Ad Industry Moving by Declan Dunn

What’s the biggest disruption in the Digital Ad and Marketing Industries?

The biggest disruption is the way people receive their information, social updates, etc….moving from a world driven by TV”s and PC’s broadcasting, to one of tablets and smart phones connecting people wherever they are, and plugging these into the bigger screens for richer, longer experiences of content.

This disruption is starting to meld the previously separate worlds of branding and direct marketing, because now it’s no longer the reaction to the ad, it’s finding a way to build awareness and trust, THEN guide those interested into a purchase funnel…the direct marketing end of the business.

Trust is the New Currency

The true disruption, to me, is Trust; as an advertiser you have to earn this before people will jump on a branding campaign, or a direct marketing campaign.


Before you could almost buy this trust by appearing on TV, but even those audiences continue to get smaller and smaller.

Most of the practices of both branding and direct marketing have been developed around mediums that are one way, with little user control, and these practices still pervade everything we do in advertising for the most part.

Both sides love to separate themselves from each other, as branding folks don’t do direct marketing and vice versa. This is a mistake IMHO.

Branding ads depend on volumes of eyeballs, but those are being scattered by the various devices and tsumani of content created every day. It’s not longer sufficient to just do things the way it’s been done.

Branding Now Leads to Conversion, They Are Not Separate Worlds

Branding campaigns have to engage an element of social media of course, yet social media is just part of the puzzle. Brands are buying likes and +’s to prove their branding metrics on social, which becomes incentivized as any direct marketer knows.

This is where branding is crossing over into direct marketing, not just embedding the brand into memory but also including the opportunity to purchase, whether online, via a smart phone geolocating you to the next best deal, or even watching TV with a “Click to Call” to Action, so that ads no longer stand alone, they have to become integrated into the experience of the user.

The disruption moves us from ad campaigns to ongoing funnels that engage, challenge, and stand out from others simply posting ads.

Now you have to see where you can put your advertising in the context of the customer’s physical location, activity, interest, SEO, etc.

Branding that Creates Revenue = Brevenue

Advertisers today reach consumers via communication devices, built to text, chat, and phone. While TV and PC’s will continue, the move away from those one way screens controlled by networks and advertisers, into a world controlled by the user, is essential to creating a multi-screen/device campaign that allows people not just to see the ad, but to become part of the ad experience and spread the word.

I use a term called Brevenue (system I started implementing in 2012), branding that creates revenue, to describe this disruption myself. Branding has to create revenue,and revenue generating events have to positively feed the brand as well; you can no longer rely on people forgetting, because when you screw up, the social world will discuss it.

Sure there are folks getting it of course, but this disruption is focused on communication, interaction, customer service as lead generation ala Zappos, AND as a necessary tool after the sale, and basically finding ways to continually interact with the customer, with permission, outside of the advertising campaign.

It’s about Communication, Qualfying, and Virality – Not Ads!

The biggest change is the nature of the tool; hold an iPad or a smartphone, and you think of it as a communication and entertainment device, and less an arduous work tool like a PC.

The combination of new devices that people use on the go, along with how people use media and react to advertising around it (ie in social, advertising just has never really taken off, Facebook obviously trying to be the one to disprove this current sentiment) is moving media away from control by the advertisers to control by the user.

Control By the People is the True Disruption

The new disruption is all about control and choice, and now the people are in control, and have many, many choices. You can’t buy your way out of this one, you have to engage and earn their Trust.

(Shared this first on Quora,)


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