Always-on marketing has become a mainstream client demand, according to The Hallway head of technology Brad Bennett, with even more conservative clients looking at using it as a strategy.
Bennett was speaking to Macleay College students on innovation and tech trends in advertising, as part of the college’s AdSpeaks series, which sees high profile industry people give students insight into the business. While he said apps was the leading trend that all brands wanted a few years ago, knowing what the new big thing in the industry is now was less clear cut.
However in terms of mainstream client demands, Bennett said always-on advertising was common from even the most risk-averse clients.
“Last year the answer would have been apps,” Bennett said. “A year, or two years ago, that was the thing people wanted and we counselled people as to whether that was or wasn't a good idea, but it's not as apparent to me what is the new thing like that.”
“The candidates would be that 'always-on' kind of space – it's broad but it's a category everyone is talking about from high tech to conservative clients.”
While plenty of brands might be jumping into the pool, Bennett said it's the “idea” of always-on that has hit the mainstream, not so much the execution.
He said it tends to work best when campaign executions happen on top of the always-on strategy of the brand, because “you can see the metrics move in tandem.”
“Not everyone is completely wrapped around how to do it,” Bennett said.
“There are a lot of complicated issues like budgets and processes but it is something we’re seeing across the industry and across clients.”
“We also tend to think of always on marketing as something that lives in a digital and social space, because its easier to get assets out there and two way dialogue, as opposed to TVC and outdoor stuff which is more project based. But what we're seeing more of, is when we run them together, there are a lot more efficiencies.”
However, Bennett said when it comes to new advertising ideas like “always-on” and innovation, a lot of it gets lost in semantics.
“Old school always-on was direct response, so really it's just a buzzword for me to make it a bit more awesome than down and dirty DR,” Bennett said.
“One of the big things that gets talked about a lot is innovation, and it's a bit of a buzzword in the world of marketing. I'm not entirely sold on it, because the really big innovations are not just a neat little 'doodad'. It's when you create something revolutionary that affects people.There is still quite a lot of innovation, but I don't think agencies are going to kick off most of those things.”
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