“Brands must invest in a privacy safe environment to enrich their first party data”

The next few years will unleash new opportunities for the media industry. History tells us every crisis is a new opportunity. The Renaissance Period emerged from the Bubonic Plague. The Roaring 20s emerged from the Spanish Flu. This is a cyclical pattern of history.

The pandemic has definitely changed the way marketers are approaching brand and performance marketing. Some of the shifts have been momentary as a reaction to the crisis and some will be everlasting, believes Deep Singh, Vice President, Strategy, PHD India.

Singh lists some key Trends for 2022 and beyond:

Automation to free up Time:

While this finding has serious ramifications for our industry, which has in a survey amongst 1,721 global senior brand marketers, PHD found that the amount of time marketers spend on reporting tasks has increased by 57% over the last 10 years. Globally, more than 88% of marketers say they spend most of their time on reporting tasks, including tracking performance, creating competitive analysis and producing audience insights. In India this number is at 92%. As time spent on tracking and optimizing increases, marketers estimate they spend just 18% of their time thinking creatively and coming up with new ideas. This will change in the years ahead as most of the reporting tasks are likely to be automated and talent will spend more time towards creative tasks and ideation.

Rise of Data Clean Rooms:

We at PHD strongly believe and have proven that in a cookieless world, brands must and are increasingly looking to invest in a privacy safe environment to enrich their first party data in the form of data clean rooms. This will enable brands to have greater control of their data and increase performance of their advertising spend by getting a single view of the consumer across a multiplicity of digital platforms.

Context to win over Cookies:

At PHD, we have found that Context based targeting to be more efficient and effective over Cookies. Resultantly, interest based targeting without sacrificing reach will be a focus area for brands. Addressable creative is an area that will gain more focus in 2022.

Rise of Attention Planning:

Amplified Intelligence’s Karen Nelson-Field research has proven a relationship between attention and market share for brands. Her research proves that all screens are not equal in terms of reach and GRPs. Zero based optimization techniques must take into account attention scores to upweight channels that may be expensive but have higher attention scores like outdoor.

Crisis of Effectiveness - Return to Brand Building:

IPA research points out that effectiveness of advertising in terms of brand and business effects has declined post the advent of the MarTech age in 2006. Short termism where brands are focusing on short term objectives has led to the rise of rational advertising appealing to the left brain. This is likely to change in 2022 where marketers will be increasingly looking to drive emotional appeal for their advertising to drive brand memorability and retention.

Return towards single minded KPIs:

Post pandemic, marketers will focus on fewer and higher quality KPIs to increase effectiveness. Digital advertising has led to the rise of multiple output based KPIs which must be foregone in favour of single-minded brand outcomes. Back to basics as a trend is something we will see more of, not less.