How Brands Can Capitalise on the Unfair Growth Advantage

Imagine that you’re safe in the confines of your own home, armed with a hot chocolate on a chilly evening, indulging in your favourite guilty pleasure when suddenly, this sanctuary moment is demolished by a creepy, scandalous, and inelegantly personalised advert. There’s the white dress once again. It’s the 10th time you’ve seen it today, and on the 5th device. It is omnipresent and insistent, demanding that you pay attention to it; but you most definitely don’t want to buy it now.

In this context, and extrapolated to its end point, a brand’s future success in digital marketing will depend on its ability to deliver exceptionally relevant consumer experiences, in a pertinent, yet subliminal and tasteful way. Exceptionally relevant experiences are going to become commonplace; GroupM expects a whopping 80% of digital media to take advantage of personalised creative by 2025 . However, at present only 4% does so; why is that?

Misconception #1: Many still believe that personalisation is the clingy advert that follows you around the web until you give in and buy whatever it is you were browsing; done badly, this can be true. But the evolution of technology and the protection of data has arguably improved the way brands can - and do - personalise their communications. Done well, brands can now serve a message that is relevant to the individual in some way. For example, showing an advert in the native language of the country you are advertising in with a price relevant to that market, at a time of day when that product is likely to be front of mind. It does not have to be creepy; it can simply be less inappropriate.

Misconception #2: It is believed that personalisation is only for performance or lower funnel display campaigns. However, the digitisation of many ‘traditional’ channels – Outdoor, TV and Radio – means that it is now possible to personalise in some fashion, across most media. Personalisation can, and indeed should be cross-channel if it is to cut through. Now that we can easily make advertisements creatively relevant throughout the entire marketing funnel, this will become the rule, not the exception. 71% of consumers expect it and 76% are often frustrated when marketing is not salient . They are more likely to purchase a product or service from a brand who addresses them personally and they are more likely to recommend those brands to a friend or family member.

Wavemaker Addressable has accumulated over a decade of experience delivering hyper-personalised, data driven advertising; it is a fundamental belief that to make relevant consumer experiences a true reality, brands must be able to extract foresight from insight. This means they must use the data they have available to them to take a view on what consumers are likely to want from them next, often before the consumer even knows themselves. This will not only better meet consumers expectations but help the corporate bottom line too. Here are three ways brands can start to move towards delivering exceptionally relevant consumer experiences:

1. Invest in Creative Management Technology

“If you’ve invested in Data Management technology, you might also consider investing in Content Management technology, which can complete the circuit as it relates to speaking to your audiences with salience.” Cécile Douillard, global head of growth, Addressable Content Practice

To make communications relevant to the individual, brands must invest in the right technology. For businesses with heaps of data, Customer Data Platforms enable the appropriate storage and treatment of data, and the building of audience segments to activate across multiple channels. Once you can segment your audiences and activate, you need to be able to serve a personalised message and to do this at the right time. Dynamic Creative Optimisation will facilitate this, using dynamic templates which allow brands to vary messaging and imagery based on what the consumer wants next. Our Content Management Platform allows you to forge the appropriate audience with a salient creative that speaks to them in a moment that matters, and to divine the insights from that activity too.  

2. Collect and Deploy Data both Optimally and Suitably

“Whether it’s behavioral, demographic or contextual data we use as triggers for personalised creatives, we always use what we have appropriately; just because we have it, that doesn’t entail that we should use it!” Rafael Puzzili, head of addressable strategy, Choreograph Create

With the third-party cookie deprecation looming ominously, brands must find innovative ways to collect 1st party data and the good news is that most consumers are prepared to share their data to ensure they gain the personalised experience they want . Brands should also be considering how to partner with other relevant brands to access 2nd party data to help to scale their targeting capabilities.

It is not only important to have the right data to target the appropriate audience, but also to use the data you gain from your personalized activities to understand the common trends which can then be used to predict what likeminded consumers are going to want from you next.

3. Be Consistent

Due to the ease of accessing compliant data, most brands personalize their CRM communications. However, the enterprise-grade ability to seamlessly create a consistent experience across the entire customer journey remains insubstantial at best. Wavemaker Addressable has a different, more robust approach; giving consumers a truly consistent experience can be done in two ways:

    a) Creative Uniformity

    Make your creative assets consistent across all touchpoints – embrace a harmonized look and feel in owned, paid and earned communications.

    b) Cross-Channel Integration

    Follow the consumer on their journey. Make sure your owned, earned, and paid agencies or internal teams are speaking to one another and create a collaborative, holistic approach, so you are working together to give consumers what they want – an exceptionally relevant experience.

Brands looking to defend, broaden and deepen their customer base against the coming landscape changes should consider how they can better collect and deploy first and second party data, which technology to invest in and ultimately, how through the lens of an integrated Addressable Strategy, they can deliver a consistently pertinent experience to their consumers. Those who do, will conquer the next decade of relevance.

Hannah Garcia is Global Addressable Strategy Director at Wavemaker.