Tech: increasing the intersection between creative and media
Technology is finally being used to bridge the gap between programmatic and creative, writes Xaxis’ Caspar Schlickum.
As the year kicked off, one of big themes seen in all the 2016 previews has been the coming together of programmatic and creative. Ever since this dominated the agenda in Cannes last year, everyone from creative agencies to media agencies have been very vocal about how important this is, and how much it’s going to be “the next big thing.”
But very few are really doing it. So in the spirit of lists, let me outline four ways in which technology has provided an opportunity to increase the intersection between creative and media.
Before I begin, it’s worth making one quick and important observation. Programmatic is nothing more than relying on an algorithm to make a decision about whether to show an ad. That algorithm needs to make its decision on the basis of something. That something is data. So a discussion about technology, creative and media, is really a discussion about data as you’ll see below.
1. Feeding the planning process
Baking programmatic into the planning process is a critical first step. This means that the traditional creative and comms plan should take into consideration the types of new data points that are being created or that a brand wants to create. Data points that are useful for programmatically targeted campaigns, and ultimately for CRM. That should be in the creative brief.
2. Using programmatic data in service of the creative vision
Programmatic campaigns aren’t just about targeting but about understanding. Huge amounts of data are available on the audiences that are actually engaging with a brand, product or service, all of which can and should be used early on in the communications planning process.
And the thing about this data is that it’s typically not stated behaviour or preference, but revealed preference and behaviour. So the data that fuels programmatic campaigns can also be used for better crafted and targeted above the line creative.
3. Applying data more creatively
With programmatic technology where it is today, it is staggering how many different data points can be brought into a targeted campaign. Audience data, obviously, but also time-based data like weather, sports scores etc.
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Basically anything that can be measured, can probably be used to trigger the technology to make an ad buy. And with lookalike technology (like that contained in Xaxis’ proprietary DMP Turbine), even a small sample can be extrapolated out to segment the entire population of a country.
It is true that these factors will increasingly come into play during 2016 across the industry, but it’s worth stressing that such convergence is already happening – in fact, we have won awards because of ideas for data targeting that were developed by our creative agencies.
4. The evolution of self-assembling ads
The first question that comes to mind for most people considering this subject is “how can data instruct the programmatic creative itself?” This is another area that has seen significant evolution.
At Xaxis, the starting point was more sophisticated forms of A/B testing, followed by (fairly awful) product carousels. We’ve now moved on, to enter the world of what we call the ‘Self Assembling Ad’.
This is a world where a template is populated with pre-created assets (photos, copy, perhaps a live weather feed from a holiday destination that we have advertised) all based on the same data that was used for targeting the ad in the first place.
This is the approach that ensures that a single man in Manhattan at 2am, will see a different ad to that shown to a woman with a family who is enjoying a weekend in the countryside. In theory, no two ads would ever be the same, and as the advertising is highly relevant, the user’s experience will be incredibly positive.
Yet with all this change it’s important to remember that some things remain the same.
‘Traditional’ or ‘offline’ or ‘above the line’ media and creative still plays an absolutely critical role. It always has and it always will. It’s not rocket science, it’s a balanced media plan.
So you still have to do all that other media and creative. The summer holiday ads. The sports sponsorships. The original content. All of that is essential for creating moments of serendipity, moments where you have introduced your brand, product or service to someone. And every time you do that, you create new data points.
Taken together, this is not a world that any creative agency or person should be afraid of. The machines are not taking over, they are bringing us new opportunities for working together that we never had before.
Caspar Schlickum is EMEA CEO at Xaxis