- IAB UK Home
- /
- Internet marketing news
- /
- July-Sept
- /
- Why the world stopped clicking
Monopoly City Streets by Tribal DDB
Tribal DDB created the biggest online game of Monopoly ever, using Google Maps to take the game into the real world. More on Tribal DDB's award winning campaign.Why the world stopped clicking: adjusting to the new push marketing imperative
Related Articles
Other articles by...
Eyeblaster's Dean Donaldson discusses why marketers need to be thinking about more than driving click-throughs.
Wednesday, 20 August 2008
If you remember cassettes, chances are you also remember marketing as a “pulling” proposition: the brand communicates a message in hopes of pulling consumers into a store or spurring further action. Advertising was seen as bait, intended to entice consumers “in” to find out more.
On the web, that strategy meant that success could only be measured one way: by counting clicks. But consumers caught on immediately, and click-through rates began to fall. As it turns out, consumers are too savvy and the Web is far too interactive to gauge success solely by clicks. To do so is to ignore the web’s true promise of providing true interactivity and complex brand engagement.
Put simply, advancements in rich media allow advertisers to make the most of the media space they invest in. Rather than merely running standard banners with a vague hope that viewers will click-through for more content, advertisers have the ability to present their complex content and full-blown messaging directly in the banner itself. Video, interactive games and complex engagement such as instant messaging and peer-to-peer interactions bring the capabilities of a microsite to the banner environment.
This enhanced brand of functionality gives advertisers the unprecedented opportunity to engage their consumers directly and actively – to push content to consumers, rather than struggle to pull consumers away from their content. Advertisers are able to display full-length video adverts, even collect important data for direct response campaigns without coaxing users away from the web content they’ve sought out.
This requires an adjustment in advertising mindset in both the creative and the media capacities. Creatively, push marketing can be a huge boon, as it opens up the playing field to an entirely new level of engagement. We’ve heard it before, and it’s actually true – the sky really is the limit for the creative mind. With video functionality, contextual capability and interactivity that enables everything short of touching a consumer on the shoulder, creatives are free to produce anything they can dream up. We’ve seen digital campaigns that allow users to “remix” video ads, to compete against other users around the world in complex in-banner games, and to communicate with others via in-banner instant messaging.
The key for creatives focused on push-marketing is to clearly identify the objectives of the campaign and what brand elements create the right engagement to reach those objectives. Then to spark engagement with those brand elements in a meaningful, cohesive manner.
For media planners, push-marketing requires a whole new way of looking at brand engagement. As online behavior has shifted away from repeated clicking and fickle movements toward longer, more meaningful content interactions, the digital advertising industry has seen a corresponding move away from clicks.
As we’ve moved beyond the click as the end-all, be-all of digital interaction, new metrics are necessary for evaluating the success of campaigns. Engagement now comes in the form of new metrics like dwell time – the amount of time users spent engaged in all of the ad’s interactive elements – or expansion rate or interaction duration.
Most industry experts agree that these engagement metrics provide a more accurate and holistic picture of brand engagement. But at the end of the day, media planners are still looking for those hard numbers: what was the ROI?
Fortunately, new developments in engagement have brought quantum leaps in tracking technology as well. One of the web’s greatest selling points has always been the direct path to conversion for direct response campaigns. And with conversion tracking, third-party ad servers are able to track users’ path from the time they first encounter an ad until the time they make their transaction. Conversion tracking illuminates the campaign’s success in driving sales, and it also clarifies the roles that different publishers and channels played in those sales.
Brands looking to maximize their online engagement should look beyond clicks. By pushing content to consumers, they heighten the brand experience and give consumers the opportunity to interact without lifting a finger – literally. By harnessing creative innovation, the deep potential of digital metrics and a progressive approach to marketing, they will open themselves up to new worlds.
By Dean Donaldson, Digital Experience Strategist
Wednesday, 20 August 2008
If you remember cassettes, chances are you also remember marketing as a “pulling” proposition: the brand communicates a message in hopes of pulling consumers into a store or spurring further action. Advertising was seen as bait, intended to entice consumers “in” to find out more.
On the web, that strategy meant that success could only be measured one way: by counting clicks. But consumers caught on immediately, and click-through rates began to fall. As it turns out, consumers are too savvy and the Web is far too interactive to gauge success solely by clicks. To do so is to ignore the web’s true promise of providing true interactivity and complex brand engagement.
Rich media gives them what they want
Put simply, advancements in rich media allow advertisers to make the most of the media space they invest in. Rather than merely running standard banners with a vague hope that viewers will click-through for more content, advertisers have the ability to present their complex content and full-blown messaging directly in the banner itself. Video, interactive games and complex engagement such as instant messaging and peer-to-peer interactions bring the capabilities of a microsite to the banner environment.
This enhanced brand of functionality gives advertisers the unprecedented opportunity to engage their consumers directly and actively – to push content to consumers, rather than struggle to pull consumers away from their content. Advertisers are able to display full-length video adverts, even collect important data for direct response campaigns without coaxing users away from the web content they’ve sought out.
Creative engagement – the sky’s the limit
This requires an adjustment in advertising mindset in both the creative and the media capacities. Creatively, push marketing can be a huge boon, as it opens up the playing field to an entirely new level of engagement. We’ve heard it before, and it’s actually true – the sky really is the limit for the creative mind. With video functionality, contextual capability and interactivity that enables everything short of touching a consumer on the shoulder, creatives are free to produce anything they can dream up. We’ve seen digital campaigns that allow users to “remix” video ads, to compete against other users around the world in complex in-banner games, and to communicate with others via in-banner instant messaging.
The key for creatives focused on push-marketing is to clearly identify the objectives of the campaign and what brand elements create the right engagement to reach those objectives. Then to spark engagement with those brand elements in a meaningful, cohesive manner.
Media planners re-examine engagement
For media planners, push-marketing requires a whole new way of looking at brand engagement. As online behavior has shifted away from repeated clicking and fickle movements toward longer, more meaningful content interactions, the digital advertising industry has seen a corresponding move away from clicks.
As we’ve moved beyond the click as the end-all, be-all of digital interaction, new metrics are necessary for evaluating the success of campaigns. Engagement now comes in the form of new metrics like dwell time – the amount of time users spent engaged in all of the ad’s interactive elements – or expansion rate or interaction duration.
Getting to the bottom line
Most industry experts agree that these engagement metrics provide a more accurate and holistic picture of brand engagement. But at the end of the day, media planners are still looking for those hard numbers: what was the ROI?
Fortunately, new developments in engagement have brought quantum leaps in tracking technology as well. One of the web’s greatest selling points has always been the direct path to conversion for direct response campaigns. And with conversion tracking, third-party ad servers are able to track users’ path from the time they first encounter an ad until the time they make their transaction. Conversion tracking illuminates the campaign’s success in driving sales, and it also clarifies the roles that different publishers and channels played in those sales.
Brands looking to maximize their online engagement should look beyond clicks. By pushing content to consumers, they heighten the brand experience and give consumers the opportunity to interact without lifting a finger – literally. By harnessing creative innovation, the deep potential of digital metrics and a progressive approach to marketing, they will open themselves up to new worlds.
By Dean Donaldson, Digital Experience Strategist
