“Advertising x DX” Affinity between advertising and digital seen from the history

Today, “advertisements” are all around us, and not a day goes by without seeing them.

If you turn on the TV or radio, commercials of 15 to 30 seconds will be played at regular intervals, and newspapers will have advertisement slots and leaflets. When you open your mobile phone, you will see advertisement notifications from various applications, advertisements will be placed on SNS at a certain rate, and listing advertisements will appear.

In this way, advertising, which is taken for granted, is constantly changing its form in line with the trends of the times. From newspapers and television in the old days, today, “digital” centered on the Internet is gaining a major position.

In this article, I will explain the history of advertising, the changes in advertising, and introduce the challenges and countermeasures that the advertising industry is actually facing.

Advertising history

Companies in the advertising field have accumulated many ideas and challenges.

Here, we will look at when the origins of modern advertising began, compare the history of advertising in Japan and the rest of the world, and introduce the background of how advertising has permeated Japanese society.

offline mass advertising

Originally, the word “advertisement” was not used in Japan, but after the Meiji Restoration, the English word “advertisement” was translated into “announce widely”, and the current word “advertisement” was born. rice field.

The history of the Japanese advertising industry is surprisingly old, and the origin of advertising is a unique advertising leaflet called “Hikifuda” in the Edo period. “Hikifuda” is a so-called leaflet, and it refers to a colorful medium using color printing.

In 1872, Japan’s first railway was opened, and advertisements were permitted, and “railway advertisements” appeared. In addition, as newspapers have developed, magazines have also evolved, so the number of advertisements in magazines has also increased.

After that, with the emergence of new media such as radio and television, “mass advertising” has grown dramatically. However, it can be said that it was a primitive business form because advertising space was bought and sold only in analog and offline places.

internet advertising

Since the 1990s, the bubble economy has collapsed, and along with the deterioration of the economic situation, “mass advertising” has gradually decreased. At the same time, due to the spread of the Internet and smartphones since the early 2000s, the focus of people’s disposable time has diversified from being concentrated in mass media to multiple media.

Traditional mass media such as newspapers, magazines, and television still had influence, but today, newspapers and magazines have become e-books, televisions have become smart devices connected to the Internet, and radio has become an application. , the pure offline advertising business is almost gone compared to the old days.

In addition, people’s lives are closely connected to the Internet, and the advertisements that users see have also been rapidly digitized.

There are two important points to know about advertising in this era.

1. Digitization of Materials
   The media used to distribute advertisements and the advertising materials distributed on them have been digitized.
2. Data measurability
   It is now possible to measure data such as when, which advertisement, how much, how many times it was displayed on which medium, and how many people responded.

In this way, it became possible to visualize the number of impressions and click-through rate of advertisements, and it became possible to verify the effectiveness of advertisements.

Advertising automation

Offline advertising transactions have entered the era of Internet advertising, and advertising has become data and measurable. Since 2010, web advertising has become even more sophisticated, and it has become possible to buy and sell ad slots in real time.

In addition, with the spread of ad networks, advertisers on the side of placing advertisements can distribute and manage advertisements directly without going through an advertising agency, as long as they decide on various conditions such as the content and size of the advertisement material and the bid price. It is now possible to

What is an ad network

This is an advertisement distribution method that appeared around 2008 and distributes advertisements on a large number of websites. It is possible to secure a large amount of traffic by collecting a large number of advertising media websites to form an “ad distribution network” and using many websites as media.

In addition, the automation of advertising placement is progressing rapidly, and the wave of automation is surging into advertising operations. The most notable of these is listing advertising (search-linked advertising). However, a certain amount of know-how is required to place advertisements, and the required operation technology is also advancing at the same time.

Listing advertisements are advertisements that are displayed in conjunction with search engine search results, and have the largest role among web advertisements.

Listing ads display ads for specific keywords, and display ads when users are searching for those keywords with high interest, so they tend to have a high conversion rate.

At the moment, automation in listing ads targets “bid adjustment”, “report creation (aggregation of numerical values)” and “target selection”.

