Month: December 2020

Rather than distracting or directing them away from their original purpose with interruptive ad formats that link out to other sites — a tactic that comes with its own brand safety concerns —  content commerce differs from other well-known affiliate programs. It creates a checkout opportunity that’s contextually aligned with the content itself; if a consumer is reading about a product they like and want to buy, they don’t have to leave the article, feed or post to do so. 

Content commerce provides utility, but it’s also cultivating new shopping behaviors and creating new sources of product expertise online. And the new behaviors and approaches it’s creating are especially timely, as mid-pandemic brick-and-mortar stores remain closed. Additionally, in the digital shopping journey, the content commerce experience is altering online experiences. 

The end of bottomless browsing 

“Even shoppers with the highest [purchase] intent will get lost and bored browsing bottomless product search results pages,” says Angelica Marden, general manager at PopSugar. Marden advises publishers looking at content commerce to “build audience trust that your shopping recommendations will deliver the cutest, coolest, newest and most useful stuff with a vetted editor’s eye and your audience will come back to you time and time again when they have the urge to shop.” 

PopSugar, which is part of Group Nine Media, has launched a curated “content-x-commerce” initiative optimized via consumer search interest, proven and trending products and a portfolio of retailers, with content across fashion and beauty, tech, home (kitchen and food), fitness, moms and gifts. “We approach our curation as personal shoppers, product testers and treasure hunters,” says Marden. 

Personalization is an important part of curation — and social platforms have the algorithms to suit. Thomas Høgebøl, CEO and founder at NoA, the Nordic region’s leading network of design, communication and tech-and-data agencies, says the overall shift in society towards highly personalized, easy-to-digest content will prompt even more brands to scale up content on Instagram and, ultimately, TikTok. He says: “Both are visually led and require little to no effort to consume and click through if something appeals. However, creativity will still be a key differentiating factor in outperforming the competition.” 

Høgebøl notes that Instagram recently updated its home screen for the first time in years, adding “Shop” and “Reels” tabs to its home screen, “the former of which curates personalized recommendations of shoppable videos and new product collections.” He suggests the move represents “a clear demonstration of the company’s priorities moving forward.”    

Optimize, experiment and adapt by channel  

Content commerce is a multichannel and multi-device opportunity existing across social platforms, blogs, price comparison sites, publishers and TV streams. As with every approach to the shopper, brands must be mindful of consumer behavior and user experience in the content commerce space, ensuring that formats fit the desired platform. 

When executed correctly, the seamless merging of commerce and content can foster better brand-consumer relationships, and positive outcomes can extend beyond the shopper’s decision to purchase, as there’s work to be done after that “buy now” button has been clicked.

“In order to reap the full benefits of shoppable content, brands need to ensure that customers don’t drop-off in the checkout funnel,” says Høgebøl. To mitigate this outcome, he advises the removal of the sign-in barrier as well as ensuring there is no visual disconnect between the checkout experience and the consumer experience up until that point. “Brands can also employ tools that help with the upselling of relevant products to further enhance the journey, and to allow checkout at a later stage if you get interrupted while doing so,” he says. 

Device type and buy options also drive content commerce outcomes

At Group Nine, more than 90 percent of its audience engages with content on mobile. For PopSugar, specifically, their young female audience spends most of their time on their phones. Marden says: “Our Shop content is optimized for their habits to make the purchase experience easy and seamless, whether they are checking out a product on PopSugar.com or via one of our shoppable Instagram Story franchises.” 

Digital content that allows consumers to browse and buy is also an essential part of the shopper experience during lockdown periods related to the ongoing pandemic. 

“Cultivating the joy and intent we all miss from IRL shopping is more important than ever,” says Marden. “You can do that through deep curation and product vetting, playful trend exploration and the promotion of brands with purposeful missions and sustainable products.”  She says: “We’ve been able to drive PopSugar Shop’s gross sales over 100 percent year-on-year during shelter-in-place.”  

Content commerce helps level the playing field

Consumers are becoming savvier to how brands are using their data to target them, so brands will need to look for alternative ways of shortening the path to purchase. In light of increased competition from Google, Facebook and Amazon, publishers and price-comparison sites are looking for more ways to monetize their content. 

Jonas Sjöstedt, founder and CPO at Tipser says: “Before, publishers used to make revenue on the side of their content with ads, and the content was just a cost. Now, the actual content can become a revenue stream. We have also seen an increase in returning visitors for publishers, because the visitors see a value in coming to the content that has been hyper curated by the editor.” 

