“Data is the new black” gushed one speaker at Advertising Week, the just-completed annual gathering in New York for the advertising and marketing industry.
Thanks to great improvements in data research on customer behavior, “now we are not guessing,” said another.
The wow factors here this week were data, video and Virtual Reality. With good reason. The rapidly changing advertising industry is always on the hunt for the next big thing that will turn heads and make a splash.
But the marketplace is more crowded that ever. “We see disruption in so many markets,” Fiona Carter, Chief Brand Officer at AT&T told one well attended session.
“We have an on-demand culture,” said Alex Sutton, Global Director of Digital Acquisition at Avis Budget group. “The number of customers engaging our brands on mobile keeps increasing and increasing and increasing.”
Which is why – with all the talk about change, disruption and the surge in mobile – I was surprised not to hear a little more about podcasting and the other creative ways brands can use relevant content to go deeper when engaging their customers and followers (Full disclosure here: I am a podcaster).
People consume media very differently. We engage in a multiplicity of ways. Just look at a row commuters in a New York subway train. Many are playing games on their devices. Others are reading and some are listening.
For marketers the future is about creating different versions of your message and let the consumer choose.
Tens of millions of Americans decide to listen to podcasts each week. The median age is 30. According to Steve Goldstein at Amplifi Media, 68% of people aged 13-24 listen to some audio on their smartphone every day. Podcasting is no longer niche.
Perhaps my argument to the advertising industry is pay attention not only to “wow!” but to “ah ha.” Podcasts are the intersection of ideas and emotion. They don’t show something. You, the listener, imagines it.
I really like what Ben Clarke, Chief Strategist of the marketing agency, The Shipyard has to say about disruption and creativity.
“Even if you try a thousand things and 995 don’t work, the five winners are better than not trying at all.”
“We’re going to fail at 99% of the things we do. Not only is that OK, it’s essential,” he says.
Richard Davies is a podcast consultant and co-host of the weekly solutions journalism show, “How Do We Fix It?” http://www.daviescontent.com
Here Hear! 