Marketer's Toolkit 2023: A new pattern for global advertising investment?

The coming 12 months will potentially usher in a new pattern for global advertising investment as digital investment growth slows, media planning is re-assessed and pressures for industry reform continue to grow, according to the latest instalment of WARC’s Marketer’s Toolkit 2023.

Why it matters

Against a backdrop of economic crises, geopolitical complexity, spiralling inflation, supply chain disruption, and structural technology shifts, marketers are re-evaluating their approach. Ad spend is growing but at a slower pace. 

WARC’s latest forecast anticipates a $90bn reduction in global ad market growth for 2022 and 2023, meaning digital media owners are likely to fight harder for ad revenue growth – and, increasingly, will compete with one another for ad dollars. 

Meta’s first-ever year-on-year quarterly revenue decline – announced last July – may one day be seen as the moment the digital advertising industry tipped into a new, less expansive phase. 

Key trends 

The Future of Media report, part of WARC’s annual Marketer’s Toolkit, highlights key trends in three vital areas: advertising investment, media planning, and industry reform.

• Digital investment reaches the top of the ‘S’ curve

Nearly a third of WARC’s Marketer’s Toolkit respondents expect 2023 marketing budgets to be lower than 2022. WARC has downgraded its global advertising investment forecast to $880.9bn, removing $90bn of growth potential for 2022 and 2023. 

Retail media is increasingly favoured by advertisers, and is now the fourth-largest medium by ad spend, with global investment totalling $110.7bn in 2022 and forecast to reach $121.9bn in 2023.

Marketers are rebalancing their ad budgets, decreasing investment in offline channels and increasing spend in online video, social media and gaming. TikTok ranked top for increased investment in 2023 by 76% of marketers, according to WARC’s Toolkit survey.

• Fragmentation calls for more fluid media planning 

More than a third (34%) of survey respondents identified media and audience fragmentation as one of their biggest causes for concern when drawing up plans for 2023. The situation calls for advertisers to adopt a more fluid approach to media planning and branding, and one that emphasises the importance of communities over basic demographics in segmentation.

While over half (52%) of survey participants expect to increase investment with social media influencers and creators as a whole, two-thirds (65%) are planning to work with content creators to connect with communities “aligned with specific interests authentically tied to the brand”.

• Fixing the media ecosystem

More than half (54%) of US respondents to the Marketer’s Toolkit survey said that media planning recommendations in 2023 will include more diverse publishers, reflecting the importance of minority audiences in that market.

However, with only a third (34%) of advertisers planning to include more low-carbon alternatives in their media plans in 2023, it is clear more work must be done to persuade marketers of their role in combating climate change.

WARC says

“While the breakneck speed of growth in ad investment witnessed in 2021 could never have been maintained, media owners like Meta, alongside brands and agencies, are also challenged by other fundamental issues – from cleansing the ecosystem of misinformation, using ad dollars to promote greater diversity and inclusion, attracting and retaining the right talent, to saving the planet from catastrophic climate change” – Alex Brownsell, Head of Content, WARC Media.

The Future of Media is the third in a series of four reports that make up The Marketer’s Toolkit 2023. Based on exclusive data from WARC Media, findings from a global survey of 1,700+ marketers, and interviews with with senior marketing leaders, the report is a guide to help brands focus, survive and thrive in 2023 and beyond. A complimentary sample of this report is available here. WARC clients can read the full report.

India’s advertising industry eyes a gloomy Q1

India’s post-festive season always sees an advertising slowdown, but agencies and media companies are more than usually concerned this year as maco-economic and geopolitical factors start to bite. 

Why it matters

While some of these factors aren’t exactly new – the effects of war in Ukraine and China’s COVID-19 lockdowns have been playing out for many months now – India’s advertising industry had largely managed to avoid feeling their impact. The final quarter of 2022, for example, was boosted by the festive season and the ICC T20 World Cup.

But as economic growth stalls and brands rein in their advertising spending, “things look quite bleak for us in this quarter”, one senior agency executive told e4m. Indeed, things are so gloomy that some in the industry don’t expect even IPL 2023, which starts in April, will turn the situation around.

