For many modern marketers and advertisers, particularly those from the millennial generation, it is almost inconceivable to imagine a world without the internet. But there certainly was a time before Google, email or the World Wide Web and marketing already existed in this pre-internet age.
The fundamentals of marketing customer profiling and the 4 P’s (price, product, promotion and place) were already being practised by marketers long before the dawn of the internet. The first paid advertising appeared in a French magazine in 1836 and the 1880s saw the first examples of branding and billboards. By the time we entered the 1950s, radio, television advertising and telemarketing had evolved into bona fide marketing strategies. You only need to watch Mad Men, albeit a stylish portrayal of the US advertising profession in the 60s, to understand that advertising was already a very sleek and advanced operation.
It has been 25 years since the internet launched publically and fundamentally transformed the art and science of advertising. Its anniversary calls for a time of reflection and soul searching. Have advertisers used the power of the internet to effectively reach consumers?
Yes and no.
Marketers have clearly understood the importance of the internet. Digital marketing has grown exponentially over the last ten years. In the UK alone, digital ad spend grew 16.4% in 2015 to over £8.6bn according to IAB, so marketers are certainly investing in digital platforms. The immense popularity of social media has not gone unnoticed either and a recent survey by Adobe’s CMO.com revealed that social media spending as a percentage of marketing budgets had more than tripled since 2009.
However, although marketers may be throwing more of their budget at social media and digital, this has not necessarily translated into the results that they wanted. The same survey also reveals that although social media spend has increased, it has not reached the levels that were predicted five years ago, partly driven by the reality that companies are simply not utilising social media effectively.
Consumers are increasingly becoming frustrated by efforts to pester them with banner ads, pop-up ads and native ads which, when not done in a way that is engaging or relevant to them, constantly interfere with their experience of the web. It is not surprising that ad blocking software has now become a popular download for internet users, both on desktop and mobile. A survey by Metafacts reported that 12.8 million adults in the UK alone were using ad-blocking software on their PCs, smartphones, or tablet computers. Marketing content should be engaging and relevant, but it has too often become a nuisance.
Part of the problem is that marketers have not adequately recognised the fact that the internet has placed power in the hands of the consumer. For the modern consumer, the internet is a way to explore products and suppliers on their own terms through search engines and social media. Moreover, with more brands present on social media, consumers are rightly demanding more from them at all touch points. As a result, brands who are not delivering good customer service online can really struggle to keep users happy.
The second problem is that marketers are not taking advantage of the wealth of customer data readily available to them as a result of the internet’s ubiquity. There is more data than ever before to help marketers target the right user, at the right time, with the right ad. Despite this, marketers are still working out how to use the technology at their disposal to create more tailored and targeted content. If search and display ads seen by users are at odds with their relationship with you, it can create a discordant experience for them and won’t prompt engagement.
Likewise, brands are struggling to get to grips with the enormity of the data they hold and how to use it to enhance the customer experience of their brand online. Even simple steps, such as aligning acquisition activity with digital retention, are proving difficult for a lot of advertisers. There is still so much more that brands could do to use their big data to improve their understanding of who their customers are, and better understand the results of campaigns. Accurate tracking of acquisition and retention campaigns, and website useage, can power creative development and allow for accurate attribution analysis to help brands understand how to drive the best results cost efficiently from all their marketing activity.
For many marketers, it is time to return to the basics. Over the past 25 years, the internet has provided marketers with the ability to communicate with their consumers on a massive scale, without any geographical difficulty. With nearly everyone using the internet, brands and their agencies can understand their consumer on a macro and micro level. However, brands must use the strengths of the internet to build better relationships with consumers and target them with content that they actually want. We are not supposed to make the internet a torturous place for users. Let’s hope that when we mark the next 25 years of the internet, advertising on the internet will be just as appreciated by consumers as it is offline.
