AdWeek Europe: When Creative, Media, And Technology Come Together

Marketers used to achieve great results by getting creative and media to work together. The time has come to make technology the third partner.

Has the rise of ad blocking obliterated the need for creativity in online advertising, making it a technological battle instead?

That was the question asked by Matthew Dearden, president of out-of-home media owner Clear Channel in his Advertising Week Europe session “Creativity Meets Technology.”

He posed it to IAB U.K. chairman Richard Eyre, who responded that there are “a ton of examples of bringing brands to life online.” Eyre’s view is that the problem has deeper roots.

“Advertising used to rely on creativity or the size of the ad to grab people’s attention,” he said. “Then, when targeting appeared, we thought it was transformative. I think that’s led to people taking their foot off the creative gas.”

Eyre also suggested that advertisers bear some of the responsibility.

“Advertisers warm to the analytic and the provable. Agencies have to work with that, but use data as a springboard to do something more ingenious.”

Eyre described how, during his time in advertising, powerful work came from getting creative and media to work together. Now, he said, “we’re at the next stage where we need to get creative, media, and technology working together.”

And the value of creatives and technologists joining forces was picked up by Gerard Grech, CEO of Tech City in London. He pointed out that the reason London is one of the world’s top-three tech hubs is the interaction of different skillsets.

“London has the largest IoT meetup group in the world, because design is a big feature of U.K. cultural history and there’s a big growth in product designers spending time with coders, creating new products.”