Factors at work 

• Increased raw material prices have led to a reassessment of business costs and ad budgets have been a casualty.
• Fears of recession have prompted advertisers to rebalance spending away from more expensive traditional media formats and towards lower-cost digital formats.
• Start-up clients are reported to have slashed ad budgets to almost zero, in large part a consequence of venture capital funding being scaled down.

A media expert says 

“Indian media companies may have to adapt to the new economic reality by finding ways to reduce costs, diversifying their revenue streams, and focusing on digital platforms. They may also have to be more creative and innovative in order to attract and retain customers.”

Sourced from e4m

Super Bowl audience likely to grow, 76% excited for ads

A new survey indicates that Super Bowl audiences are set to grow from last year’s half-decade peak of 112m viewers, with over three-quarters excited for the ads.

Why it matters

Marketing Brew’s and Harris Poll’s Super Bowl survey of 1,050 US adults strengthens the narrative that many of the game’s viewers are as excited for the ads as for the game itself, which takes place in just under two weeks’ time. With high prices for spots during the game, brands want to be sure the investment will pay off.

What’s going on

- 79% of the sample say they’re likely to watch (versus 70% in 2022).

- Women are a key growth audience: 75% said they planned to watch, compared to 62% who said they would be watching last year.

- 76% of likely viewers say they are ‘somewhat excited’ for the ads (versus the 82% who are excited about the game and the 71% who are excited about the halftime show).

The survey drilled deeper into the marketing question, with 84% of the sample believing that Super Bowl advertising was a ‘smart investment’ for brands.

Interestingly, many respondents (73%) were not fans of releasing Super Bowl ads ahead of the game, a likely reaction to the recent trend of brands trailing their creative online before the event.

Sourced from Marketing Brew, WARC

Creative Impact: New track to run at Cannes Lions 2023

WARC and LIONS have launched a Creative Impact stream to drive the effectiveness conversation at Cannes Lions 2023, with a program of content to run at the festival.

The significant focus on effectiveness at this year’s Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity (Monday 19 - Friday 23 June 2023) reflects the extreme pressure on marketing budgets in the current economic climate, and the urgent need to prove the role creativity can play in supercharging sustainable commercial growth. You can find the full release here. 

Creative Impact will uncover what it takes to build, protect and grow a business through creativity in 2023.

- It will ask what creative effectiveness means in the current media and economic environment, and what types of creative thinking will make the biggest impact.

- It will also cover how to make a proven and compelling case for investment in creative marketing to the C-suite of an organisation.

The Creative Impact content stream will be a core part of the delegate experience, alongside other festival programming. It will feature workshops and accelerators, ensuring delegates come back equipped with tools and insights they can plug directly into their own organisations and marketing plans.

Get involved

Anyone who would like to submit content ideas to be considered for the Creative Impact content stream, as well as any other part of the Festival or LIONS content schedule, can do so all year round. Details about how to do this can be found here.

Attendees of Cannes Lions 2023 will be able to attend the Creative Impact content stream as part of their delegate pass. This year also sees the launch of the Creative Brand Marketer pass. Exclusively for advertisers, the pass is designed to help brand marketers learn how to unlock creativity with learning opportunities, insights and exclusive networking invites. Find out more about pass options here.

Spotify shifts strategy as losses widen

Spotify has just shy of half a billion users, but it has struggled to turn that popularity into profit, and with its drive into podcasting yet to bear fruit, its Q4 earnings report sets a backdrop to a change in strategy.

Why it matters

Music is expensive, and while users can get most of it for free on Spotify (with a few ads), music rights cost the platform around 70% of its total revenues. As a result, podcasts became not only a critical area for revenue growth but also for profitability, a long-time promise reiterated at last year’s investor day.

But that’s not how it has turned out so far. Up until very recently, its strategy had been focused on creating hits and buying studios or exclusive contracts with the likes of Joe Rogan, and Harry and Meghan. Hits are important, but it appears that driving the use of tools might be more important.

Now the trick it seems Spotify must pull off is to become more like its bigger, richer, and more versatile competitor YouTube, as Bloomberg’s Luke Shaw observed recently. That means building a platform for all podcasters, and to build an ad capability that can funnel money toward the creators to keep them sweet – but without these same creators working directly with a brand and circumventing Spotify’s plumbing. It’s a big and difficult bet.

