“For digital advertising, seems like our Amygdala is working at its peakâ€
Just when we thought that things are opening up, getting better things have started curling up a bit again. Nevertheless, it is just a phase where we need to take precautions and hope that 2022 will bring out the best in Digital.
Life is indeed unpredictable and may be no algorithm can tackle this. I see it more as a disaster recovery plan that needs to evolve for all kinds of businesses. For digital advertising, seems like our Amygdala is working at its peak, experiencing various emotions from past two years, leading to changes in media consumption habits which germinates from various internal and external factors such as spending more time at home, trying to balance both home and work, finding ways to cut out the mundane routine, discovering certain aspects about one’s own self via introspection, realising the importance of money and savings, getting back in touch with a lost passion of yours and so on. Though, I did say, working from home may not be easy and hunky-dory for everyone as work, official calls need a ‘space’, which everyone may not be privileged with. The good part that I see is that we have learnt to ‘manage’ better, be it professional or personal. On a lighter note, I see the pandemic as hyperbolic in nature, where Eccentricity, e>1.
In Digital 2022, consumers are being deeply and actively looking at the social consciousness of brands and the kind of values they stand for. There may not be just one particular innovation that will work till a long time. The key challenge, at least for this year, will be to keep innovating closest to calculated experimentation. In a research done by McKinsey, 61% of the participants claimed that how a brand responds during a crisis will matter if the consumer will continue buying it from that brand when the crisis is over.
Hybrid Experience
Apart from newer experiences for the changing consumer preferences, it will be important to think in terms of hybrid experiences with human centered design. Creative and messaging will play a pivotal role. The intent needs to be more towards getting people ‘feel’ more connected by personalised and inclusive experiences and that may not be an easy task. Each touchpoint in the consumer journey needs to be thought through, with the line of sight getting hazy with decline of third party cookies, investing in technology or collaborations that capture consumer behavior to analyze across the touchpoints will be required.
Influencer Marketing
If we consider influencer marketing, the deeper strategy will matter rather than a celebrity endorsement or a simple amplification plan. How often do we have a look at the kind of followers say a CAT C or Macro influencer has? Spending some time on the exactly ‘where’ the communication is being disseminated and what happened after the activity are required to not only document but learn from. Measuring is important, however, there may be times when a deeper tactical activity needs to be done to gauge the best possible KPI.
Technology
Thinking technology in terms of not only gamification, but what is the data that we can get so as to have a symbiotic relationship with our changing consumer behavior. Be it any stage in the funnel, revisiting it from the top of the funnel, the drop-offs, probable reasons and calculated experiments on both performance and brand awareness buckets will need to be closely worked on. Also, because technology is a big enabler, will be essential for digital campaigns. The good part is, globally algorithms are improving and evolving in terms of targeting and embedding cybersecurity at early stages of planning a program. Also, working towards deploying first-party data will be one such aspect that will form a ley pillar for better targeting and resonating experiences for the consumer.
Trust
Cultivating trust has become even more crucial with the target audience, because there is a ‘potential’ target audience beyond the regular target audience that can be tapped almost for all categories. If I put myself in consumers’ shoes, for me, what will matter is reliability and ‘what’ is triggering me to trust the brand to become not only loyal to it but to become an advocate of it. Be it a mobile app, or a retail / D2C product, everything from the ingredients, price, packaging, logo should subtly communicate two things to its consumer, which is ‘trust’ and ‘here is why you should’. Moreover, as we may be aware, this does not happen at one go and needs to be induced gradually over a period of time with ‘quality’ at the core. Be it quality of the product or service. For me, Trust is that centripetal force that binds all emotions.
To Wrap Up
We all need to stay safe and take all precautions. Take time on reflect on ourselves, our purpose and how we can make the Digital Ecosystem even better. Things must also move inward out, be it culture, values, ethos. Consumer today looks at these aspects as well.
Authored by Ankoor Dasguupta, Vice President - Media, Hashtag Orange.
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