I'm not convinced advertisers
are ready for the future of advertising, where social signals and metrics become more important than clicks, half of all ad buys rely on real-time bidding, and 75% of ads have some sort of social
feature. The majority of marketers and advertisers I meet comprehend the possibilities that technology brings advertising, but not many know how to execute on the strategies.
Technologists
must lend a hand to marketers and advertisers as the industry moves forward. Metrics will become more important than clicks. Neal Mohan, vice president of product management at Google, and Barry
Salzman, managing director of media and platforms at Google, made seven bold predictions Tuesday at the
Interactive Advertising Bureau's MIXX Conference 2010 in New York. One presented five metrics the ad industry will use to measure the success of campaigns by 2015, and a variety of future
applications.
One application uses Google Goggles, YouTube and Teracent technology. The technology lets consumers take a picture with the camera on their smartphone to search on Google. The
two demonstrated how consumers could merge print with online advertising with a click. The feature integrates virtual reality and turns the image into 3D, providing pricing and specs for the car. It
not only provides images of the product, but more information to help consumers make a smarter buying decision.
While some of those metrics are available now, it may become more difficult
than Google execs think to introduce the newer metrics. MediaMind Global Director of Media Innovation Dean Donaldson believes advertising and marketing execs are stuck on the traditional method to
measure success. But they had better get their head out of the sand.
Some ad execs aren't aware of future measurements, metrics and options for online and digital advertising because they're
still arguing about if people click on ads, Donaldson says. "We're in this crazy situation where visionaries are 10 steps ahead talking about spiting the difference between near field communication
and radio frequency identification technologies," he says. "But there are many people in agencies who still think consumers should see display ads and click on them."
As much as the industry
sees this exciting vision, there are fundamental steps the industry needs to take to get there. Last year the steps required the industry to create open platforms to connect a fragmented industry.
Future steps include:
1) Measurements must align in display ads against consumer behavior such as dwell time or passive or active engagement.
2) Make processes within agencies quicker and easier through technology.
3) One system for all inventory processes.
Agency reps have been spending
too much time cutting and pasting into and out of Microsoft Excel. So, MediaMind created a dashboard to centralize all information for media buyers. It aims to simply the process of managing ad
campaigns across Facebook, mobile, display and email. It also helps buyers find audiences.
The MediaMind version 2.0 product launch this week focuses on tackling the immediate tasks at hand,
which Donaldson will address at Digital Experience Day (DED). He says it's necessary for agencies to embrace this concept now to manage any kind of future change as digital and traditional media
converge, and look at "smarter' ways of engaging consumers." But that's really only the beginning.
The advertising industry will face serious issues if technologists don't step up to nurture
this transition.