Q4: big expenses on growing user base

Spotify’s Q4 shareholder deck echoes many of the other stories coming out of the tech world: while it remains well-used, its hefty pandemic-era investments are becoming tough to sustain. As a result, last week it announced it would cut 6% of its staff.

The good news is that its monthly active users grew to reach 489 million versus an expected 478m. Within that, premium subscribers grew to 205m while ad-supported users grew by 22m in the quarter to reach 295m.

But it has made hefty losses of €430m on the full year’s €11.7bn revenues. This is much more costly than 2021’s €34m loss on the back of €9.7m.

Investors will focus on the company’s negative-free cash flow in the fourth quarter, which is a measure of its ability to make the kinds of investments that will help build growth, profitability, and new advertising capability. However, it’s worth noting that full-year cash flow was positive.

Advertising

Podcasts and their advertising potential do appear to be moving in the right direction, with podcast revenue growth of 30%, which has helped to drive the 14% growth in ad-supported revenue growth.

But these have come at a cost: Operating expenses grew 44% year-over-year (or 36% constant currency), driven primarily by higher personnel costs related to expanding the global ad sales team, as well as platform investment, acquisitions, and higher advertising expenses targeting emerging markets and Gen Z. 

“These investments largely reflect various growth initiatives that were greenlit toward the end of 2021,” the company told shareholders.

“Ad-Supported Gross Margin was 5.1% in Q4, down 554 basis points [year-over-year]. The Y/Y trend reflects improving podcast profitability offset by new podcast content investments and softer Ad-Supported music profitability (as advertising monetization lagged engagement in select markets).”

Sourced from Spotify, Bloomberg, WARC

Consumer satisfaction scores dipped in 2022

UK customer satisfaction levels have declined marginally over the past year, according to the latest data from the Institute of Customer Service – down 0.7 points to 77.7. 

By the numbers

• The January 2023 UK Customer Satisfaction Index* (UKCSI) shows declines across the five categories that make up the index: Experience: 78.7 (down from 79.3 a year ago); Complaint handling: 63.3 (down from 65.8); Customer ethos: 77.0 (down from 77.8); Emotional connection: 76.8 (down from 77.8); Ethics 75.8 (down from 76.8).

• More organisations have declined (63) than improved (37) by at least two points compared to January 2022 – and half of them are in the transport and utilities sectors.
• The leading causes of problems experienced by customers are quality or reliability (41.7%), suitability (24.1%) and availability (22.2%) of goods and services, followed by late delivery (20.9%), staff competence (20.0%) staff attitude (16.4%), and cost (10.8%). 
• 16.5% of customers experienced a problem with an organisation, around the same level as in January 2021, but 2.9 percentage points more than in January 2020.
• 80% of customers who asked a company for help to manage the cost of living said that their trust in that company had increased as a result of their contact.

Why it matters

The Institute’s chief executive expressed concern that the overall average score could mask deeper issues with the potential to threaten organisations’ performance, long-term profitability and the quality of customer experience, in 2023 and beyond.

For businesses, it’s worth noting that the key differences between the top 50 organisations and the rest include satisfaction with complaint handling, pricing, and measures of emotional connection and customer ethos.

Key quote

“Despite a widespread priority to economise on spending, more than a third of customers would be willing to pay more to guarantee excellent service and this continues to rise” – Joanna Causon, Chief Executive, Institute for Customer Service. 

*The UKCSI is a national benchmark of customer satisfaction covering 281 organisations or organisation types across 13 sectors. The UKCSI score is based on how customers rate organisations across 26 measures covering satisfaction with transactional experiences as well as broader relationship needs. 

Sourced from Institute of Customer Service

Year of the Rabbit gets off to a hopeful start

Domestic travel and retail sales picked up in China during the week of Lunar New Year, the first time in three years that people have been free of Covid-19 lockdown restrictions during this period.

Why it matters

The Lunar New Year holiday is an important indicator of consumer sentiment following the easing of Covid restrictions late last year and the sharp wave of infections that followed. And that’s significant not just for the domestic economy, but for the many businesses around the world which have been looking to China for growth.