In order to achieve results by automating advertising operations, it is necessary to accumulate data, so we should promote the full use of data even more in the future.

Current state of the advertising field

Strong internet advertising

According to the “Advertising Expenditures in Japan in 2019” released by Dentsu Inc., a major Japanese advertising agency, the total advertising expenditures in Japan in 2019 were 6.9 trillion yen. In 2018, it was 6.6 trillion yen, a year-on-year increase of 101.9%. Including the results of 2019, the Japanese advertising market has shown positive growth for eight consecutive years.

Dentsu divides advertising media in Japan into three categories: four mass media (newspapers, magazines, television and radio), the Internet, and promotional media.

Among them, the “four mass media” decreased for the fifth consecutive year, and advertising expenses were 2,609.4 billion yen. On the other hand, Internet advertising spending has grown in double digits for six consecutive years, driving the market. . In 2019, Internet advertising expenditure (2.1 trillion yen) exceeded TV media advertising expenditure (1.8 trillion yen) for the first time.

Digital transformation has progressed further, and digital solutions integrated with existing media may have evolved, becoming a turning point for the advertising industry.

From an era of product superiority to consumer superiority

Advertising is said to be the core of brand building and business performance for companies. However, with the passage of time and the evolution of technology, not only media media have diversified, but consumer needs have also diversified.

Due to the permeation of diversity, consumption behavior and monetary values ​​have changed significantly, and we are now in the process of transitioning from an era of product superiority to an era of consumer superiority. .

In the 1970s, product-focused advertising was the norm, and companies created images of their products to get consumers to choose them. For this reason, companies have been conducting advertising activities such as repeating product logos and commercial catchphrases to appeal to consumers.

On the other hand, due to the rapid spread of digital media, smartphones, e-commerce shopping, and SNS, the number of contact points for consumers with products has increased dramatically. . In addition, we are moving from a “group” and “organization” era to an “individual” era as the times change. Customers’ desire for self-actualization has increased, and the demand for consumer-oriented advertising has increased.

In this era, it is necessary to think about how to face consumers, have a dialogue, and think about an advertising strategy that can realize coexistence.

various internet advertisements

Internet advertising is advertising activities for marketing products and services by posting advertisements on websites, emails, smartphone apps, etc.

There are many different types of internet advertising, but here are 6 of the most commonly used techniques.

Banner Ads (Pure Ads)

Yahoo! Advertisements are posted in the form of purchasing slots from major portal sites such as Japan and Excite, as well as sites with the power to attract customers, such as newspaper publishers and magazine publishers.

email advertisement

E-mail advertising is a type of direct marketing that uses e-mail to advertise directly to consumers. It is one of the advertising methods that can be targeted because it is distributed based on the information registered by the consumer in advance.

video ads

In-stream ads are often used for video ads. In-stream ads are ads that appear before a video plays, such as YouTube or Gyao. On the other hand, the type of video advertisement that distributes video advertisements to external media such as SNS and portal sites is called “outstream delivery advertisement”.

native advertising

Native ads are ads that naturally fuse articles (content) and ads. The purpose of native advertising is to have users consume ads in the same way as other content, based on their interests.

affiliate advertising

Affiliate marketing is “performance-based advertising” on the Internet. For example, a certain percentage of rewards will be paid when actual results (purchase of products, membership registration, etc.) are achieved on the advertiser’s site via a link posted on the advertiser’s advertisement on a website or in an e-mail magazine. Refers to the form in which payment is made.

Listing Ads (Text Ads)

Listing ads are also called “search-linked ads” because the ads are displayed in conjunction with the user’s search keywords. When an ad is clicked, a cost is incurred, and by using listing ads, it is possible to guide people who are looking for something by searching on a computer or smartphone to the advertiser’s website.

