CMO.com Highlights: Display Advertising Challenges & Digital Adaptation

Last week’s CMO.com focus was on dis­play adver­tis­ing and the con­stant need for busi­ness­es to adapt their mar­ket­ing strate­gies as the econ­o­my and con­sumer con­tent engage­ment becomes more dig­i­tized. A com­mon theme that aris­es out of last week’s exclu­sive engage­ments is the need to adapt dig­i­tal mar­ket­ing to a company’s spe­cif­ic con­sumer base. Page Fair and Adobe’s Ad Block­ing Report 2015 demon­strates the sever­i­ty of dis­play adver­tis­ing chal­lenges in Europe.

The week began with con­tribut­ing writer Sean Har­grave dis­cussing the chal­lenges dig­i­tal mar­keters face with ad block­ing. Because one in sev­en British Inter­net users is block­ing ads, dig­i­tal mar­keters have to find more cre­ative ways to get their adverts in front of users. This means find­ing adver­tis­ing meth­ods that users can’t ignore. Many dig­i­tal mar­keters are turn­ing to a more native approach. They’re also real­iz­ing that some of their best oppor­tu­ni­ties to reach users are through organ­ic and pro­mot­ed social media posts. Of course, improved con­tent could slow down the rate at which peo­ple are choos­ing to use ad block­ers, and brand mar­keters and agen­cies work­ing togeth­er to pro­duce bet­ter con­tent is a pos­i­tive side effect of peo­ple choos­ing to use ad blockers.

Anoth­er CMO.com con­tribut­ing writer, Michael Nut­ley, inter­viewed John Bernard, the Glob­al Mar­ket­ing Direc­tor of Fire­fox OS, to dis­cuss Bernard’s role in mar­ket­ing Fire­fox OS. Bernard was named UK Mar­keter of the Year in 2013. Fire­fox OS is an oper­at­ing sys­tem that is geared toward fea­ture-phone and smart­phone users, and Bernard speaks about how Fire­fox is try­ing to repli­cate the suc­cess they’ve had on the desk­top. A strat­e­gy that sets Mozil­la apart is the con­ver­sa­tion­al nature of their mar­ket­ing. With their social media arm, Mozil­la not only tells users where to buy their devices, they engage the users on help­ful rea­sons why to buy a device and give tips on how to use Fire­fox OS. Bernard believes mar­keters need to find con­sumers where they’re at, and that means embrac­ing dig­i­tal mar­ket­ing strategies.

Joline McGoldrick, the VP Insights and Ana­lyt­ics for Mill­ward Brown Dig­i­tal, offers insights into native adver­tis­ing and the chal­lenges mar­keters face on a glob­al lev­el. Though there are cer­tain risks mar­keters face in imple­ment­ing native ads glob­al­ly, such as the per­cep­tions con­sumers have of native ads across regions, McGoldrick gives some impres­sive data to show that the ben­e­fits of native ads out­weigh the risks. The key to suc­cess­ful native adver­tis­ing is to adapt native ads to local audi­ences and platforms.

The week closed out with con­tribut­ing writer Leonie Rod­er­ick and Klaus Som­mer Paulsen,

CEO & Founder of Adven­ture­lab and Co-Found­ing Part­ner of CNA | SOPHIS. Rod­er­ick presents a three-part video series of Sven Kruger, VP of Brand Com­mu­ni­ca­tions of T‑Systems, a Ger­man glob­al IT ser­vices and con­sult­ing com­pa­ny. Kruger out­lines how T‑Systems adapts to rapid dig­i­tal­i­sa­tion and relies heav­i­ly on social media mar­ket­ing because it pro­vides help­ful cus­tomer feed­back. After sug­gest­ing a clos­er rela­tion­ship between CIOs and CMOs, and a pos­si­ble third role for a Chief Dig­i­tal Offi­cer, Kruger talks about why he believes it’s an excit­ing time to be a dig­i­tal mar­keter, despite the many chal­lenges the mar­ket has to offer. Paulsen offers a sober­ing reminder that busi­ness is about peo­ple, per­son­al brand­ing and per­son­al engage­ment that are need­ed to build and strength­en cus­tomer loy­al­ty to a brand. The inter­nal chal­lenge of estab­lish­ing a per­son­al brand and choos­ing the per­son to rep­re­sent it with­in the cor­po­ra­tion is a dis­cus­sion not to be missed. Infec­tious pas­sion and moti­va­tion are the key per­son­al char­ac­ter traits along with a humil­i­ty that says. “it’s not about me, it’s about the com­pa­ny” that needs to be broad­cast among the per­son­al brand­ing team.

We invite you to read our exclu­sive engage­ments on CMO.com and learn more about the mar­ket­ing strate­gies of some of the most advanced dig­i­tal mar­keters in the Euro­pean region. Feel free to con­nect with us let us know what you think.