Even though some advertisers don’t need to be “very niche targeted,” data plays a role in all brand messaging. What’s common across the board is that “Every part of advertising is about performance at the end of the day,” says Christine Peterson, Managing Partner, Digital Investment Lead, Mindshare.
“It’s just what do you use as the measuring stick? In the digital sphere, we have a lot of measurement at our fingertips,” Peterson adds in this interview with Beet.TV. “It is a custom question for every single client. It’s not something I can easily say is one-size-fits-all for every client out there.”
Results can range from changing brand perception to “opening the eyes of new consumers, different audiences, that this brand is right for them,” to measuring footfall in-store or actual sales, online or offline.
“It’s built in. No matter what the original objective is, it comes down to driving performance, driving brand goals and key business objectives.”
Striking a balance between precision targeting and mass messaging requires a balance, according to Peterson. Some clients need to speak to a very specific set of audiences. “And for others, it’s less about isolating and more about sub-segmenting. So you’re talking to everyone and selling a product that has mass appeal.”
So how do you custom tailor the message within those segmentations?
“So even where it might feel like you may not need to apply data to get very, very niche targeted, it plays its role,” Peterson says. You can be mass but use data to tailor the message “to each individual nuance of an audience, from people who are in market today to people who might be in market six months down the road. Somebody who’s considering your product and somebody who’s never been exposed to it before,” she adds.
Even if a brand or product appeals to everyone, “You can’t talk to everybody the same. So data plays a role not only for niche but also for messaging.”
Peterson believes the most unique opportunity digital media affords is co-creation of content. As she describes it, it’s about bringing a brand’s message to life “with the authority and the authenticity of that brand or influencer voice. And that’s just so much more easy and flexible to do in the digital space.”
She’s always looking for those opportunities.
“It’s great to see what original content is coming out, but it’s also good to see what is really still in idea stage where brands can get involved early on and have a really authentic voice within the content.”
This video is part of a series titled The Road to the Digital Content NewFronts. It is a preview of topics to be explored at IAB’s NewFronts, which begin on April 30. This series is presented by Meredith Corporation. For more videos from the series, please visit this page.
