Ehrenberg-Bass institute director also suggests marketers have rushed to digital advertising without understanding what they're buying and it's time for a rethink
The value of precision targeting in advertising has been massively oversold and there’s still a need for mass market campaigning, Dr Byron Sharp claims.
Speaking on the latest episode of the AANA’s Marketing Dividends program on Sky Business TV, the director of the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute at the University of South Australia Business School took aim at the way digital marketers have narrowed their focus through personalisation, and pointed out the biggest brands in the world were built through reaching out to broader markets.
“The lure of precision targeting has been massively oversold,” Dr Sharp said. “Marketing science clearly states we need to reach all categories of buyers, and the value of targeting smaller segments is actually far less effective.
“The ability of these new media to even deliver on targeting is far less than what is promised.”
Dr Sharp also criticised the way digital giants such as YouTube, Facebook and Google have been evaluating their own effectiveness, noting that it’s the equivalent of a TV station running its own rating scheme.
“Marketers were originally sold the idea that in digital, there will be these fantastic trustworthy metrics,” he commented. “Digital was given a ‘get out of jail free card’ for too long.”
As an example, Dr Sharp noted the current backlash and boycott against YouTube for placing ads against inappropriate and extreme content. As well as suggesting it wasn’t as big an issue as was being made out, he again suggested the problem was that marketers have been motivated by money rather than brand safety.
“The problem with digital has been it’s fashionable, people have rushed like lemmings to the edge of the cliff and thrown huge amounts of money at something without fully knowing what they are buying,” he said.
The latest scandals should trigger a pulling back on digital, a flight to quality and demand for metrics that are trustworthy, Dr Sharp said.
“The current YouTube scandal we have at the moment, has given marketers permission to pull back and say ‘maybe we don’t know what we are buying here. Maybe we’re spending billions of dollars of shareholder money and maybe we should be more circumspect,” he added.
But for Dr Sharp, the key to winning over consumers is to get in front of consumers more often.
“The biggest mistake that marketers make is that they forget they’re in a battle for physical and mental availability,” he said. “Marketers think the primary issues holding their brands back are some sort of attitude problem or that their brand isn’t loved enough. In reality, consumers just aren’t thinking of the brand enough.”
Follow CMO on Twitter: @CMOAustralia, take part in the CMO conversation on LinkedIn: CMO ANZ, join us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CMOAustralia, or check us out on Google+:google.com/+CmoAu
In the third and final episode of our 3-part CMO50 video series exploring modern marketing and why it’s become a matter of trust, we’re delighted to be joined by Telstra’s former CMO and now digital services and sales executive, Jeremy Nicholas, and Adobe VP Marketing Asia-Pacific and Japan, Duncan Egan.
Flash back to the classic film, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. Television-obsessed Mike insists on becoming the first person to be ‘sent by Wonkavision’, dematerialising on one end, pixel by pixel, and materialising in another space. His cinematic dreams are realised thanks to rash decisions as he is shrunken down to fit the digital universe, followed by a trip to the taffy puller to return to normal size.
Why is it there is no shortage of leadership development materials, yet outstanding leadership is so rare? Despite having access to so many leadership principles, tools, systems and processes, why is it so hard to develop and improve as a leader?
As a nation united by sport, brands are beginning to learn money alone won’t talk without aligned values and action. If recent events with major leagues and their players have shown us anything, it’s the next generation of athletes are standing by what they believe in – and they won’t let their values be superseded by money.
