Marketers are obsessing over brand safety, but in doing so, they may actually be risking their brands' long-term health
- In this op-ed, Jason Smith of Mindshare argues that marketers' preoccupation with brand safety and other traditional guideposts may come at the expense of reaching consumers.
- He says advertising as we know it is on the wane as people spend more time with media such as HBO and Netflix that lack traditional ads.
- Marketers should consider gaming, messaging and unconventional content sites that people are passionate about, even if they defy brand safety or traditional measurement rules, Smith says.
Imagine this. Sex, violence, disease, corruption, and offensive language is rampant across American screens and viewers love it. A relatively unknown company is responsible, and advertisers aren't welcome. This company grows from 365 subscribers in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, in 1972 to over $4 billion in annual revenue by 2007.
It's 2019 and HBO's story is now rapidly playing out across new entertainment companies and platforms. A swath of unconventional media experiences are driving insane amounts of customer loyalty while lacking a standard advertiser presence.
I worry that in some advertising circles, there's a denial of a scary truth: That HBO model that bucked the support of advertising is spreading. There's plenty of conversation about ad blocking and Netflix, but this is bigger than that. Advertising, at least as we know it today, won't be around for the customers we need to build our brand. While brands chase the white rabbits of traditional measurement, standard ad formats, and conventional brand safety, they're avoiding their audiences' passion points. And in doing so, they're risking the long-term health of their brands. Consider three of the most prolific and loyal experiences for Gen X, Millennials, and Gen Z: Gaming, messaging, and content platforms.
Gaming
Gaming has always thrived on the promise of loyal fan bases, long hours of uninterrupted play, and insider communities. It's why game titles outsell movie releases and attendance at gaming competitions can outpace that of major sporting leagues. It's why companies like Fortnite and Twitch are growing with little or no help from traditional advertising.
Twitch gamer product integrations and custom in-game merch for Fortnite are just some of the ways that these companies are delivering what their audiences want without traditionally measured ad formats. These formats don't appear in a comScore run or allow for Nielsen measurement, though. And they may not be able to feed into a media mix model, so your marketing leads likely aren't bringing these important opportunities to you at scale.
Messaging
Text messaging apps are kings of mobile time spent. Emojis and gifs represent the more common language of messaging today, so much so that emojis have their own governing board to ensure the integrity of the "language." Sure, a chatbot makes sense for the right experience, but companies like Emogi, Giphy, and Tenor have built organizations that capture the native experience of messaging while pairing with unconventional data that may not allow for an integration with LiveRamp or attachments of a Moat tag. Do marketers' viewable impression goals prevent entry into this space?
Unconventional content
Shrinking margins, data privacy, and brand safety restrictions have driven content creators to shift into less advertiser-friendly financial constructs like HBO, Amazon, and Netflix (BuzzFeed's "Follow This" and Vox's "Explained" are two recent examples); events and subscriptions (think Barstool Sports and Bleacher Report); and even a Brave browser, which eliminates traditional ads in the entire browser in exchange for shared creator and browser currency exchanges that enable anonymity. There likely aren't CPMs on these buys. Chernin Group, Amazon, Google, Turner, NBC, Netflix, and Disney are investing hard cash in these unconventional content offerings, which makes it a lot easier for a content creator to limit their reliance on traditional advertising.
Some brands have embraced this evolution. Tyson Foods and General Mills (both Mindshare clients) have done integrations with Twitch and Giphy, respectively, and GE has its "LifeAfter/The Message" podcast. This can backfire, as it did when Fortnite gamers used the NFL's in-game skins to put their characters in Michael Vick and Aaron Hernandez uniforms. But counting on humanity and social media to get it right every time may leave you behind.
As we move into a world that challenges our conventional justifications, I encourage marketers everywhere to consider four things:
Sex, controversy and violence sell. Always has, always will. Instead of writing off these areas as unsafe, figure out where your audience is spending its time and what risk you're willing to take to reach them there. Determine what the customer expects and how to maintain your brand's core values in these passionate environments.
Instead of rate card, efficiency, and low cost, think "cost per outcome." Getting caught up with comparing costs to non-appropriate outcomes for these environments can stifle you. Know where you have gaps in a customer's affinity with your brand and isolate cost variables that justify longer-term and full-funnel multipliers.
TV is leading the way. The TV networks recognize these shifts and are investing heavily in the emerging technology that supports models that don't rely on ads. Brands must pay attention to these models and be creative to meet this shift. Those upfront conversations should focus on how your brand is aligning with the network's long-term strategy.
Your competitors are already there. Lastly, with longer working hours, Fortnite, Netflix, Quibi, Instagram stories, texting gifs and emojis, we're losing opportunities to impact our customers now more than ever. You can't always wait for a media mix model to tell you which way is up all the time. I'm not advocating dismissing MMM or any of the protocols that protect our investments. But I challenge you to remember there are no crystal balls and let your organizations move beyond these models when the opportunities make sense. In many cases, your competitors are already taking these risks.
Jason Smith is digital investment lead, Chicago, Mindshare.