{"id":417,"date":"2019-04-09T13:13:46","date_gmt":"2019-04-09T13:13:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tenttis.shh.fi\/drupmigr\/index.php\/2019\/04\/09\/is-there-a-future-for-digital-advertising\/"},"modified":"2019-04-09T13:13:46","modified_gmt":"2019-04-09T13:13:46","slug":"is-there-a-future-for-digital-advertising","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.hanken.fi\/cers\/2019\/04\/09\/is-there-a-future-for-digital-advertising\/","title":{"rendered":"Is there a future for digital advertising?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Here\u2019s a question: When was the last time you watched an advertisement on Youtube? Really<\/i> watched it? For me, the strongest impression of these advertisements is one of impatiently hovering over the \u201cskip ad\u201d button. And this is not just me, it\u2019s a part of a larger trend: We don\u2019t want to be advertised to anymore.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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\"aaron-sebastian-705195-unsplash.jpg\"<\/p>\n

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One could argue that digital advertising is about to face a crisis. Consumers are increasingly averse to traditional forms of advertising. Why? The problem can be summarized in the words of controversial Swedish media personality Alexander Bard<\/b>: \u201cOn the Internet, advertising is called spam\u201d.<\/i>\u00a0This somewhat brash statement\u00a0has some truth to it.\u00a0During the last\u00a0decades, advertising avoidance has become an increasingly relevant topic for researchers.\u00a0Phenomena such as\u00a0banner blindness<\/span><\/a>,\u00a0ad blocking<\/span><\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0skip rates of around 90 percent for pre-roll video ads<\/span><\/a>\u00a0make it increasingly hard for advertisers to get\u00a0consumers\u2019\u00a0attention.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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If this development continues, will there be a future for digital advertising? We might be able to get an answer by looking at what has changed. In an article soon to be published in the Journal of Services Marketing<\/i>, we argue that the reason for the current problems can be found in\u00a0the\u00a0digital media itself. When consuming digital media, the consumers expect to be in\u00a0control<\/i>.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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Traditional media channels, such as broadcast television or newspapers, were a one-way, one-size-fits-all affair, where consumers were expected to sit down and take it. There was no choice. In those times, advertising was usually a case of (quite crudely) buying shares of consumer\u2019s attention with slots in the media stream. Of course, people ignored ads then as well, for example by going to the fridge during an ad break. But the form of the media itself was fixed, and if you felt lazy and decided to stay seated by the TV, you had to watch the ad.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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Now, however, interactivity is a basic property of digital media. This means that choice and control are built into the nature of\u00a0the\u00a0media itself, and people learn to expect it. Why should I have to look at something that I\u2019m not interested in? I\u2019m the one in control!\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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The Consumer\u2019s Advertising Utopia<\/b><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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So where\u00a0might\u00a0this\u00a0development\u00a0lead us? There are many potential places where we could end up. Currently, there are three main ways\u00a0in which\u00a0advertisers try to\u00a0deal with advertising avoidance:<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

1) personified ads<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

2) valuable ads<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

3) context-fitting\u00a0ads.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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The first\u00a0one\u00a0refers to the fact that,\u00a0as\u00a0our digital footprints\u00a0become\u00a0increasingly detailed, companies learn to\u00a0target us better. The second\u00a0one\u00a0refers to advertising which\u00a0is\u00a0valuable\u00a0in itself, for\u00a0example\u00a0entertaining ads\u00a0or\u00a0practical\u00a0guides (\u201cThe 5 best\u00a0tips for\u00a0a beautiful lawn!\u201d) The third\u00a0one\u00a0has to do with tailoring\u00a0ads so that they fit\u00a0into the surrounding media in terms of theme or content,\u00a0like\u00a0placing\u00a0ads for concerts\u00a0in\u00a0the culture pages.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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The perceptive among you may have noted that all three ways of coping\u00a0are\u00a0really\u00a0about the same thing: Making ads more relevant for us consumers. This seems to be the general direction for digital advertising. In the upcoming paper we take this even further and argue that digital advertising must become more\u00a0service-like<\/i>. Ads should support consumers in some way – they need to provide consumers with some type of\u00a0value<\/i>. Otherwise, consumers are likely to reject\u00a0them.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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If we take this line of thought to its conclusion, where do we end up? I present one possible future scenario, which I optimistically call\u00a0The\u00a0Consumer\u2019s Advertising Utopia. If we assume that consumers become increasingly hostile to unwanted advertising, and get increasingly good at blocking it,\u00a0in the end\u00a0consumers stop being exposed to unwanted advertisements altogether.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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For example, a\u00a0recent report by Deloitte<\/span><\/a>\u00a0describes how consumers now subscribe to multiple digital services to piece together the media experience they desire. This fits with the idea that media\u2019s traditional space advertising is disappearing. We might even end up in a situation where advertising as we used to know it does not exist at all. Instead of being bombarded with irrelevant messages, we would be exposed only to things that we are interested in, or which we feel help us in some way. The end point would be a life without any intrusive advertising, at least in the digital sphere.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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In such a world, advertisers would need to offer people value upfront, and not expect to influence people through mere exposure. Many advertising professionals now talk about engaging the customer before making a sale. Thus, every ad \u2013 every contact point \u2013 should offer something to the consumer. The consumer should be so well targeted that he or she\u00a0actually might\u00a0want what the company has to offer, and that goes for both before\u00a0and\u00a0<\/i>after making a purchase.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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For example, imagine that I\u2019m in the market for a new car. I am not interested in mindless, intrusive sales pitches. In this future scenario, I might instead be given the opportunity to digitally explore the world of cars on my own terms, playing with price, properties and the car experience in a way that benefits me, and then maybe make a purchase at a point where I feel confident in my preferences. This is the role of advertising in the consumer\u2019s advertising utopia: The consumer is in charge and uses what the company has to offer for her own benefit. Who knows, we might even get there one day.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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Karl-Jacob Mickelsson<\/span><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

Affiliate Researcher<\/span><\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

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Reference<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Nystr\u00f6m\u00a0A-G &\u00a0Mickelsson, K-J (2019). \u201cDigital Advertising as Service: Introducing Contextually Embedded Selling\u201d. Journal of Services<\/i> Marketing (in press)<\/span>.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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Photo: Unsplash<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here\u2019s a question: When was the last time you watched an advertisement on Youtube? Really watched it? For me, the strongest impression of these advertisements is one of impatiently hovering over the \u201cskip ad\u201d button. And this is not just me, it\u2019s a part of a larger trend: We don\u2019t want to be advertised to …<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-417","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cers-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.hanken.fi\/cers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/417","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.hanken.fi\/cers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.hanken.fi\/cers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.hanken.fi\/cers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.hanken.fi\/cers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=417"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.hanken.fi\/cers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/417\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.hanken.fi\/cers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=417"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.hanken.fi\/cers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=417"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.hanken.fi\/cers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=417"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}