“The global consumer goods industry has its eyes on the Chinese Spring Festival 2023 – the acid test for the Chinese consumption engine,” Bobby Verghese, consumer analyst at data analytics firm GlobalData, told Xinhua. Many analysts expect the recovery seen last week to continue during Q1 and accelerate in Q2. 

Key figures 

• Retail sales during the just finished holiday week were up 12% on the same holiday period last year.

• Domestic travel was up 23% compared to last year and back at 88% of pre-pandemic levels.

• Offline transaction volume jumped 23%; hotel and restaurant transaction volumes were up 76% and 40% respectively.

• Major luxury brands reported some “revenge spending”, said WWD, and with a lot of luxury spending likely to remain in the domestic market for some time yet, luxury brands are looking to increase their retail footprint in China.

A cautionary note

After three years of Covid-19 restrictions, it’s easy to assume the only way is up. But Fitch Ratings has noted factors such as the weak employment outlook, a housing market slowdown, a lack of a direct stimulus package, and the prospect of a Covid-19 resurgence, suggesting that China’s retail rebound will be “bumpier” than in other countries. 

Sourced from Xinhua, WWD

Europeans are priced off booze

Sales of beer, wine and spirits through European retailers fell 4% last year and are now lower than before the pandemic as consumers cut discretionary purchases in the face of rising inflation. 

Background

That’s according to new figures from data and analytics firm IRI, which charts a decline in off-trade alcohol sales following a surge in 2020 during the first year of the pandemic. Then, value sales increased 12.6% because people were confined to their homes; but as lockdown restrictions eased during 2021, sales were flat, with only a 0.7% value increase. A €2.7bn slump in 2022 took total category sales for the year down to €66bn.

Why it matters

“Alcohol brands are caught in a perfect storm with no end in sight,” says IRI’s Ananda Roy. 

Normally one would expect off-trade alcohol sales to rise during recession as people eat and drink at home rather than going out. But a combination of high food and energy prices, record interest rate rises and low-wage growth means households are having to prioritise spending and make tradeoffs – and alcohol brands are feeling the pinch. For the category to return to growth may require investment in new products tailored to changing consumer needs and consumption moments.

It’s not all gloomy 

• In the UK, Zero/Low Alcohol sales are growing (+3.7% volume in 2022, +5.3% value) and now account for 1% of the beer, wine, spirits category total.
• IRI predicts consumption of Zero and Low Alcohol beverages to accelerate in 2023 as the price of alcoholic beverages continue to rise.
• Champagne, prosecco and ready-to-drink spirits appear resilient to recessionary decline as people remain willing to spend on celebrations after two years of lockdown restrictions.

Key quote

“When it comes to alcohol, strong brand equity usually keeps shoppers buying their favourite beer, wine and spirit brands. However, as prices rise we could also expect to see more people switching to private-label brands as they do in other categories where they are perceived as good as national brands” – Ananda Roy, Global SVP, Strategic Growth Insights, IRI. 

Sourced from IRI

Advertising's 'insider culture' deters talent

Many working-class candidates and those outside the capital are deterred from pursuing a career in advertising because of their perceptions of the industry and because it is so London-centric.

Why it matters

It’s not the first time the industry has heard calls to look beyond its London bubble of like-minded people, but recent economic difficulties, coming hard on the heels of the UK leaving the EU, have made the situation worse. 

“Right now, because of the increasing socio-economic barriers to entry, we’re in danger of becoming a monocultural profession,” notes Michael Lee, chief strategy officer at VCCP. And that’s a problem, since great creativity doesn’t come from everyone thinking the same thing but instead requires drawing on a diverse group of people.

Additionally, If young people are’t considering creative careers because of their perceptions of the industry, that exacerbates an ongoing recruitment and retention problem and imperils any progress it has made on issues around diversity and inclusion.

