European Business Talks With With Nick Morley

European Business Talks with with

Nick Morley

EMEA Managing Director, Integral Ad Science (IAS)

Evolving the advertising industry to meet consumer behaviour

Compe on for consumers’ a en on has been heightened by the pandemic. How can business leaders ensure their adver sing teams are focused on ad campaigns that maximise engagement?

N ick Morley: “To maximise adver sing success, business leaders should focus on the context in which their ad campaigns appear. While adver sers are aware of the opportuni es due to increased consumer engagement, brands are stepping up their brand safety measures during mes of social unrest and a pandemic climate. M ost businesses appreciate that context aff ects how consumers view their brand, with IAS research showing that nearly three-quarters (70%) of UK consumers state that they are more likely to remember an ad when it appears next to contextually relevant content online. To hit the ultimate goal of the right ad, at the correct moment and in the best place, marke ng eff orts should also recognise and navigate the sen ment of context. Given that almost three-quarters of consumers (73%) state that the posi ve/nega ve feeling conveyed in an ar cle impacts their percep on of a brand who has adver sed alongside it, businesses need a technology partner to enable their brand to not just avoid unwanted associa ons, but also target investment towards suitable content. With advanced technologies that blend semantic analysis and natural language processing, a brand can uncover exactly what the words on a webpage mean and how they relate to each other, in real- me and at scale. This allows business leaders to keep adver sing op ons open without pu ng their brand at risk. For example, in the current situa on, that could include dis nguishing nega ve content about coronavirus from stories with a positive sen ment, such as business survival or human kindness. ”

Covid-19 has seen ad fraud skyrocket. How can business leaders op mise ads for performance by closely scru nising the supply chain?

Nick Morley: “It almost goes without saying that problems with ad fraud pre-date today’s disruption. Long before the outbreak, ad fraud was predicted to become the second-greatest source of criminal revenue globally by 2025. But with budgets ghtening and adver sers under greater scru ny than ever, it’s even more important to keep a close watch

on ad fraud - from malicious apps, illegal bots and domain spoofi ng, to its many other forms. Staying ahead calls for an ‘always-on’ mindset. Business leaders should use tools that employ machine learning in order to constantly monitor abnormal traffi c pa erns and spot the differences between human and bot behaviour. To make sure investment is constantly safe from fraudsters, business leaders need to ensure all of this insight comes from a verification technology partner that prioritises ongoing cross-industry collabora on and employs fraud detec on experts to understand the latest threats and spots signs of emerging ad fraud. These insights are paramount for both advertisers and publishers to ensure that they are transac ng only on genuine inventory.”

How can innova ve, up-to-date repor ng help business leaders crea vely connect with their target audience?

Nick Morley: “Consumers were already feeding their digital media appetite with increasingly diverse content before Covid-19. Not only has consump on risen at an unprecedented rate, but also expanded across a wider range of channels; whether that’s thespike in video streaming services,record numbers listening to podcasts, or the explosion of viral TikTok videos that we hate to love. For business leaders, this presents both a challenge and an opportunity. There is greater potential to connect with highly recep ve audiences, but it’s also harder to keep track of the results that ads generate, or if they have a chance to make any impact at all. Ads must be seen and not just served to have an impact. But diff erent digital ad formats come with diff erent standards for evalua ng viewability — from sta c desktop display to mobile app video ads — and with more channels comes a greater variety of data. For example, at IAS, part of our viewability measurement also captures exposure me. This helps adver sers evaluate engagement, based upon the theory that good content engages viewers for longer. To ensure business leaders can translate this data into business outcomes, it is paramount that the digital adver sing industry keeps pace with the mul -channel consumer, and a vital part of that is accurate and easily digestible reporting. As well as ensuring access to cross-pla orm and cross device insight to gain a holistic picture of the context in which ads are appearing online, business leaders need tools that allow them to apply custom metrics aligned with their brand’s needs, whether that be unique brand safety requirements or custom viewability measurement.”

