Hitting the Highlights of AAFOC Digital Debate

In the not too recent past, a special digital debate was unfolding at the Gigasavvy agency. Key presenters shared the stage to answer questions about this timely topic. If you weren’t able to attend the event, we would like to share the highlights of this energetic, spirited panel discussion, generously sponsored by Centro. Panel members included Dave Swartz, Medl Mobile; Jocelyn Molla, Centro; Kyle Johnson, Gigasavvy; Gabrielle Windsor, Rhythm and Matt Lawler, Amusement Park. Rob Patterson was the evening’s moderator orchestrated this event.

Our evening began with a soft sales pitch for Hang w/, a live-streaming video app. Several of the panelists were using this app to invite their network to watch live, from the phone. (While the technology was great, the in person experience was much more engaging.)

Doing digital well. Google is showing how micro moments are so much more important now since we use multiple devices.

Don’t repurposing the exact same content in various channels, you should be creating unique content for individual channels.

Starbucks does an amazing job of marketing, surrounding the experience of purchasing coffee and empower you to share these moments and build the brand.

Perplexing programmatic.

Programmatic, is constantly changing and evolving, so it’s a challenging to keep up with new channels, acronyms, just really getting a grasp on the idea itself. Technology or platform allows us to access inventory in a more automated way. There’s 3 ways to buy this inventory within this space:

1. Real time bidding, an auction model

2. Programmatic direct: 1:1 model with guaranteed impressions

3. Private market places: If you are invited into that marketplace, you are allowed to bid on that space.

Programmatic allows you to buy more efficiently, including the opportunity for audience retargeting. Facebook is a great example of programmatic platform. You are can buy video, mobile on programmatic. Wasted technology on display ads, especially static banner ads. Yet, the opportunity for personalization, personalized content became the caveat for the typical banner ads. Mobile technology that resides on all our smart phones, allows advertisers to personalize offers based your current location. You can’t just sit back and buy this inventory without creating great, valuable content.

Subscription services: We are seeing the rise of option of not looking at ads, with YouTube, ESPN red and Hulu as examples. Marketers are still going to find ways to get around these hurdles and still deliver the message. And these platforms give user a choice of what types of ads they do want to see, personalizing the advertising experience for the user.

Making mistakes.

The biggest mistakes made with digital? No strategy. Think about your audience insights. What do your users care about? Having a content strategy, content calendar and having the analytics in place to constantly optimize and refine delivery. We are still moving people in areas that don’t make sense. We need to start categorizing people as behaviors. It’s KYC-knowing what they like and deliver on that experience.

The discussion turned quickly to ROI, quantitatively and qualitatively. We have all this data, but what does it mean? Different kinds of engagement, knowing what your client wants. No measurement plan in place. People are focused on lower part of the funnel and forget the top of funnel content and engagement. What are the objectives, KPIs? Need to define what it is and its not sales. We forget about attribution path as well. Since these campaigns are comprised of multiple touch points, it can be difficult to attribute a KPI on a single source. Many clients don’t know what drives their business and that can be a little scary for agencies.

What’s next thing to capture your audience? Augmented reality. Our panel shared examples from video gaming industry to create the augmented reality. We rely on tech to solve problems, but the real difference is great storytelling. “Give me something great to care about.”

Back to streaming apps…how do brands best utilize them? Live events can be used to create content. Following a story structure helps make the experience authentic. Terrence Owens is a great example, of a comeback story using this technology.

It’s still about the brand.

How do you captivate and engage audience? There’s more attention to be capture audiences now. Most of consumption is increasing. What happens to traditional media? All the movie/TV studios have pivoted-by adding apps they have created opportunities to monetize this channel. And by making it more interactive and examining what the value exchange is. Print needs to get more interactive, more digital. As newspaper move to online, they have found new ways to monetize. The ‘brand awareness’ term may scare clients, but it’s still an important consideration to build a client’s brand.

Panel predictions

• Devices will still continue to transform.

• Greater use personalization and localization to engage the audience

• Paid search and rich media will continue to grow

• Hyper-personalization that makes people’s lives and brand experiences better.

• We are going to be connected to our devices in ways we can’t yet imagine.