What are the best opportunities

Which channels offer the best opportunities to meet this challenge?

The rise of 1:1 marketing and first-party data

High investment is needed to build up first-party data, and it’s very expensive. On the other side, our advertising campaigns are mostly focused on branding. It’s very hard to make the brand message and to build up first-party data at the same time. When we are using first-party data in the campaigns, they work out very, very well. But to grow our first-party data is a very hard challenge for us – but we believe that it is worth pursuing this strategy, especially in a post-cookie era

Sarah Ostkamp, Unilever

The pandemic has accelerated the enthusiasm of brands to leverage their own data to communicate and transact direct with their customers. There has been a tendency in recent years to portray first-party data as a ‘magic bullet’ for brands. Certainly, our experts recognize its potential, but to truly unleash its value requires effort and investment.As Sarah’s quote highlights, first-party data is great at reaching existing customers, but for branding campaigns aimed at growing reach, collaboration is required to combine first-party data sets. The various data components are out there, it’s about co-operation to bring them together to derive real insights.

Broadcasters have interesting data, and advertisers have it. But then also, again, we have to have the point-of-sale insights, which are certainly the most crucial part. I would like, as a retailer, being invited to the desk when this is being talked about: data co-operations and getting this advertising data and this broadcasting data together. There’s one link missing, and this link is the retailers and I think we have to get more involved in these conversations in the future.

Pedro Nadler, REWE Group

From EGTA’s perspective, Katty Roberfroid confirmed that their members are keen to develop opportunities for direct partnerships between advertisers and broadcasters combining their first-party data for unique experiences.

Sponsorship, product placement and branded content

One obvious route to circumvent the issue of both avoidance and the growth in ad-free platforms is a closer integration of commercial messages with the content itself. This is relevant whether it be sponsorship, placement of products within the content, or advertisers and agencies producing branded content for distribution, a phenomenon that is on the rise.Some members of the panel stressed the importance of context, predicting a renaissance of brand environment, of content environment and a renaissance of content in context. Plus, there is the importance of understanding the mind state of the viewer and the suitability of the brand for the content.Agencies are continually increasing their expenditure on brand content, product placement and other forms of integration with video content. However, there is a measurement challenge. Clearly when brands are more integrated with content it becomes harder to isolate the exposure and impact of ‘imbedded’ or ‘native’ content, compared to ring-fenced advertising.

Branded content, placement and integration has grown significantly in recent years in Italy and the pandemic has only temporarily slowed down its trend. The real challenge, but also an opportunity for further growth, is the topic of “measurement” which is now essential also in this area to convince customers of its effectiveness. A correct and consistent execution can lead to extraordinary business results for brands if the affinity between the values of the brand and the content are optimal - the size of the audience reached counts much less

Marco Robbiati, Omnicom

One approach to address this could be contextual advertising in which the advertising served around the content is directly influenced by elements within the content itself, thereby increasing relevance. This could be an alternative to data targeting the viewers. Channel 4 UK’s Contextual Moments service links advertising to metadata in the show such as on-screen objects and even dialogue.Mathias Berg of TV4 argues that in Sweden at least the focus on branded content and product placement has actually reduced, with a strong shift into online user consumption and spot-based targeted advertising.

Where we are now, we’re putting less and less focus on product placement, and we’re going all-in to create a sustainable ad-funded content environment on digital platforms. That’s totally where our markets are at, embracing digital consumption, instead of trying to find a way around it.