Takeaways 

• A national survey of 2,000 16-24-year-olds found 18% (rising to 25% in some regions) feel that being unable to afford a move to London stops them from considering creative careers. 
• Only 35% of young people from working-class backgrounds outside London know somebody working in the creative sector, compared with 54% of people from more advantaged backgrounds in London and the South East.
• Two-thirds (67%) of young people who know someone in the industry can see themselves forging a successful career, compared to just 44% of those who do not know someone.
• Almost double the number of ABC1 young people in London and the South East (23%) can name a company in the creative sector compared with those from regional working-class backgrounds (13%).
• Qualitative research established several perceptions that act as barriers to entry, including: advertising’s “sales” reputation; a particular image of people who work in advertising; the lack of geographical presence of agencies; the huge pressures to deliver that mean many fear being out of their depth. 

Key quote 

“These survey findings reinforce our decision to open an office in Stoke, to create the visible presence that has enabled us to attract local talent that we’d otherwise have struggled to find into jobs. We think we’ve created a really effective model for other businesses to follow.

“But this can’t be our only approach. We’ve also implemented many changes across our company-wide, entry-level recruitment schemes as a result of the research learnings” – Michael Lee, Chief Strategy Officer at VCCP.

Sourced from VCCP, Campaign

Kimberly-Clark looks to innovation and the long term

Kimberly-Clark, which owns hygiene brands including Kotex, Kleenex and Scott, is increasing its advertising spend back to 2020 levels as it backs new product innovation to make inroads in highly competitive consumer packaged goods categories. 

Why it matters

In difficult economic times, many brands cut back on advertising and adopt a more aggressive discounting strategy. But Kimberly-Clark is bullish, investing in its brands now for long-term growth pay-offs down the line. 

Leveling up ad spend

On a Q4 earnings call, chairman and CEO Mike Hsu explained that the business was “taking advertising back up a little bit more” after some pandemic-period reductions. “We’re excited about the programs that we have and we want to invest behind them,” he said. “And at this point, we’re pretty good at evaluating the returns of our investment and making sure that they pay out.” 

Turning away from discounting

After several months of a highly promotional pricing environment, Hsu is less inclined to continue down that particular path, preferring to invest in advertising and brand building, which he believes are better for the long-term health of the company’s brands. 

“I’m not a fan of driving the business through promotion,” he stated. “We can do it effectively, because we know our ROIs on trade promotion as well as we know our advertising ROIs.” And while the returns on both are satisfactory, “I like the advertising ones better,” he added. “That’s my go-to, and I think it’s better for the long-term health of the brand.”

Looking for long-term category growth 

Kimberly-Clark’s retail customers aren’t keen on passing price increases to consumers – an unpalatable but often necessary decision in inflationary times – and are more focused on long-term category growth and how the company’s brands plan to deliver it. 

“Part of what they’re looking for from us is to make sure that we’re bringing commercial programming to grow the category for the long term,” Hsu said. 

“They’re excited about our innovation and they’re excited about the commercial ideas that we’re bringing this year. They want us to bring it, and so that’s probably the bigger reason why we’ve ticked up the investment in our advertising.”

Sourced from Seeking Alpha

[Image: Kimberly-Clark]

Diageo backs its effectiveness plan, increases spend

Diageo, the alcoholic beverage company, is seeing the benefits of proving marketing effectiveness, with increased transparency on quality, and performance of its marketing campaigns convincing executives to further boost marketing budgets. 

“We built a lot of sophistication in the data, analytics and tools we now have to assess marketing effectiveness,” said CEO Ivan Menezes on its recent Q2 2023 earnings call. 

“As we look to the second half [of the financial year], we see very good opportunities to step up the investment behind our brands. This is built up by market, by brand and very much with the degree of confidence on returns,” he said. 

Why it matters

By building a data and analytics operation to better understand its marketing effectiveness, Diageo has been able to make more informed investment decisions with clarity around what is working and what isn’t. This experience offers a case study to other brands on the same path. 

By the numbers

• Net sales up 9% with growth across all regions.
• Volume grew 2% even as brands implemented strategic price increases.
• On a constant basis, Diageo is 36% bigger than pre-Covid.
• Strong growth in Scotch, up 19%; tequila, up 28%; and Guinness, up 17%.

Thinking long term 

Marketing at Diageo is not just to make the second-half sales numbers, it is about the next three years, Menezes said.

“Everything in our business – upweights and marketing – are not for short-term return alone. You do get some short-term impact, but the bulk of the impact really comes down the road and in line with our goal to be a very reliable top-tier compounder,” he explained.

