Campaign Ideas For Student Council

Predictions for 2010
By Dave Chase

2005 puts us at the mid-point of the first decade of the new millenium. What will things look like at the end of the 1st decade of the new millenium in the world of advertising? I thought I’d project where the ad industry is headed and what 2010 (or sooner) might look like. This two-part article will take those discussions a few steps further. First, we’ll look at a scenario that is likely to be common by 2010 when the heretofore separate worlds of TV advertising, search marketing, behavioral targeting and inventory yield management blend together. If you buy some of this scenario, it’s interesting to look at the implications for ad agencies. In part two, I’ll speculate on the likelihood of Google being the biggest “ad agency” in world. If you look through the prism I lay out, it will cause you to think differently about where the industry is headed whether or not you agree with some of the specifics.

Search marketing, Behavioral Targeting and Yield Management’s alchemizing effect on TV advertising

The accountability and efficiency of search marketing, behavioral targeting and publisher inventory yield management can look pretty compelling to a media planner compared to the relative lack of trackability of a TV spot today. What happens when you combine the best of these worlds? Let’s look at a scenario that might take place when these worlds are combined.

It may easy to write this off as the ramblings of a guy who has spent too much time in the technology industry but before you do that, consider the following:
• All major search engines keep a search history indicating your interests, needs, likes, etc.
• Forrester projects that over half of TV households with have a DVR device by 2009.
• Today, most DVRs keep track of what we could be considered a “search history” of everything that your household has watched and what you plan to record in the future.
• With your implicit approval, that “search history” of your TV behavior could be combined with your online search and surfing behavior which would create a profile that would be quite precise regarding your preferences and interests. Whether one company delivers all of this technology (e.g., Microsoft or AOL) or a deal is done between DVR suppliers and search engines, this can easily be accomplished.
• Most people’s broadband Internet access is provided by cable companies today. Setting a cookie applicable to both the TV and internet access is relatively trivial.
• Tacoda, a leading behavioral targeting company, has over 80% of the North American Internet audience in their network. They have a wide variety of non-personal demographic information about their users.

So let’s fast forward five years and look at a scenario with a couple in their late 30’s we’ll call Mike and Jill. Periodically, they talk about the need for a vacation but have had a hard time agreeing on a location. Jill’s idea of a great getaway is a “spa weekend” with mud baths, cucumber bodywraps, aroma therapy and countless other “treatments” that sound like some form of torture to Mike. Meanwhile, what Mike would really like to do is make a trip to a Final Four as his alma mater is in the Top 10 and he’s sure they are going to make it a long ways in the “Big Dance”. Whenever he talks with his buddies about the “Big Dance”, Jill is confused Mike has never liked to dance.