CANNES – High-quality content helps to engage consumers, improving the likelihood they’ll see advertising and even consider buying different products and services. These contextual ads are regaining importance as marketers confront the eventual disappearance of technologies like device IDs and tracking cookies that help with online targeting.
“The way we do targeting today is going to change and evolve and shift – it may be more difficult,” Ron Amram, senior director of global media at confectioner Mars, said in this interview with correspondent Tameka Kee at the Beet Villa during the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity. “Contextual will again become more important as we lose some of the tools that we got used to using.”
He sees an opportunity to improve the viewer experience with advertising that’s more mindful of its context within surrounding content. Instead of targeting people regardless of the context, brands can find ways to offer more holistic experiences of content and advertising.
“One of the things that’s bad about digital is that because you can be so targeted, we’ve created poor media consumption experiences for our consumers today — cluttered environments and experiences that are sometimes disjointed,” Amram said. “Contextual is better from the publisher standpoint and absolutely better for the advertiser and the advertising experience.”
News Content and Brand Safety
News content presents some advertisers with a quandary. While news is mostly engaging for consumers, it also can be associated with negative feelings about newsworthy events such as disasters, war, crime, social conflict, political disputes or the pandemic. Concerns about brand safety can make some advertisers wary, as much as they recognize the importance of independent journalism.
“In the past I myself have been afraid to be in news content,” Amram said. “In today’s world, and this is not the role of our media investment, but we have to find a way to support quality journalism, quality news sources….We want to really curate our media buys to be with better publishers. We’ll find ways to do that.”
You are watching “Contextual Advertising Emerging: Now Key in Driving Performance,” a Beet.TV Leadership Summit at Cannes Lions 2022, presented by Integral Ad Science.
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