Integrating commerce into content helps smaller and mid-sized brands and publishers offer utility and the approach creates new revenue streams. Lowe, at Digitas UK says: “Shoppable content is a win-win — another shopfront for brands, and a higher-value medium for publishers.”

In this new normal, programmatic digital-out-of-home (DOOH) is more relevant than ever and will be a major consideration for 2021 advertising and marketing plans.  

OOH and shifting consumer behaviors 

As shelter-in-place orders went into effect earlier this year, the global economy largely pivoted to a work-from-home model. Initially, many teams discovered a boost to productivity and flexibility, but with time enthusiasm around working from home began to fade as people found themselves perpetually tethered to digital displays.

With so much time spent indoors, screen fatigue proved a significant challenge for advertisers and marketers. Longing for a break from the monotony and a remedy for cabin fever, more consumers have begun turning to the outdoors for respite, as reported by OAAA’s Q4 Harris Poll on Consumer Trends. 

Not only are more people going outside, but outdoor ads are also capturing their attention. In line with this trend, OOH has seen an increasingly engaged audience across retail, especially for inventory located near supermarkets, as well as roadside and transit, even as once-prime venues like stadiums, concert halls and airports are experiencing reduced traffic. 

While ad spend on travel and entertainment is down, consumers are diverting more of their disposable income to purchasing essentials such as groceries and household supplies, as well as electronics, home decor and leisurewear, as they dedicate more time to cooking, home improvement and fitness. These changes in consumer behavior are introducing new opportunities for advertisers. 

Yet, for brands navigating marketing and media strategies today, there is no clear linear path. Conditions in the pandemic are shifting daily, and in such a climate, a message that seems relevant today could be inappropriate the next. 

For media buyers, having the flexibility and agility to update campaign creative and settings on the fly, as they can with programmatic DOOH, is essential. Programmatic DOOH also provides greater budget fluidity in a time of uncertainty, empowering media buyers to shift budgets within DOOH campaign line items and to or from other media channels as circumstances dictate. 

A pivotal moment for DOOH

As an advertising channel, OOH is one of the oldest yet most effective. Year on year, it’s experienced consistent growth, and it’s expected to recover from the pandemic faster than other traditional media. 

The sheer volume of digital OOH screens is also growing, with more than 340,000 billboards dispersed throughout the U.S. alone. The number of those boards that are digital has increased by 43 percent in the past four years. DOOH’s rapidly growing footprint will continue to multiply capabilities and efficiencies.

At the same time, more publishers are modernizing their systems and making more inventory available programmatically, which is helping to fuel the rise of programmatic DOOH. 

Not only do OOH and DOOH offer a range of advantages, but according to research by Nielsen, OOH overall is also one of the most effective ways to build trust in brands. This is vital, as brand loyalty has plummeted during the pandemic. According to recent research from McKinsey, 75 percent of consumers stated that they had developed a new shopping behavior since the start of the pandemic.

In addition, OOH ads are more likely to propel consumers to act — starting an online search for a product or brand, for example. DOOH also excels when it comes to creative messaging. Between a pandemic, a U.S. election year, a series of natural disasters and more, contextual relevance is vital for brands, and personalization is quickly becoming the expectation. 

Programmatic DOOH is paving a path to help advertisers meet these demands with dynamic DOOH creative that can adapt to triggers such as weather, traffic, store-level inventory data and more. And with more people traveling locally, it’s introducing new opportunities for hyperlocal marketing. 

The role of programmatic

DOOH is bracing for an exponential phase of growth, and as it grows, its programmatic transition will be key. In the last few years, more online and mobile demand-side platforms (DSPs) have begun integrating with DOOH supply-side platforms (SSPs) to make programmatic DOOH more accessible to omnichannel media buyers. 

Simultaneously, players across the industry have come together to address challenges that have previously held the channel back, such as standardization. For instance, several major DOOH ad tech players recently joined forces to bring standardization to DOOH venue data to help drive the medium’s programmatic transition forward.

Advertising is undergoing one of its most monumental shifts ever between a global pandemic, the death of the cookie and looming privacy and transparency concerns about digital. In this transition period, the value proposition of OOH and DOOH is becoming readily apparent and accelerating the move to programmatic. 

With the maturation of programmatic DOOH, even in a time when the new normal is very unusual, new doors will open to reach audiences with more dynamic and meaningful omnichannel messages across online, mobile and outdoor channels. Each of these represents an opportunity to build brand trust and drive action. DOOH might just be that silver lining that advertisers, media buying agencies and publishers have been looking for in a roller coaster year.