The international consultant Kantar presented the Getting Media Right: Marketing in Motion study that offers an overview of advertising trends in 2020.
As has happened in previous years, digital advertising will have a significant increase in corporate spending. Marketing specialists plan to increase their spending in this area to achieve a mix of digital media and those that are offline.
However, most have not yet adapted to new trends, and three out of four professionals have problems with multichannel measurement, according to the results of the study. Meanwhile, almost half of marketing professionals lack balance and synergies suitable between digital media and offline media.
Social networks and videos will be a trend next year.
Digital marketing will increase in 2020, but mainly the one aimed at smart networks and online videos. According to Kantar’s study, eight out of ten marketing experts plan to increase investment in online video advertising over the next twelve months. On the other hand, three out of five will expand spending on social networks.
Investment in podcasts will grow to a lesser extent. More than half of those surveyed by Kantar will increase their spending on this medium. Although this growth is not as significant as it happens in social networks and video, it indicates a resurgence of this medium.
Advertising changes, but not everyone is adapting.
The decade is about to end, and the disappearance of many print media is no surprise to anyone. The experts in marketing will reduce the expenses in these means for the next year, putting a nail more for this sector.
This change is inescapable, but many experts have not yet fully understood what it implies. Digital measurement is still a challenge for specialists who present blind spots such as “walled gardens” that affect the ability to understand multichannel performance. This situation leaves many advertisers in uncertainty about the performance of their brand across all channels.
“It is imperative to be clear that the logic with which digital advertising works are different from those that guide offline advertising. This is basically because the mindset with which we approach one and the other medium is very different,” said Matías Garber of the Creative Studies Department of Kantar.
Garber also mentioned the differences between open television, where users have no control over the content that is transmitted, and where they are accustomed to receiving publicity. “Instead, in digital, we carry out an active search for content, which makes advertising an interruption of our task, making us more reluctant to receive it,” Garber said.
This statement has a clear implication that is sometimes ignored by advertisers: the same video does not have to work on TV and digital.
“It is necessary to evaluate each stimulus in its context,” Matías Garber emphasized.
Industry in the diversification
This year is the sixth consecutive year in which the Getting Media Right study is conducted. On this occasion, the results reveal that the industry continues to diversify its use in different media contexts. However, it still requires a better understanding of how ideas, content, and media work together to achieve their goals of boosting short-term sales and long-term brand growth.
Among the key findings of this study are:
- The dilemma “short term vs. long term” reaches a critical point. Almost all marketing professionals (including 88% of advertisers) now recognize the importance of balancing short-term sales with long-term brand building. However, 54% of specialists still use short and long-term measurements, while 38% still depend solely on the results of short-term sales.
- Marketing professionals still have difficulties with integrated campaigns. A quarter of the advertisers (25%) have failed to integrate their marketing organizations, and 27% of the advertisers have no strategies integrated into and outside of media activities.
- The programmatic target continues to grow. Four out of five marketing professionals (80%) currently use the programmatic target for their campaigns, and it is expected to reach 90% by 2020. But, even so, almost one in three advertisers does not trust that it will be successfully targeted to the right audiences.
- Advertising without cookies could leave marketing professionals in the dark. Most of the industry, almost half of the agencies and nearly three-fourths of the advertisers, have not started preparations for a world without cookies, leaving many worried about how such a change will affect the industry.
- Almost a third of advertisers do not understand the impact of the context. Nearly two-thirds of marketing specialists agree that developing personalized content is imperative. However, when it comes to an understanding of how context impacts creative executions, there is still a gap. More information is required on how content should be adapted to specific contexts to improve the receptivity of messages.
In the corporate offices of Kantar Chile, experts point out that the media and non-media plans could be better aligned with the final strategy, in addition to having actionable insights, which remains a significant challenge.
On the other hand, experts anticipate that it will be essential to evaluate competitive activities, relying on agencies or third parties to measure effectiveness in real-time. The earliest optimization of media plans and determining how to measure digital performance in the future is also crucial.
It is vital to understand that, given the need to increase investment in digital channels, the marketing professional faces multiple performance metrics, typical of each medium, which makes it challenging to understand the Return on Investment (ROI) of these decisions. This contributes to the feeling of operating “blind.”
Faced with this situation, the only currency, which allows clear equivalences to be established between the different online and offline media, is a measure of predisposition towards brands, that is, knowing the Equity generated by each component of the media mix.
Equity has a high correlation with market share. Therefore, the ability of a medium to generate long-term predisposition is the most critical factor when making an investment decision,” said Sergio Jiménez, leader of the Media and Digital domain in Kantar Chile. Finally, from the consultant, they affirm that it will be fundamental to measure ROI more frequently and uniquely. A work that is in progress and that luckily advances rapidly.