The Creative Embrace of Programmatic

Programmatic Media, or simply programmatic, is heralded as a sea of change in how we will market, not just in the future, but now. Narrowly focused, programmatic refers to the automation of media buys and placements, and one could simply think of this as a logistics improvement. If you’ve used Facebook’s or Google’s advertising tools, you are already familiar with the surgical precision that such a toolset can afford you.

Programmatic takes targeting and content customization precision and breaks it from any specific platform, extending it to the entirety of your advertising campaign. We’re used to using data to smartly place an ad. What if we used that same data to dynamically deliver an ad that is customized to the viewer? In a world where ads can be tailored to demographics in real time (and across screens) the creative possibilities are endless.

I don’t blame you if your head is spinning with possibilities surrounding these emerging capabilities. As we move into the era of programmatic media, here are three key areas to focus your creativity on as we enter a new age of advertising:

1. Agility
Real time works both ways – with easy placement comes easy feedback. Traditionally, one might wait for a month of results and react accordingly. Programmatic offers us the luxury of seeing how individual ads are performing, as well as the ability to adjust copy and imagery to alternate content immediately. We can even run it alongside the existing media to assess the impact on results.

2. Context
Storytelling is a key element of advertising campaigns and works great in traditional media. In the digital world, a user’s focus is often divided, and you usually won’t have their captive attention for more than 15 seconds or so. Designing and delivering content that’s in context is key to getting a user’s attention. Rather than trying to tell the whole story in one place, embrace the idea that your audience will see your message on many mediums and focus on being relevant to the user
at that in-context moment.

3. Targeting
Advertising to the broad 18-49 demographic is a thing of the past, but only if you’re willing for it to be (as are straightforward notions like re-targeting a user who previously viewed your content). Programmatic offers nuanced potentials, such as targeting a competitor’s customers or even targeting your existing customers for a cross-sell opportunity. An agile and context-aware approach to your marketing will work especially well as programmatic assists you in honing your existing markets and showing you new opportunities.

Because the modern person consumes content across many screens, and often in tandem, our marketing will benefit by adapting to this reality with an omni-channel experience throughout campaigns. Programmatic is a quickly growing tool we can use to unify consumer experiences and unleash new data-powered engagements that previously were never possible.