Advertisers need to create content that's powerful, entertaining or life altering. These things seem basic, but they've become much more complicated, says ABHIK SANTARA
There’s a lot of optimism and worry about the future of advertising, and there are so many varied opinions on what the world of advertising will look like. Some argue that advertising will be better and more valuable in the hearts and minds of consumers-and, as a result, more effective. The complexities of modern day consumer journeys are empowering consumers to get what they want, when they want it. And increasingly that means that they don’t want to be interrupted by an ad that isn’t good or relevant.
As advertisers, it's foolish to think that consumers want to hear what we have to say. They are not waiting to hear from us, we have to make ourselves heard- irrespective of what stage of the journey he or she is at. So we need to create content-that’s legitimately powerful, entertaining or life altering. Those things seem basic, but they’ve become much more complicated with the proliferation of platforms.
No doubt we’ll have new tools and capabilities that make the processes of advertising easier, more measurable or more automated, but I'm also hopeful that the power of storytelling will remain at the core of if. After all, increasing use of technology and automation won’t change the fact that communication will always be a people business. At least for the foreseeable future, individuals will still be responsible for making business decisions and serving audiences and customers. They’ll just be using more sophisticated technology to dramatically improve the way they do it, deliver it and measure it.
As long as we’re connecting to other people, the human element will never go away. But the drive for more real-time personalisation means that the human element will be exercised more and more on the strategic level than the executional level. Advertising will be less about crafting the individual words and images, and more about crafting the systems and algorithms that create the words and images.
We are at a moment where we are too focussed on vanity metrics lihe views, impressions and clicks. But we need to figure out how far down the funnel these things are impacting people and creating sustainable differences in conversion and loyalty. It will not be naïve to witness a growing ambition and a shift to emotional connection and the human element. That’s how brands will differentiate, that’s how brands will be loved and that’s how consumers will stay loyal. In the digital era- We have to give people things not to escape to, but things they can run to and reaffirm.
The writer is Director and CEO of Atom Network