“This flywheel of Diageo [is to] upweight investment, drive efficiency and get quality top-line growth…We want to ensure we’re setting ourselves up well for the quality of growth through the medium term, but it’s going [with] very specific brand opportunities where we have a high degree of confidence in the return that we will get for this investment,” he added.

“The quality of our marketing continues to step up significantly, and I feel really good about that.”

Sourced from Seeking Alpha

[Image: Diageo]

People are spending less time online but more time on social

Online behaviours are changing again, with people around the world cutting their average daily internet use post-pandemic, even as they up the amount of time they spend on social media so it now exceeds the time spent watching broadcast and cable TV. 

That’s according to Digital 2023, the latest annual report on social media and digital trends worldwide from socially-led creative agency We Are Social and social and media intelligence firm Meltwater.

Key stats 

• Average daily internet use has declined almost 5% over the past year and now stands at 6 hours 37 minutes.
• Average time spent on social platforms has increased to more than 2.5 hours per day — 40 minutes more than the time spent watching broadcast and cable TV.
• 16- to 34-year-olds are now more likely to visit a social network when looking for information about brands than they are to use a search engine (48% vs. 45%). 
• Half of the world’s social media users say that they actively visit social platforms to learn more about brands and see their content. 
• The rise of TikTok search has grabbed headlines but the latest data suggest that Instagram is social media users’ preferred destination when researching things. 
• TikTok tops the global list of social media platforms when it comes to time spent per user on Android devices, followed by YouTube and Facebook.

Why it matters 

The study suggests that people are looking for more purposeful internet use, with a focus on quality over quantity. That seems debatable given the rise of algorithmically-powered platforms like TikTok; but it’s certainly the case that they’re spending more time on social, the platforms they use are changing, and how they use them in relation to brands is also shifting. 

Marketers have to better understand the role of different social platforms in the customer journey and deliver relevant content that can capture attention and engagement, both there and in other digital channels. 

Sourced from We Are Social

IPL 2023 could be a pivotal moment for digital sport

More than 500 million people are expected to stream the 2023 India Premier League (IPL) on digital devices, overtaking traditional TV viewing.

Background 

Media rights for the Indian Premier League are shared between Disney Star (TV) and Viacom18 (digital). The shift towards digital is a direct consequence of the decision by Viacom18’s JioCinema subsidiary to offer free streaming of the annual cricket competition, so accelerating a trend towards digital sports viewing that was already under way.

Why it matters

The media rights for the IPL have increased every time they come up for sale and both Star Sports and JioCinema now face a challenge to recruit viewers and advertisers in sufficient numbers to realise a return on their huge investments. How the battle between them plays out has implications for everything from audience reach to ad rates.

One observer suggests that digital could add an extra 200 million viewers to the existing base of between 500 and 600 million, while an advertiser thinks the cost per contact will go down as acquisition of customers happens at a faster scale.

Takeaways 

• The number of Pay TV households has declined from 129 million in 2020 to 108 million in 2022.
• Free streaming is likely to significantly increase viewership in smaller towns and rural areas.
• TV viewing may gain from being a more reliable experience; JioCinema had complaints about the quality and experience of its coverage of the FIFA World Cup last year.

Final thought

“Advertisers may have to do a rethink in the middle of IPL 2023 based on the viewership numbers and be ready to bet their monies on winning platforms” says medianews4u. 

Sourced from e4m, medianews4u
^{[Image: BCCI]}

Data clean rooms show promise but brands struggle with measurement

Data clean rooms appear to be one answer to the decline of third-party cookies – a means of matching user-level data with a platform’s audience without compromising privacy – but a new IAB report finds that while some advertisers are using clean rooms for targeting, very few use them for measurement. 

Why it matters

With expansive data privacy regulations on both sides of the Atlantic, data clean rooms (DCRs) that purportedly allow audience-matching your first-party data to that of a publisher or platform without compromising privacy (or at least not contravening privacy rules) are often invoked as solutions. However, the IAB report depicts the big gap between theory and practice.

For an overview of WARC's insight on the topic, read What we know about post-cookie audience tracking.

