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Content Still King, Creativity Remains Key To Digital Advertising

Comprising 85% of global digital ad spending, Google and Facebook are titans in the world of digital marketing. But while these tech giants currently drive the lion’s share of revenue growth, it’s important to note the limitations in their ad units -- and the potential offered by a return to more creative advertising solutions. More than 20 years later, Bill Gates’ (or whoever said it first) famous statement is as true as ever: Content is still king.

High Volume, Low Impact

Facebook and Google offer advertisers a wealth of opportunities to put their collateral in front of potential customers. However, the sheer volume offered by these companies is constrained by the number of ad units provided on each site. For even the strongest marketing team, the limitations of Facebook and Google present a frustrating challenge.
    
Users want to be entertained, engaged and persuaded by advertisements. But Facebook and Google offer repetition and often flat messaging. The ad units provided by Facebook and Google are a natural inhibitor to storytelling, making it harder for brands to develop connections and relationships with consumers.

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Turning a Barrier into a Gateway

While the current online advertising ecosystem may seem like a barrier to creativity, certain digital avenues can instead serve as a gateway to engaging brand storytelling. In contrast to the limited options offered by Facebook and Google, programmatic creative offers brands a multitude of opportunities for sequencing messages and delivering targeted content to the correct end user. Instead of being forced to repeat content, programmatic creative allows brands to update their collateral in real time and ensure that their messaging is consistently relevant and fresh.

Maximizing Returns from Creativity: How to Leverage Programmatic to Your Advantage
   
Tailor content to specific devices: By ensuring that content is suited for the device on which it’s being viewed, you give your collateral the best possible chance to engage with and make an impact on consumers.

Develop multichannel campaigns for multifaceted engagement: As users move between devices, a creative multichannel campaign can develop a storyline and build engagement over multiple interactions in different formats. A complementary campaign deployed across multiple devices allows you to avoid the scourge of repetition and increase your opportunities to interact with the end user.

Use the format to drive creativity: Rather than developing a message and then adapting it to various formats, innovative advertisers should look from the outside in to deliver compelling storytelling. During the recent World Cup,  one brand developed wallpaper creative content specific to home pages. The engagement and number of interactions that resulted from these creative executions far exceeded those of campaigns using a one-size-fits-all design for multiple formats.

It’s time for advertisers to get creative and recognize that content is still king. Those who do will be the winners in this new digital age.

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