One of yesterday's festival highlights was the release of a study from Microsoft Digital Advertising Solutions and Starcom MediaVest that focused on how to reach the one-third of 17- to-35-year-olds dubbed the "Ad Avoiders."
This elusive group for advertisers to reach consists of people who say they never pay attention to advertising, who use various methods to avoid brand messaging, and who hold less than favorable attitudes toward the media content designed to influence them.
The research found two kinds of Avoiders: 1. The "Ad Ambivalent"--they are passive, with limited energy with regard to advertising: "they simply want it to go away and marketers find it difficult to get their attention at all." 2. The "Ad Averse"--they have extreme attitudes about advertising; "they love what they like and hate what they don't."
And the research offered guidelines in reaching the Avoiders:
Also in Cannes, Matt Dyke, Worldwide Planning Director for interactive agency Tribal DDB, made a similar point during a panel discussion on the new landscape of digital innovations converging with the physical world.
After showing examples ranging from Japanese talking robots that record shopping lists and lead customers around stores, to Google Earth allowing users to not only research locations but also explore in detail the streets, stores and happenings of their desired destinations, Dyke said: "What's bringing these things together, the digital world and the physical worlds waking up, are the consumers themselves. It's much more important for brands to think about how they can add value to consumer's lives."
Likewise, Norm Johnston, managing director of Digitas, told a Cannes panel that pull will replace push in the next five years. Not that push will disappear: "the notion of highly relevant push will take off, but it will be so good that it will feel like pull." When done right, he said, "the consumer doesn't even know they are being advertised to."
"Wherever and whenever you engage with the customer, you must provide them with a value exchange and take them to the next level," Johnston was quoted as saying, citing campaigns from Dove and IBM.