The Perfect Storm for the Marketing and Advertising Industry

The marketing and advertising industries are experiencing their most transformative and accelerated period of change in decades. For marketers to keep up with the fast-moving industry, brands must develop and engrain tools such as marketing technology and services into their company core.

The Demand for Ad Space 

Since Netflix gave birth to the streaming scene, the company has long rejected advertisements having a space in their streaming world. However, Netflix’s stance has finally swayed due to its first net loss of subscribers in more than a decade. Netflix reaches close to 222 million people worldwide and 74.6 million in the United States and Canada alone, leaving advertisers eager to reach the untouched Netflix audience. However, as Netflix’s ad plans begin to unfold, speculation is looming that companies will have the inability to target specific programs, the inability for independent verification and measurement of audience metrics, and a price tag that is higher than any other streaming platform at $60 CPM. As well as that, the streaming giant is expected to sell 30- and 60-second commercials while not allowing companies to re-run the same commercial within the hour. Other notable speculations about Netflix’s ad tier include the confirmation that advertising will be restricted from reaching kids’ profiles and offer ad packages for different genres of programming and across Netflix’s “Top 10” list. Netflix expects to have 500,000 subscribers in  their ad-supported tier by the end of 2022 and anticipates these numbers to increase exponentially by the end of 2023. 

On the other hand, a significantly advertising reliant and influential company that can no longer hide their policies in the shadows is Facebook. Facebook has faced much backlash about its lack of transparency in the past regarding tracking, data targeting, and content moderation of social issues / political ads on the social media app. The company claims it makes valuable detailed data available through the Facebook Open Research and Transparency environment, where customers can better understand social media's impact on society and learn how to protect their privacy. Additionally, this past July, Facebook made a publicly available Ad Library which includes a summary of targeting information for social issues and political or electoral ads to aid customers with more information on what they are consuming. Facebook hopes this new level of transparency will help people understand the practices used to reach potential voters on their technologies. Only time will tell how transparent the media giant decides to be with its consumers as meaningful and controversial elections continue to take place worldwide.

The Rising Cost of Media 

With the cost of media rising, many marketers are stuck in their old ways while trying to operate in a completely different marketplace. According to Pam Zucker, head of Marketing at Amobee, marketers must switch their mindset on costs, measurement, and targeting to capitalize on the new opportunities in the marketplace. Shifting the focus from impressions to attention allows the emphasis and pressure of the ad's success to move from how many people see it to how many people view it and take action/meaning from the ad. 

Furthermore, studies show consumers tend to engage with advertisements during a show if they are targeted with ads they can relate to rather than being bombarded with hundreds of meaningless advertisements, according to Zucker. It is time for marketers to stop operating in a state of fear with outdated tactics. Instead, it is time to learn and develop the technology that can provide detailed knowledge and insights for buyers to make more effective and productive business decisions. With Zucker's opinion and information in mind, brands and agencies must allocate a portion of their media budget towards technology to survive and secure a solidified place in the ever-developing marketplace. 

The Perfect Storm 

Within the last few years, the Adtech/Martech space has exploded, with many different companies developing and fighting for market share. In today's world, customers lean towards brands that communicate their privacy policy, allowing them to believe the company is working towards transparency and inclusivity. These values are respected in marketing and stand out to customers in a world where privacy continues to diminish and exposure continues to grow. According to Prashanth Krishnaswami, head of market strategy and thought leadership for the CX product group at Zoho, for brands to further their impact and stand out in the crowded marketing field, there are three trends brands should incorporate in their company. First, establishing a sense of customer privacy is essential for people to feel comfortable about whom they are consuming from and how much they are willing to share. Not to mention a firm privacy policy that everyone can understand will set a company apart from its competitors, who do not seem to contribute the same honesty to society. Secondly, working to establish a community where the customers are devotedly loyal to the products and growth of the brand is rare and builds a strong foundation for the brand. Lastly, designing unified platforms to bring the company's team together is practicing transparency from the inside out and helps portray transparency as a company core value. According to Krishnaswami, the unified platforms will improve visibility, streamline collaboration, and simplify omnichannel marketing engagement. Allowing any company to be the best it can be.

The Martech/Adtech space allows technology to target and produce the most meaningful content possible for a customer but also begs the question of privacy and where consumers draw the line. As the industry continues to evolve daily, transparency, reporting of data, and a clear privacy policy will be at the forefront of customers' minds. 

With many customers feeling as if privacy is diminishing in the marketing and advertising world, transparency is the catalyst for companies to take their organizations to the next level. More than ever, customers are pressuring companies to be transparent about their tactics and tracking techniques. Transparency will allow companies to build strong customer relationships based on trust, loyalty and understanding. Corporations will not only stay alive with transparency as a core value but will also thrive in the ever-developing marketing and advertising industries.

At Advocado, data is our core and our mission is for advertisers to gain more control of their data to inform smarter, more strategic real-time decisions around their spend. Learn more about Advocado’s data-as-a-service platform.

• Netflix Ad Tier Will Include Limited Targeting, No Third-Party Measurement

• The Media Buying Narrative is Broken-But it Can Be Fixed - AdWeek

• 3 Trends Driving Transparency and Inclusivity in Marketing - AdAge

• Bringing More Transparency to Social Issue, Electoral and Political Ads - Meta