I’ve got a warning for big brand advertisers who fail to embrace the latest developments in technology: if you don’t learn the language of data you’re going to be left out in the cold.
This week is an opportune time to reiterate and reemphasize these points as some of the world’s greatest advertising creatives and technologists have descended on London for a major global conference. High on the agenda at Advertising Week Europe, held in the UK’s capital for the second year running, is the role of technology; what and where next?
For those companies at the cutting edge of online advertising there are amazing, game-changing opportunities.
Creative organizations today can maximize their performance by measuring the outcomes of their advertising campaigns in ways that weren’t possible just a few years ago.
Result: They can use the insights they’ve gleaned to dramatically improve their campaigns and serve consumers with targeted ads that are highly relevant to them, based on their real preferences rather than the calculated guesses of the past.
Consumers can now even receive useful, relevant and entertaining ads based on their online conversations. The power in using what consumers are saying and doing in their own communities to drive content targeted at them delivers vast potential for advertisers creative and far-sighted enough to seize the opportunity.
Today’s connected consumers—especially younger consumers—accept and expect sophisticated and integrated advertising. This means that the creative and technology industries need to work together to maintain and improve consumer satisfaction and ensure business success.
The winners of yesterday will be the losers of tomorrow—if they don’t keep up with the latest advances.
With connected audiences everywhere, the coming together of the technology and creative industries promises great rewards for those businesses that can combine the two successfully; the businesses that can turn on a dime and get to the forefront of the rapidly-changing and evolving online advertising market.
Of course news about technology and media companies naturally goes hand in glove these days. Look at Facebook and Twitter for the most obvious examples. San Francisco is the globally recognized tech hub where the technology and creative industries have partnered to explore new electronic advertising frontiers.
Internationally, London has emerged as a major digital advertising hub with big annual growth in programmatic and RedLotus is leading the way through our unique proprietary real-time data-to-media activation approach. We’ve now launched in the United Kingdom and nine other countries around the globe. Google and Amazon are building their European hubs in the London districts of Kings Cross and Holborn (respectively). So, we’re in good company.
London, of course, has long been regarded as the business gateway to Europe for US companies across all industries. And with the UK’s Advertising Association estimating that for every £1 spent on ads in the country a further £6 will be generated in revenue, advertising is clearly an important industry.
Internet advertising is becoming a bigger and ever more powerful component. PwC predicts that the UK Entertainment and Media sector will be worth £63 billion ($105 billion) by 2016. Crucially, PWC forecasts this will be driven by 12% year-on-year growth in internet advertising; cementing the UK’s position as the largest internet advertising market in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
One of the major developments in the last 12 months has been the rise of programmatic advertising. However, for some companies, it can be very easy to lose sight of the implications data can have on content. Technology and content need to be married in such a way that delivers the results that advertisers are looking for. As both a global creative and technology hub, London is uniquely placed to play a leading role in this new and exciting world of relevant and highly targeted advertising. That’s why we’ve made our European HQ there.
Finally, it’s important to note that there has been a shift in online advertising with the output becoming more intelligent, but there is still some way to go to make the process seamless as big businesses still struggle to connect the dots. It will be fascinating to see which companies and which business leaders come out on top.