Ashley Vinson: "There will be a strong push towards more native advertising"

Op 7 januari, tijdens Koffiedik Kijken 2016, wordt bekendgemaakt wie van de sprekers van afgelopen jaar de meeste goede voorspellingen voor 2015 heeft gedaan en het Gouden Koffiekopje wint. Ashley Vinson blikt terug.

What was your prediction for 2015 in our market?
'My one prediction for 2015 was that programmatic advertising, as it is being executed today, would "destroy" brands.'

Did your prediction come true?
'My prediction is something, if current tactics continue, that will take place over a long period of time, and not "come true” in one sudden moment.  My prediction was meant to serve as a caution to those brands that continue to execute programmatic advertising in a way that does not align with the core principles of good advertising - which is to make an emotional connection to your consumer.

In other words, the issue does not lie with programmatic advertising itself. It isn’t the technology of being able to deliver advertising in a more efficient and streamlined way; it’s the way that many brands are delivering their message using this technology that is the destructive force to their own brand.

Many brands still have separate marketing and DR departments. The marketing teams focus on building the brands through things such as high-end video content, beautiful brick-and-mortar stores, print ads, web sites, etcetera. However, the DR team will simply re-purpose many of those efforts to create ads and re-targeting efforts to bombard consumers with advertising that rarely will meet the standards and brand-tone of what the marketing team is doing. 

For example, I look at a nice sweater on an elegant website. Next thing I know, this sweater is stalking me around the internet and showing up at every site and platform I visit. While some DR departments would argue that this tactic works usually based on a .001% success rate, I would argue for the remaining 99.999% of us exposed to this type of advertising, it creates a negative brand experience.

In fact, the huge adoption of ad blockers is probably the greatest sign of consumer malcontent and annoyance towards programmatic advertising – which ultimately ties back to impact on the brand itself.

What is your opinion on this year in our market?
"This past year was an exciting time for video, and the platforms, such as Twitter, truly embraced a key medium brands have used for decades to effectively communicate to the their target audiences.

At the same time, we still see KPI’s being used which ultimately hold marketers back from having a truer picture of what’s happening with their marketing efforts.  

For example, we see many marketers defining success for their video based on pure number of views. However, if you take into account that many of those views were counted at 50% or less viewability (meaning, the video was playing half-obscured on the user’s screen), and on top of that, maybe only played for a few seconds as the user scrolled past, the question then becomes if the numbers brands are looking at really give a true indication of success.

Fortunately, we see many of the top brands we work with now taking a look at these KPI’s and working hard to see and analyze data in a way that properly reflects how their campaigns actually performed.'

And on a personal basis?
'On a personal basis, I am quite happy to be working for Twitter. We have a lot of exciting plans for this year, and I am anxious to see them go to market. I hope for this year that my Dutch improves, with one key goal being to give an entire client presentation in Dutch (I feel sorry for the client who will need to listen to me!). I also bought an apartment in Amsterdam, and I will focus all my extra time and money to make it as gezellig as possible.'

Do you have a prognosis for 2016?
'Programmatic advertising will continue. The technology behind it has a lot of benefits to marketers and is capable of delivering positive results. However, like all tools, the key is in the person behind the tool and ensuring that it’s used properly. In addition to the ad blockers, brands are also still dealing with the issue of ad fraud, and so there will be a strong push towards more native advertising where the metrics are more transparent, and the issue of ad blockers is greatly reduced. 

At the end of the day, there is no quick, fast and easy way to market and advertise a brand. While we have tools and teams that help deliver at scale, we still need to connect to consumers at an emotional level, regardless of the medium. Advertising that is digital doesn’t negate the fact that it will be seen and consumed by real, live humans, and as such, we must always work to connect on that level of humanity.'