All advertising will ultimately incorporate “some form of digital” component in the future, Marc Pritchard, Procter & Gamble’s chief brand officer, has predicted.

During a session at the Variety Entertainment Summit, a conference held as part of CES 2021, Pritchard argued: “All advertising and media will become some form of digital, some form of programmatic, data-driven and automated.”

Why it matters

The growth of channels like digital out of home and connected TV means what was once defined as “traditional” media inventory can now be purchased via systems that enable precise targeting and measurement. Even cinema, a touchpoint that has suffered greatly during the COVID-19 pandemic, has got in on the act, allowing for clearer measurement than in the past.

The payoffs from digital capabilities

As more media channels are infused with digital planning and buying capabilities, Pritchard noted, it will let marketers:

  • “define the audiences that we want to reach”;
  • “define what kind of programming we want our brands to be associated with”;
  • “recognise … there is a huge ocean out there, and there are a lot of fish, and there are just a few that you have to go with.”

Continued Pritchard: “That's the beauty of what we have here with programmatic … and the advent of connected TV: it just opens this vast opportunity to ensure that we can reach people, the people we want, where we want, when we want, in a safe environment. And it will be good for the entire industry.”

P&G tackles “information asymmetry”

Pritchard further highlighted the long-standing role of “information asymmetry” in two areas:

  • In the TV space, where broadcasters and agencies, as a prior rule, possessed the most important data and insights. Brands, by contrast, could not access these facts and figures. In response, P&G has begun negotiating directly with television networks.
  • In the digital arena, “walled gardens” – big platforms that operate as closed ecosystems – also retain tight control over their data and campaign performance indicators. A heightened emphasis on programmatic advertising is one prospective solution pursued by P&G to increase transparency and accountability in this regard.

The open marketplace has a key role

More broadly, Pritchard suggested, using the expanding pool of data that is available to P&G – including a growing amount of first-party data, alongside information provided by its partners – can help in building out meaningful reach.

“That opens the door, opens the aperture, with an open marketplace, so you can find the right connections with the right people,” he said.

“That then turns into a media world that is a responsible media supply chain that is openly transparent, data driven, centred on making the experience good for the consumer.”

Sourced from WARC