Advantages of internet advertising

1. Start with an affordable budget
   Internet advertising pricing is based on the number of times your ad is shown. You can also set the unit price per click and the upper limit of the advertising cost, so you can start with a relatively small budget.
2. Internet ads that are easy to target
   are easier to display ads with pinpoint to the target. Specifically, it is possible to deliver advertisements only to users who are likely to be interested in products and services based on attribute information such as user’s place of residence, age, gender, and web behavior history.
3. You can measure the cost-effectiveness You
   can visualize the cost-effectiveness because you can measure the number of impressions (number of times displayed), the number of clicks, the number of results (CV) after clicking, etc.

Low trust and favorability of Internet advertising

In 2018, Google blocked 2.3 billion ads in an effort to stop fraud, cheating, malware and other issues.

In order to prevent the decline in trust in the Internet advertising industry, the advertisement was aimed at “sustainable advertising” by reducing the delivery of malicious and low-quality content.

In this way, Internet advertising still has issues in terms of reliability.

On November 12, 2019, Integral Ad Science (IAS) released a research report on the impact of the content environment in which web ads are displayed on advertising and brand recognition .

According to the survey, about 90% of consumers said they were annoyed by ads displayed on low-quality content. It also found that 34% of consumers said they would lose favorability and 65% of consumers would stop using the brand if web ads were displayed in low-quality content environments. rice field.

Advertisers’ distrust of Internet advertising is increasing, and building a relationship of trust has become an important issue for all parties involved in Internet advertising.

user harm

In recent years, we often see news about user damage.

In 2018, Facebook announced that the data of 87 million users would have been improperly shared by election consulting firm Cambridge Analytica.

With this as a trigger, overseas people began to pay attention to problems related to information that identifies individuals on the Web (IP addresses, cookies, etc.). In response to this trend, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) came into force on May 25, 2018 to protect the personal information of citizens residing in the EU.

The General Data Protection Regulation GDPR means that data that was not considered personal information until now, such as cookies, will now be considered personal information, and user consent will be required when acquiring it. Although the Personal Information Protection Law has been revised in Japan, it is still not as important as in other countries regarding data on the Web.

In 2019, JIAA announced the ” Results of the User Awareness Survey on Internet Advertising .” Looking at the results, 85% of his users are worried about using information for internet advertising. In addition, 60% of users are aware that personal information is being acquired, and it seems that they feel resistance to the acquisition and use of highly private data.

Future prospects

Fusion of real and digital

Broadly speaking, there are two methods for companies to communicate with consumers and customers: digital and physical. Today, customer communication that fuses the two is attracting attention.

For example, sending a personal catalog that suggests outfits based on the products the customer has purchased is one example.

By analyzing purchase history data from catalogs and EC sites, we grasp customer consumption behavior and grasp the optimal timing for promotions. personal communication.

By expanding the scope from the digital side to the real world and making use of the characteristics of each, more effective marketing can be carried out.

user experience

In the digital age, we have to focus on customer experience so much that we can say that “everything we do is to improve the value of customer experience.” .

Here are three effective measures to improve the user experience (customer experience value).

Advertising closer to consumers

From a consumer’s point of view, they tend to want only the right ads, the ones that are more personalized or the ones they want to see. In addition, in order to improve the information value of advertisements, it is also important to provide “contextual advertisements” for consumers. By thoroughly explaining to the user that “this kind of advertisement is being issued based on this kind of information,” it is possible to produce a higher effect for the advertiser as well.

Optimally distributed ads

Currently, there are various forms of advertising, and the problem of advertisers is that they do not know the effective form of advertising. It is also important for companies to investigate and improve whether the experiences at various contact points are connected and whether advertisements are distributed to users in an optimal manner.

Ads that give users choices

From now on, media companies should not only deliver a wide variety of advertisements, but also give more options to the users on the receiving side. It is important to give the user the choice of “how the user receives the advertisement”, “whether the user wants the advertisement”, or “whether the user can use their own data”.

Data transparency

Transparency and fairness in the Internet advertising market are not yet in place.

In July 2020, the Japan Newspaper Publishers & Editors Association submitted an opinion on the digital advertising market to the government. In the written opinion, it was pointed out that the Internet advertising market lacks transparency, and that media companies and advertisers are not satisfied with the current situation.