Why Influencer Marketing is so important in the modern world

In the modern age, people no longer retain control of the purchases they make. Whereas once the things you bought were down to either a specifi c need or simply personal preference, today’s buying habits are driven by a desire to belong, to fit in and relate with the friends or social group that matches your individual personality. As a consequence, studies show that these groups of friends, family, experts, media outlets and social media infl uencers provide us with the confi dence that we are making the right choices as we conform to the perceived social norms. This influence is known as Influencer Marke ng, and with just about anyone now being able to work with major brands, this now number one form of online marke ng is crucial to companies compe ng in the marketplace. Infl uencer marke ng has grown substan ally year on year, with the trend growing to over $5 billion dollars on social media site Instagram alone. This relationship selling has become so powerful in the purchasing decisions that especially for the newer entrants into the market, they simply cannot ignore the sheer growth prospects on off er when their need for instant presence and credibility can essen ally be solved overnight through the use of a recognised face in their space that legi mises them through simple posi ve associa on via their inbuilt customer base. But what makes this kind of marke ng so important is the fact that it solves multiple issues through organic traffi c, thanks to the fact that they retain a loyal and o en fana cal group of poten al customers that is also extremely cost eff ec ve when considering the price of acquisi on. Three of the key considerations behind effective marketing strategy: Content creation, brand credibility and posi ve exposure to the target market, whilst diffi cult to balance from a corporate perspective are actually what makes infl uencers so successful in their own ventures. Such personal connec ons through often years of building trust from their consistent posting and hard work makes the messages they send seem genuine and authen c in a way that is almost impossible to replicate by a brand or larger corpora on. From platforms such as YouTube, Twitch and Instagram, the ability to create such a unique kind of buzz from exciting content, which is both wanted and appreciated by these people needs to be almost the main focus for any company that wants to grow in this kind of environment. The opportunity available has never existed to take advantage of this, especially considering that in a rapidly developing world where 46% of marketing now takes place online, this number is likely only the beginning. The strong and unique content that can be created without expenditure, as through a simple sponsorship you are a ached to a chosen individual who through a simple promo onal adver sement subconsciously aligns the corporate objec ves with that of their own. Their content becomes a new form of adver sing that can then be used in outside ads, own personal content and even the companies own social media to form a much more comprehensive strategy. One example of this has been the American YouTuber Jimmy ‘Mr Beast’ Donaldson and browser extension site Honey, whose partnership has allowed the company to become a much bigger household name through sponsorship of selected videos. Due to its ability to heavily integrate itself into this market, it has gained a global reputa on and substan al increase in downloads that has now even began to diversify its content to capitalise its own growing internet audience. Despite this being a signifi cant ex pen diture, with figures es mated to be around $10000 per video, the average business who may not have a good marke ng budget to spend on

such endeavours can instead benefit from the community of more common ‘micro’ infl uencers. These public personali es have a much smaller following of 10 to 200 thousand followers, and therefore are much more a ainable due to their prices of partnership being low or even simply for free product. There is no other form of strategy in current business that can off er this kind of cost versus reward balance to businesses that would double or triple overnight from this kind of publicity. Infl uencers also rely on this kind of business rela onship and so represents a mutual need to be an eff ec ve partner, and reduces the possible risks involved. Pla orms such as YouTube have in the past revised their systems to limit the amounts their users receive and instead this revenue is as a result of infl uencer agreements and other adver sing-based contracts. There is however, a serious need for close considera on and assessment before agreeing to such deals. There is significant risk in a partnership with the wrong infl uencer having the opposite effect and damaging the PR of the brand. Mostly consis ng of normal people who simply make money through content, they have to be heavily ve ed to ensure there is nothing controversial or off ensive that would harm you, or even simply if they held diff erent ideals to what you represent, then the current clients may no longer see a future with your company. The results and key performance indicators represent one of the most signifi cant arguments as to why this is so important. Being so diffi cult to measure means that understanding what works and how to make communica on more eff ec ve is a diffi cult task. Defi ning metrics is a key part of infl uencers, and when agreed is a sign of potential success with unique discount codes and tracking the clicks on a link being a substan al tool that allows clear and concise feedback to maximise poten al returns. Attention online is so difficult to achieve in the current market, with anyone who dares to go online a acked from every angle by the same techniques industries have u lised for a long me. People feel safe with the comfort and reassurance of friendly and familiar guidance from the expert infl uencers that they regard as real people living real lives, an ideal they resonate much more closely with that a simple brand image. Tradi onal marketing is losing traction, and exciting delivery that caused a buzz or so called ‘viral’ attention is the key to true engagement within a society that regards personali es and reality TV star as their personal heroes. The current climate shows just how important presence is, and now businesses must adapt to stay relevant by matching the interests of their clients be er than their compe tors- Infl uencer Marketing is the key to this achievement.