Advertising is the quintessential example of an industry known for creatively embracing what’s new and next. From emerging technologies, channels, and formats to bold, go-to-market media strategies that are guided by evolving customer expectations for personalised, seamless, and omnichannel experiences, the most successful brands, agencies, and vendors just keep moving forward.
This topic has been discussed for a number of years now from “Talking to Ourselves”, “Lee Chow Will Only Say This Once”, CP+B’s “Woodshed”, and “the Disruptor Series” and many others. What is absolutely clear is that the agency model has shifted. We all know it’s shifted. We can feel it. Our relationship with the client has shifted. Our value proposition (and perceived value) has shifted. The culprit? For the sake of brevity – is “Data”.
The introduction of “data” into our business has shifted the perception that what, once upon a time was considered alchemy, is now quantifiable. The pendulum that swings between art and science in advertising has decidedly taken a step towards science. Why? Well, for one, it’s the natural course of human progress.
We humans have a history of decoupling and commoditizing our once lofty constructs. You may remember years ago the arduous task (and associated costs) of building a website? Today, we have Squarespace for $16 per month.
But the backlash today being witnessed (against the traditional ad agencies of the world) is palpable. The problem appears to be that this “Age of Data” promised far more than it has delivered.
It is the natural and inevitable course of human evolution. However, being able to quantify and benchmark every consumer transaction along the customer journey is not tantamount to success. We now, arguably, have access to every metric under the sun but the data is largely meaningless. We are still pressed daily to find the signal in the noise.
This harsh reality has manifested in plateaued CX performance, digital transformations
that did not deliver the expected returns, and early efforts to capitalize on
new technologies and models that took a technical, rather than operational,
viability path.
The
larger risk may be market-based. While taking a step back to build foundation,
those firms may have missed a closing window of good economic times and
deferred more aggressive strategies to an economic climate that is at best
mixed and, at worst, recessionary.
At the same time AI
and robotics move deeper into the organization, closer to the customer, and,
more profoundly, into the very makeup and operations of the company. This presents
the best mechanism to drive growth - a strategically planned ecosystem that
delivers value to customers throughout their life cycle. To establish a
successful ecosystem, CMO's will need to thread
the needle between employee experience, customer experience, brand purpose,
creative, and technology, imbuing all these crucial areas with customer
obsession.
Smart CMOs will undoubtedly begin pulling back on strategies that drive
short-term gains at the expense of customer affinity, including dark
patterns —design patterns that manipulate customers against their own
interests. Meanwhile, spend will flow back into creative as the importance of
differentiated branding becomes apparent in a world of digital sameness.
At the same time, technology-driven
innovation — the ability to deliver new business results through opportunities
discovered by continuously experimenting with technology, both emerging and
established — will soon be table stakes for leading organizations.
Today, deep learning is sorting pictures posted on Snapchat, natural language processing is providing the backbone for customer service chatbots, and machine learning is helping companies accelerate product development by handling tasks from forecasting the effect of cancer drugs to helping to edit Hollywood movies.
Just imagine an advert that dynamically changes the tone of the voiceover based on the unique preferences of the viewer. The convergence of AI with human creativity and insight will transform advertising, and we’re just beginning to see what’s possible.
Artificial Intelligence allows machines to be able to carry out tasks in a way that we would consider “smart”. And, Machine Learning is based around the idea that we should just be able to give machines access to data and let them learn for themselves. Employing both, however, despite their infinite promise, has also not yet delivered real, tangible value (at least at scale or en masse.)
Yet, we are still pressed daily to find the signal in the noise. Moreover, we are still dealing with error-laden legacy data in disparate silos and clients are ill-equipped and the speed of technological change (which means we are always catching up.)
As a result, somewhere between ‘what is infinitely possible’ and ‘what is possible today’ lies the ad agency paradox today. Selling the promise of data-driven creative and personalisation at scale to clients whose platform simply will not get them there.
This paradigm shift also extends its own vernacular – now also far more focused on return on investment and short-term results. And herein lies the problem du jour. But, in the short term, humans are still the ultimate software.
It is as if, metaphorically, someone had just invented the paintbrush. Despite, potentially, never using one, you can still see the infinite possibilities in its premise. But you can see (in this example) that the paint brush’s promise far exceeds its current application. Ultimately, this is simply the ebb and flow of all human endeavour.
The agency of the future will undoubtedly be consumer centric, automated, transparent, collaborative, intelligent, nimble, experiential, and focused on a sprint versus a marathon approach. They can champion creative but will undoubtedly have deep expertise in strategy, consumer insights, and measurement.
Moreover, this heightened focus on the measurement will allow agencies to not just understand campaign performance, but to also understand how a brand is moving people through a journey and how advertising is fostering that movement.
With a heightened level of insight about what people think, feel, and do (after they interact with a brand’s advertising) we are simultaneously entering an advertising landscape with more immersive experiences that engage consumers on a deeper emotional level.
One thing we do know? The importance of data and how it’s used to make changes that put consumers first cannot be understated. Agencies that pay attention to this now are sure to set themselves up for success in the years to come.
