"It's Like the Wild West": Targeting Viewers With Compelling Interactive Messages

By: Andy Myers

If a reliable model for creating compelling, measurably successful interactive ad campaigns is the goalpost, judging from presentations and case studies at last Tuesday's Collaborative Alliance in Manhattan, we haven't crossed it just yet.

There have been, and continue to be, some successes, notably a campaign for AIG (talk about a tough assignment) presented by representatives from Acxiom, Time Warner and Navic. But as Mitch Oscar, EVP of Televisual Applications for MPG, host of the event, pointed out, it's difficult to extrapolate the conclusions drawn from those successes to other campaigns. In other words, what may work for one product does not necessarily work for another. As Stephen Boehler, founder of the Mercer Island Group put it, "It's like the Wild West. For every big success there are lots of failures."

The main challenges for agencies and advertisers trying to put together interactive campaigns, repeated by virtually every presenter at the Collaborative Alliance, are identifying potential buyers, and converting those potentials to purchasers.

The first part of that problem was addressed by Bill Harvey and Mark Lieberman of TRA Global. Their brief demonstration of TRA's media measurement and ROI reporting platform made clear that Nielsen's method of measuring viewers is hopelessly outdated in a world in which advertisers need to target ever-smaller demographic groups. Whereas measurement tools have always broken down populations by age and gender, we now need to group viewers by purchasing behavior. To that end, TRA's system measures not only the viewing habits of TiVo households, but also their buying habits (by tracking activity on their frequent shopper cards).

The goal of interactive campaigns is to increase the value that advertisers get for their money (that goes for any ad campaign really). So it is absolutely essential for the agency to understand the viewing and purchasing habits of the people they are trying to reach. That means more effective targeting (and putting everyone from 25 to 54 years old in one group just ain't gonna cut it anymore).

But targeting the right people is just half of the problem; the other half is getting those people to buy your product (or at least agree to learn more about it). And while tools for measuring audiences have become sophisticated enough to meet the targeting challenge, the creative side is still throwing stuff at the wall to see what sticks.

One sentiment echoed by many of the presenters, is that in order to be successful, campaigns must be compelling to the viewer. That may seem obvious, and no different than something Don Draper could have said forty years ago, but as more and more viewers fast-forward through commercials, 'compelling' is becoming an ever-higher bar to clear.

Clearing that bar, however, is not just the responsibility of the agency; the advertisers themselves have to get on board as well. As a panel of agency consultants pointed out, clients are looking to their agencies for guidance in how to use technology to target audiences, and holding the agencies to a higher level of accountability in terms of measuring message effectiveness. Advertisers can help their agencies reach these goals by reorganizing, and thinking of their campaigns as integrated messages across all media.

Viewers are looking for compelling content. And as one agency consultant said, "Clients are looking for success stories." The trick is putting it all together: giving the right viewers a compelling experience associated with a product they want.

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This post originally appeared at JackMyers.com.