The advertising industry has become too focused on proving performance rather than creating it, according to panellists at today’s Social Soup Influencer upfront.
Henry Innis, co-founder of marketing analytics platform Mutinex, said the industry had built an entire infrastructure around metrics that served internal reporting and shareholder expectations, rather than long-term commercial outcomes.
"The problem is with what I would call the advertising industrial complex, which has come to create a whole bunch of dashboards that are well consumed by the business, but do not influence growth. They do not influence the long-term trajectory of growth in the business," said Innis.
He said the dominance of click-based advertising reflected the same mindset, prioritising attribution because it is easy to measure, rather than because it meaningfully changes consumer behaviour.
"Have you ever been moved or deeply influenced by a search ad? Anybody? No?"
Innis said the data suggested marketers were focusing on the wrong variables entirely.
“When we analysed about 65,000 campaigns a couple weeks ago, the number one explainers of incremental variation of PNL - were the creatives, what the message was, and the publisher or contextual environment that that might be sitting in.”
Social Soup founder and CEO Sharyn Smith said marketers often treated content itself as the targeting mechanism, when community behaviour was becoming far more important.
“I've heard some say content is the targeting, but actually I think it's the community that is the targeting - because who's interacting with this content then trains the algorithm,” said Smith.
The distinction matters, Smith said, because paid media alone cannot create lasting audience relationships.
“If you are playing just the paid game, you're probably going to lose. And remembering that paid is basically, we're just renting attention, we're not maintaining it, we're renting attention in that moment.”
The influencer marketing panel said recurring partnerships were increasingly valued over one-off sponsored posts.
“It's not a one-night stand - it’s about long-term loyalty,” said @she_runs_club.
For Smith, she believed the advertising industry was too focused on brands overselling concepts, rather than actually delivering.
"Brands are failing at building community. We want it more than ever, but brands aren't doing it very well. So, 14% of women feel part of a brand's community, and only 5% of men feel part of the brand's community," said Smith.
Have something to say on this? Share your views in the comments section below. Or if you have a news story or tip-off, drop us a line at adnews@yaffa.com.au
Sign up to the AdNews newsletter, like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter for breaking stories and campaigns throughout the day.