Mobile Fix: advertising in a modern world
A Facebook news feed redesign, Tesco Clubcard TV and careless lorry drivers. Simon Andrews, founder of Addictive!, looks at how brands are embracing a world in which advertising is evolving at a rapid rate.
Facebook Remix
The big news this week is happening as we write Fix – Facebook is to launch its latest redesign. Rumours suggest that the key feature will be to atomise the news feed – making heroes of music feeds, photo feeds and perhaps even feeds of links friends have shared and updates from other apps like Instagram and RunKeeper.
In a New York Times piece Zuckerberg is quoted as saying that: “Advertisers want really rich things like big pictures or videos, and we haven’t provided those things historically.”
Remixing the experience so it looks more like Flipboard, Google +, Path etc could create an environment where ‘richer’ ads feel more at home. But will users go for that?
Teenagers over Facebook?
Stories of user malaise are circulating again, with new reports suggesting that teenagers don’t like Facebook and prefer to spend their time with Instagram and Snapchat.
But with big success comes a big problem – early adopters want something new. Facebook crossed the chasm a while back and it can have a great future as the ITV of social – and let Instagram be the MTV.
The problem about users not liking advertising is an industry one rather than just for Facebook (and everyone else in GAFA). We are always quick to argue against the myth that people don’t like advertising. People don’t like irrelevant advertising but they do like relevant, useful advertising – and it doesn’t hurt if it’s entertaining too.
Messaging Tapestry
The ad opportunities on Facebook are quite intoxicating. The wonderful granularity of targeting that Facebook allows means it is quite easy to find the right people. And there are now some really interesting rich media ad formats with video, through vendors like Celtra and Moontoast. Combine these with the huge reach that Facebook can deliver and it’s hard to argue with the Facebook pitch – especially when it comes to mobile.
But of course we see that many agencies are missing the opportunity by eschewing the targeting in favour of mass reach, with just one or two ads used. The real value of Facebook can only be unlocked with lots of creative work where each message is relevant to a specific target group. Building a messaging tapestry like this can still deliver huge numbers – and everyone sees relevant ads; it’s just a bit more work for the agency. But we are convinced the returns will make this worthwhile.
“Everyone, including Zuckerberg, worried that users might balk at ads mixed with posts from friends,” said MIT in a recent article. “So far, that hasn’t happened. Tests that Facebook ran found the insertion of ads reduced comments, likes, and other interaction with news feed updates by 2%, a small decline that the company deems acceptable.”
Carolyn Everson, the head of sales at Facebook, said: “When Mark [Zuckerberg] first interviewed me, he said: ‘I want the content from marketers to be as good as that from your best friend.’ That was his vision – I don’t think we’re there yet; I think it’s a long-term vision that we have to get to – but the goal is to have marketing become as integrated an experience as any content you’d get from your friends.”
It’s our job to make this happen.
Google Delivers
In an interesting video interview, the Google head of sales, Nikesh Arora, made a similar point about advertising – people want advertising that’s virtually indistinguishable from information. Google built their business doing this with adwords – which 40% of UK consumers don’t know are ads.
Of course the key factor that caps adspend is the uncertainty over whether it works. And the best way to know whether it works is to be involved in the sale – something Google has got closer and closer to with analytics etc.
Now it seems Google want to go further. They capture the intent, they can facilitate the transaction with their wallet and now they are going to deliver the goods on the same day.
This takes them head to head with both Amazon and eBay who are trialling similar services.
Marc Andreessen said that all (most) of the dotcom ideas were good ideas, just too early. Kozmo was heavily backed and its model of 1hour delivery was popular with people – they just burnt through their VC money really quickly. But just as ASOS looks a lot like Boo.com and Groupon like LetsBuyIt, maybe the Kozmo idea will actually work now.
But as the supermarkets know, it’s not hard to acquire customers for home delivery services – it’s just hard to make money. For all the vans tearing around London streets delivering groceries, it’s rumoured that supermarkets lose £15 on each delivery.
Given that lots of people just aren’t at home to take delivery, we wonder if these same day services won’t be part of the colonization of the High Street by GAFA. eBay have experimented with popup stores, Amazon have lockers in Spar and the idea that Google should have retail stores in getting traction.
In a neat demonstration of just how intertwined GAFA is we saw data this week showing that the biggest user of Google paid search is Amazon – by a huge margin.
One group that does seem to buy the Google story is investors, with a lot of money switching from Apple to Google.
“It’s no coincidence that Google’s rise has coincided with Apple’s demise,” said Elsheshai. “Making money from services versus devices is growingly perceived as a better business model.”
Tesco TV
Tesco continues to build out its content play. It has hired top talent to run book and music divisions and in an audacious move it is taking on Amazon and Netflix with a film and TV streaming service – which is free for its 16 million Clubcard customers.
With all the data the company has on customers, brands will be able to target advertising precisely – and in theory should be able to measure effectiveness through sales.