SPRING 2016_PROMOTING THE EFFECTIVENESS OF PRINT MEDIA THROUGHOUT EUROPE
The beautiful game
Why print will be one of the stars of Euro 2016
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BRAND IN THE HAND Why content marketing is the success story of 2016 TRUSTED, ENGAGING, EFFECTIVE The enduring appeal of newspapers for advertisers SURPRISE THE SENSES Give your marketing the wow factor with special inks and finishes THE DIGITAL BACKLASH Will print get a boost from privacy concerns and adblocking?
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BACK TO THE FUTURE
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/ DIGITAL BACKLASH
Fuelled by ad blocking, click fraud and low viewability, digital advertising is currently suffering confusion, with marketers looking for new ways to reach their customers. But could the answer be right under your nose? — By David Benady
ECHNOLOGY FATIGUE is much in evidence these days. When it comes to the latest trends, forget smartphones and virtual reality. Think instead of vinyl records, which are making a comeback, and the latest fashion accessory for hipsters: 70s-style Polaroid cameras. Kodak is also harking back to old times with the launch of a new Super 8 movie camera. This is all part of a growing 'digital backlash'. Having all our communications, entertainment and information needs met by the device in our pockets has left many of us hankering after the simpler days of typewriters, record turntables and print. Marketers are also having second thoughts about the digital world, though their doubts are not being fuelled by nostalgia. The fact
is that digital display advertising – low cost, highly targeted and easily measurable as it may be – faces a huge series of challenges in its claim on marketing budgets. Ad blocking, click fraud and low viewability of ads have all become major headaches for brands as they consider the value they get from their digital ad spending. A medium suffering confusion This year’s Toolkit report, created by the World Advertising Research Council (Warc) in association with consultancy Deloitte Digital, predicts that such issues will lead to a significant "digital backlash" among marketers in 2016. Worries about the poor effectiveness of digital advertising have led brands to look at www.printpower.eu | PRINT POWER _37
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Mode (Far le Creat EVP C at Sw Bee, D Marke at Harro
The backlash begins (Left) Sebastien Houze, Secretary General of the Federation of European Direct and Interactive Marketing (FEDMA) says ad blocking represents a lack of trust in the marketing industry, while (right) Rachel Aldighieri, managing director of the Direct Marketing Association, states simply: "Ad blockers are there because people don’t think the ads are interesting”
new ways of reaching consumers, which can be witnessed by the growth of native advertising. Marketers are now taking the opportunity to reappraise print advertising, which is immune to the problems that currently surround the digital medium. So how bad is the digital advertising crisis? According to a February 2016 survey by AudienceProject, 36% of internet users in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden used an ad blocker, while 68% of Spanish internet users said they would like to avoid ads if they could (IAB Spain). “Adblocking should have been a very clear and powerful alarm signal for the marketing industry because it was reflecting a lack of trust,” says Sebastien Houze, Secretary General of the Federation of European Direct and Interactive Marketing (FEDMA). “It should have been taken more seriously a lot sooner.” Meanwhile, viewability is also a serious issue for marketers. Just because a publisher serves a brand’s ad to someone visiting their website, does that mean the user has seen it? What if the ad is ‘below the fold’ (ie. you need to scroll down the page to see it)? After all, if the user doesn’t scroll down, they won’t see the ad. Unilever chief marketing officer Keith Weed said last year that brands should demand 100% viewability of their ads. He also pointed to ad fraud as a big problem, quoting figures showing that 29% of website traffic is generated by robots posing as humans. Google has released research showing that an incredible 56% of ads served online are never seen by consumers.