It is necessary to establish an environment in which it is possible to check whether media companies are properly accessing contract prices, etc., and whether they are earning appropriate profits.

Not only advertisers but also users are not clear about the reasons for acquiring data, so data transparency is an issue.

For example, it is necessary to explain to users that “data acquisition is done to improve the service, so it will be for everyone’s benefit,” so as not to lose sight of the purpose of “for what purpose is the data acquired?” must be

Success story

“Kao”: Improving awareness among young people through Instagram ads

Instagram, which is very popular among young people and people in their 50s, can share photos and videos, and because it has a wide variety of content, it has become an SNS that can target a wide range of users and deliver advertisements.

Kao wanted to develop a digital communication strategy centered on Instagram advertising, which has a high affinity with the target audience, for the launch of Kao, which is the main target for young people.

Based on the results of a survey that the younger generation has a shorter attention time, we used GIF videos, carousel video ads, and story ads in addition to creative creation that is easy to leave an impression even in a short time.
In addition, we are also focusing on implementing brand strategies that incorporate user feedback, as users who have purchased can post on Instagram to see the reaction to the product. As a result, brand recognition increased by 10 points, purchase intention increased by 3 points, and store price share increased to 150%.

SNS advertising not only allows you to target people who are interested in a specific genre, but it is also suitable for increasing the awareness of potential customers who do not know about your company’s products.

Domino’s Pizza: Domino’s “World’s Cheese Journey” AR

AR (Augmented Reality) is being used by companies as part of their advertising campaigns and to promote purchases in e-commerce, and is attracting attention as a new technology in the web community.

In August 2020, the major delivery pizza chain store “Domino Pizza” released a promotional AR app in conjunction with the launch of the new product “World 10 Cheese Quattro”.

The theme released as a promotion for the sale of “World 10 Cheese Quattro”, where you can enjoy 10 kinds of premium cheese carefully selected from all over the world in one pizza, was “a journey around the world cheese by AR”.

The content of the advertisement was an AR that deepened the understanding of 10 types of premium cheese from around the world, which are used in 4 types of Domino’s new product pizza. Even if it is called the same “cheese”, the taste varies depending on the country and region.

The appearance, taste, manufacturing method, and history are different, so you can learn detailed information about different cheeses in each country while traveling the world by turning the globe that appears in AR.

The purpose of incorporating AR into advertising is to improve consumer satisfaction. While having fun, get to know the cheese used in the new product “World 10 Cheese Quattro”, learn how to pair with alcohol, and not just ask for pizza, but in the process of asking for pizza ” It creates the added value of deepening the understanding of cheese.

It seems that you can enjoy it as reading material before ordering pizza, as well as during the time until pizza arrives. By incorporating technology in this way, consumers can be excited and entertained without thinking that it is an advertisement.

Hair care brand Apotek: My hair flutters every time I pass by a train

The ad for Swedish hair care brand Apotek is a stunning ad where people’s hair blows in a gust of wind every time the subway passes by.

An ultrasonic sensor is embedded in the panel, and when it senses the vibration of an approaching subway, the hair of the woman in the screen blows up at the perfect timing according to the direction of the wind. And when the subway arrives and the train wind subsides, the woman in the poster brushes her hair with her hands and smiles.

Apoteck’s slogan is “Bring your hair back to life,” and Apotek’s products will give you beautiful, healthy, bouncy hair that’s beautiful even when it’s ruffled by the wind. is appealing in a unique way.

It became a hot topic on the Internet as an eye-catching advertisement that used technology. In the future, it is likely that more and more cases will evolve into novel advertisements by fusing technology and reality.

summary

As the digital world continues to advance, I learned that the affinity between digital and advertising is very high.

However, how to get users to have a good impression of Internet advertisements, and what to do for Internet advertisement data to develop soundly remains a big issue.

Advertising is responsible for its impact on the social environment, and it will always be important to focus on advertising that emphasizes user experience from the user’s perspective.