Today, the most creative minds in advertising aren’t necessarily inventing snappy slogans or striking imagery. The new rock stars of advertising are in the media department – using digital technology to reach individual customers with highly-targeted messages. They’re taking full advantage of Big Data and the ability to capture and interpret customer behaviors like never before.
Most consumers have no idea how much information they’re sharing with advertisers through their web habits, social media activity and credit card histories. They have become unwitting participants in creating precisely-targeted advertising messages – directed squarely at themselves.
Over the past decade, technology companies like Google, Facebook and Twitter have developed huge repositories of user data that can be mined for all kinds of behavioral analysis. And for advertisers, this kind of detailed knowledge makes a huge difference in response rates. Advertisers can now determine, in milliseconds, whether someone looking for a car is a luxury car buyer or a used car buyer. No wonder last year, Google alone made more than $50 million in advertising revenue.
Big advertisers like Nike, Comcast and Procter and Gamble are now using automated exchanges – fast-paced, algorithmic bidding systems – to target individual consumers rather than the mass audiences that traditional broadcasters and publishers serve up. Utilizing Big Data also allows organizations to achieve a huge variety of objectives beyond just targeting their advertising messages.
The best example may be LinkedIn, which has used Big Data scientists to develop a broad array of product offerings and features, including People You May Know, Groups You May Like, Jobs You May Be Interested In, Who’s Viewed My Profile and several others. These offerings would never have been identified through intuition alone, and they have brought millions of new customers to LinkedIn.
Of course, while the mind is boggled by the processes and algorithms that deliver this new world of data, information alone won’t be successful in selling a company’s product. Technology can identify the right prospect, but Big Data can’t yet create the right brand strategy or craft the most motivating message. Even in this media-driven world, you still need a little magic to connect with prospects and win them over to your brand.
Jack Garner, Partner/President at The Ramey Agency