Take-up with missed potential

The IAB’s State of Data 2023 report, based on a survey of 200 data decision-makers across brands, agencies, and publishers, finds that two-thirds of brands “leveraging privacy-preserving technology” used data clean rooms, a quite obscure way of putting it.

Just under half of the sample reported using clean rooms for data anonymisation and compliance.

Where users appear to lag most is in the area of measurement and attribution: under a third use data clean rooms for this purpose.

Issues

Search Engine Journal has a good explainer that uncovers some of the limitations:

• First, you need lots of first-party data.
• Different platforms – Google, Meta, Amazon – tend to have their own DCRs, which creates complexity for advertisers working across platforms.

Alternative solutions

This complexity is part of the reason that brands are still learning to use this technology to replace the deeply flawed but broadly used cookie. Certain platforms have thrown their weight behind other identification techniques such as the Trade Desks open-source Unified ID 2.0, which Amazon and Disney have talked about supporting.

Sourced from IAB, WARC, Search Engine Journal

OOH ads that include location messaging encourage search

Six in 10 people in the UK are encouraged to search when an out-of-home advertising campaign features a location callout, new research finds.

The Point of Search study, by Clear Channel UK, Global, JCDecaux and Posterscope, is based on an online survey examining why people search, as well as a search diary completed by 1,100 people. 

The most common reason for a mobile search out of home was to fulfill a location need, such as finding a nearby store address (39%), followed by fulfilling a product or information need (33%) and a response to something seen or read (21%). 

Why it matters

Search behaviour is a clear indicator of consumer needs, and creative messages can be linked to these needs. The study suggests that optimisation of specific creative elements such as large logos, short succinct copy and large product shots can have a significant impact on search behaviour. 

Additionally, DOOH can use dynamic and contextually relevant messages, such as location, weather and time to encourage people to search. 

And with share of search emerging as a predictor of market share, there are good reasons to take all available opportunities to maintain or increase it. 

Key findings 

• Mobile searches conducted out of home are 38% more likely to lead to a purchase compared with mobile searches conducted at home.

• People who spend more time out of home search 58% more on their smartphones than those who spend less time out of home.

• People who spend more time out of home search across more varied products and services.

• Mobile searches out of home take place more often in the company of other people than at-home searches, providing more opportunity for word of mouth.

Sourced from Posterscope

Organisations are talking a good game on sustainability

Organisations’ stated enthusiasm for sustainability is not being matched by significant progress, according to a report which finds a gap between perception and reality across three pillars of sustainability transformation – environmental, economic and societal. 

Why it matters

The Fujitsu Uvance report*, Closing The Sustainability Gap, identifies ‘Change Makers’, a small group of organisations which it says are leading the way on both sustainability imperatives and technology transformation. 

Not only do Change Makers find “sustainability transformation” using digital innovation easier to complete, they’re also more likely to exceed profit targets and to have brand reputations that perform above expectations.

Key stats

• 61% of organisations say they’re advanced on their sustainability journeys, but in reality less than one in 10 has completed major sustainability imperatives such as developing sustainable supply chains (9%), achieving net zero status (2%) or preparing for environmental emergencies (7%). 
• 77% of organisations say being sustainable is the right thing to do and is ultimately good for business, but 18% regard sustainability as a passing fad.
• 27% of organisations are not clear whose responsibility it is to drive sustainability, while 25% are still being challenged on sustainability investments if they don’t offer a clear return on investment. 
• The top sustainability goals are simply complying with regulations and developing sustainable supply chains and ecosystems (both 18%); that’s followed by health/wellbeing initiatives for employees (12%) and empowering staff and customers to respond to social issues (11%).

The role of tech 

“A lot of sustainability challenges are problems of inefficiency. So technologies can come in and really help us take optimisation to a whole different level” – Ioannis Ioannou, Associate Professor of Strategy and Entrepreneurship at London Business School. 

*Findings in the report are based on a survey of 1,000 business and public sector leaders across a range of sectors from 15 countries (Australia, Canada, China, Finland, France, Germany, Japan, Korea, New Zealand, Philippines, Singapore, Spain, Thailand, the UK and the US).

[Image: Closing The Sustainability Gap]