Should programmatic platforms steer clear of advertising creative? No, argues TubeMogul’s Ian Monaghan – they should help inform strategy and improve the art through feedback.
It’s my job to help brands and agencies cut through the noise that digital advertising can create, so I feel obliged to respond to Dominic Mills’ assessment of programmatic companies who wade into the creative bullpen – in his view, unnecessarily.
Without a doubt, programmatic companies who overstep their bounds aren’t very helpful to the industry. However the “crime” of providing more data to the creative industry is not something I would describe as anything near malpractice. And I don’t think many creative agencies would see it that way either.
Marketing technology has evolved in response to a legitimate need within the industry for better insights, faster. Automation helps process vast amounts of data created by digital consumers today, make sense of it, and put the right ad in front of the right person at the right time. With such a wealth of information, can’t some of the data insights be used to help optimise the creative?
If a company is solely aligned with either the buy-side or sell-side, then that company has an obligation to do everything they can to maximise their client’s impact.
We’re not saying that programmatic software companies take the biggest helping of the creative pie. But if these companies are the ones actually executing the media, evaluating performance and seeing what’s working and what’s not, don’t they at least deserve a spot at the table?
A/B testing, long the bane of many a creative, has been simplified and scaled thanks to programmatic software. Instead of waiting months to measure ROI, brands can now quickly and effectively see what drives higher viewer engagement and justify their advertising budgets accordingly.
Programmatic’s real value lies in showing how people engage with different creatives across devices.”
It’s also possible to use surveys to measure the purchase intent, brand favorability and message recall that results from multiple creatives. Sometimes this does mean finding out which colour or wording works best, as well as how different rich media formats prompt different responses, but I’d struggle to find a creative agency that wouldn’t want to get more information where possible on how their work is impacting campaign results for their clients.
We certainly concede that there is no “one size fits all” approach to creating ads and that A/B testing yields the most beneficial results when there is a great creative idea sitting at the heart of the campaign.
Great creative is an inspiration – and can inspire whole generations of people – but programmatic’s strength is in revealing little-before-known insights that ensure brands aren’t just putting out beautiful ads, but ones that have the desired impact.
A great example of this is the Jean Claude Van Damme ad ‘The Epic Split‘ which recently won big at Cannes Lions. Hardly anyone remembers that this is a Volvo ad, let alone going on to associate it with Volvo making trucks – something an effective survey would expose by asking consumers which ad they could recall and whether they associated it with a certain brand.
We also have to remember that programmatic technology is rapidly transforming the way that media and creative agencies operate. Traditional silos are quickly being broken down in favour of a holistic approach that unifies the message without regard to medium.
However, programmatic’s real value lies in showing how people engage with different creatives across devices. Does a prominent call-to-action drive more conversions if shown on a tablet or cell phone? Does a 15-second ad on a tablet create more recall than a 30-second desktop ad?
Again, these shouldn’t dictate the entire creative execution, but they should help inform strategy.
Technology isn’t going to stop its rapid development, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it will compete with creativity – it can actually promote it. Creative agencies make the part of advertising that we love – the emotional, heart-wrenching portion – but for a long time they have not been able to measure what works.
Programmatic isn’t about making art a science, it’s about improving art through feedback.
Ian Monaghan is head of ad operations at TubeMogul.
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