon as they walk through the door. The real challenge here for advertisers is that consumer behaviour doesn’t change as a result of this; consumers don’t arrive home, swap a mobile for a tablet and consciously think that they’re connected, which makes it difficult for brands to keep up – a point made by OMD’s Chris Worrell.
If brands buy a TV or poster campaign, Worrell explained, they know who they’re reaching, but this isn’t the case for new platforms, such as smartphones and tablets, because people are swapping devices so frequently. Advertisers have just had their craft disrupted, but it will settle down once they learn how to cope with the change.
Storytelling
According to Dave Trott, of all adverts in 2012, 4% were remembered favourably, 7% unfavourably and 89% not at all. There might be some argument about these statistics and how they are presented – but they nonetheless set the background for a wider issue: how should advertisers approach consumer engagement in this new omni-channel environment?
If it was tough to reach consumers before, how hard is it going to be in now?
“Above all else,” says Jon Block, “it’s about storytelling. We’re innately social creatures and advertising is at its most powerful when it is effectively employing a narrative. And that relation to the connected consumer today is about achieving this across multiple platforms.
“The memory of an ad isn’t necessarily a measure of success. It’s storytelling that makes us remember or link brand messages in store with a product.”
Block went on to explain that despite the issues and disruption, it’s actually a very exciting time. New brand narratives can be forged through the consumer’s omni-channel experience.
“Connected devices have become the remote controls of our own lives and brands need to think about how they can enhance the user experience in that very personal space. But the future is hugely exciting.”