Digital advertising Maximising reach to millennials

Advertising has always been about connecting brands with people. With the evolution of technology, the medium and tools for building this connection have taken a digital leap; yet, the baseline remains the same.

In India, with increased Internet penetration, coupled with the popularity of large screen phones and over-the-top content, online video advertising has been leading the vibrant digital advertising ecosystem.

In spite of this rapid increase in video advertising user base, marketers and advertisers are still experimenting with their approach to the 'Art of connecting brands with consumers'.

Marketers today, nevertheless, know a lot more about the people with whom they want their brands to get connected. Given that the online video advertising segment is maturing, there is a need to understand the biggest mantras for advertising success with digital millennials.

Here are five mantras to win India's digital millennials:

• Personalisation is the key to mass connect: Personalised ads generate about three times the engagement in comparison to non-personalised ads, leading to a greater return on the investment. With endless choices in online video advertising content, personalisation is increasingly becoming a key differentiator in the online video advertising industry, where the ads are displayed as per the micro profile of the consumers.
• In India, brands and advertisers will strongly ride on the personalisation trend. Mass personalised digital ad revenue is forecast to rise 25 per cent of total digital advertising by 2020.
• Use contextualisation for retaining customer: While personalisation helps in displaying video ads as per the micro profile of consumers, contextualisation goes one step further by taking into account the ‘Where, When and Why’ of the engagement with the consumer. Supported by micro data analysis of the consumer, brands can seize the opportunity of displaying ads on smartphones, iPads/taxi screens in cabs, monitor screens in aeroplanes and passenger trains banking on the consumer’s travel time, location and city et al, which will certainly lead to actionable information for the consumer.
• Seek focused attention: While the number of users viewing online video ads has been increasing rapidly, a sizable portion of users prefer viewing ads only of their interest. Advertisers should choose to spend wisely on platforms that help them find the right balance between engagement, immersion and intrusion with users. In addition, advertisers need to aim towards a more focused approach over programmatic advertising for maximum engagement.
• As per an ADI (Analog Devices India) report, 75 per cent of surveyed consumers prefer digital video ads with focused attention, where the ad placement intrinsically creates a sense of connect. E-commerce platforms, apparel brands and FMCGs can drive huge benefits from focused attention in online video advertising.
• Break the clutter to maximise reach: As the consumer ecosystem is maturing in the new digitally connected age, the uptake on programmatic and native solutions is becoming slower. As per reports, around 122 million internet users in India had installed ad blocking software in 2016.
• To increase the efficiency of ads, marketers have to break the cluttered programmatic advertising modules by analysing consumer behaviour and use algorithms to gain in-depth understanding for their audiences.
• The behavioural targeting model also improves the reach efficiency. A 25 per cent increase in reach will increase advertising-driven sales by a factor of two due to better response, keeping all other things constant.

By Vikas Katoch