Google has released research showing that an incredible 56% of ads served online are never seen by consumers
Around the block In truth, ad blocking is largely down to the poor creativity and often irritating nature of digital ads. No wonder users want to screen them out, reaching for any technology that cuts off irrelevant and irritating advertising. Rachel Aldighieri, managing director of the Direct Marketing Association, says that ad blocking reflects badly on the medium. “Ad blockers are there because people don’t think the ads are interesting,” she says. “It’s a case of brands being put in front of the wrong people. They haven’t looked at the audience and personalisation, they haven’t used the data.” Aldighieri believes that the biggest issue for advertising is relevancy – creating engaging ads that are addressed to the most appropriate audiences, who will actually want to interact with them.
She adds that this is not just a problem for digital marketing – it could also apply to direct mail. If people feel they are being bombarded with irrelevant mail, they will sign up for the Mail Preference Service which screens out direct mail. That said, she thinks that the low costs of email and digital marketing make these media magnets for low quality ads that people want to block. “Mail seems to be more targeted and the creative seems to be getting better,” she says. A new static model The mismatch between marketers’ expectations and the reality of digital advertising has massive implications for online publishers, according to some. “It’s really clear that the digital publishing industry is struggling to strike the right balance between free access and providing non-intrusive ads,” says Dominic Harrison, director of trends at Future Foundation. “The ad model we have become used to is not going to be sustainable in the next decade.” Research carried out by Future Foundation for the out-of-home advertising industry has revealed some interesting and counterintuitive findings. “It’s tempting to think that people are digital robots, always connected to the internet, but it’s simply not the case,” he says. “Static advertising has its benefits – people see it as less disruptive to their daily routines, an opt-in medium, a more passive form of messaging.” The print solution For advertisers, though, the big question is
38_ PRINT POWER | www.printpower.eu
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/ DIGITAL BACKLASH “Yes we know digital is important, but is a 0.02% click-through-rate actually an indicator of advertising engagement and campaign effectiveness? The answer is no” Dino Myers-Lamptey, head of strategy at media agency The7Stars
whether they are getting value for money from their digital spend. Dino MyersLamptey, head of strategy at media agency The7Stars, says that digital advertising has some very low response rates. “Yes we know digital is important, and we spend more and more of our time glued to our devices,” he says. “But is a 0.02% click-through-rate actually an indicator of advertising engagement and campaign effectiveness? The answer is no.” Myers-Lamptey says that print has created value by offering quality content in an engaging context. “The print industry has to evolve with pride," he says, "knowing that in a world of abundance, it is curation and editing that has the highest value to people and brands.” Magazine trade body Magnetic carried out a study into how readers perceive magazine media. This showed that reading magazines results in a 6% uplift in subjective wellbeing. This positive feeling makes readers more amenable to seeing ads. Indeed, the study found that 35% of consumers of print media welcome ads, as opposed to 10% of online users. Meanwhile, 80% of print magazine readers say they don’t find advertising a distraction, compared to 60% online. “This is a crucial moment for the paper and print industry,” says Sebastien Houze, “because now print has the attention of the advertising agencies and brands. People understood that print is a powerful medium, so now it’s time to take it seriously again. If you want to provoke behaviour in a customer, if you want to use the power of touch, then print is the best medium.”
APOCALYPSE NOW Three reasons for the “digital backlash” Ad blocking Ad blockers such as Adblock Plus are used by up to 20% of online users and block banners, pop-ups and video ads. Advertisers carry some blame for this, serving irritating, poorly targeted ads with little creativity. Brands are now turning to native advertising to bypass the ad blockers, hoping that automated or ‘programmatic’ advertising, which serves ads to audiences based on the sites they visit, can improve targeting.
Viewability Just because an ad impression is served to a user, it doesn’t mean they will see it. The ad may be positioned low down the page (‘Below the fold’) so it’s only viewable if the user scrolls down – which they often don’t. Or the user may scroll down and miss an ad at the top of the page.
Click fraud Bad actors abound in the world of online advertising. Fraudulent sites can superimpose themselves on popular sites and steal their clicks to get paid automatically by advertisers. Robots can be created which click on ads, boosting revenues to publishers without humans actually seeing the content. Some research estimates that up to a third of clicks on paid digital ads are fraudulent.
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