Advertisers in 2013 will siphon more from their print budgets to use in online advertising as a kind of a test kitchen for campaigns, to help decide which of its pitches are working best.
That’s one of the big guesses for the year ahead from Tremor Video, the advertising services company that was a pioneer in the cost-per-engagement (CPE) model for tablets, laptops and mobile
phone and TV advertisers.
The company says it makes sense for advertisers to experiment with several concepts on the Internet before deciding on the ad or campaign it will use, especially
during mega-events like the Super Bowl or Oscar telecasts.
Far from dissing TV, Tremor acknowledges the 800 lb.-46 inch wide gorilla on the advertising landscape isn’t about to move out
of the way. Advertisers want the big screen presence, and so do consumers. But some of the fine details, Tremor argues, can be worked on through online advertising.
Tremor predicts some
advertisers ahead of the 2014 Super Bowl will “digitally test creative,” effectively using online video as the “world’s largest and almost instantaneous focus
group.” Based on metrics and buzz, it is betting one advertiser will make a splash showing the winning ad at halftime, “removing some of the ‘high’ from the high-stakes
bet.” (Sounds to me like Tremor knows who this advertiser this is, but they say they’re just sayin.’)
Bill Day, the chief executive, predicts that 2013 will to be the
year that advertisers will go interactive in a big way, and the company has the figures to back it up.
Melinda McLaughlin, the chief marketing officer, says the trend is for online video
advertising to engage consumers, almost by making commercials episodic. She notes in a company video that when anyone says, “let me tell you a story,” the natural reaction is to
“lean in” to hear more.
Tremor predicts an uptick in transmedia projects where the ad campaign can flow across all screens, a trend that’s more apparent so far on
studio back lots on the West Coast than on Madison Avenue.
In its 2013 blog dreamscape, Tremor predicts “Advertisers will add a fourth dimension—touch—to sight,
sound and motion on a major scale.”
Gone, or going, are the days when advertisers “repurpose a TV spot for the Web and call it a day.”
Instead, they’ll
increasingly begin “to shoot extras, outtakes, content for the ‘making of’ video and other editorial content that will serve as interactive invitations to engage with the brand on
all screens.”
Tremor has seen revenue from interactive formats nearly double from its first quarter-to-fourth quarter overall results. The company says 55% of its mobile revenue
came from interactive ad spend, up from 12% in the first quarter.
That’s also an indication of the rapid growth of smartphones. Citing a Gartner report, Tremor says the number of
smartphones will increase by another 1.21 billion worldwide in 2013.
Naturally, the predictions follow the contours of Tremor’s business. It knows advertisers aren’t easily giving
up their fixation on gross ratings points, but Tremor says adding in an online campaign’s Effective Ratings Points is a better way for advertisers to know who—precisely-- is viewing an ad,
and what they’re doing after they see it.
In the Tremor video, Day says the fixatino advertisers and marketers have for some demographics has become outmoded—it’s not smart
to “aim” car advertising at men, or detergent ads at women. He says when advertisers “quit chasing stereotypes” they discover that sometimes their market “look nothing
like what you thought your target was.”
pjbednarski@comcast.net