Big Data and The Future of Advertising
By Josh Green
The use of Big Data is nothing new in the field of advertising. Recently though it has
come to the forefront as advertising has taken a turn to the hyper-personal. With
ads displayed on browsers and social media, specifically tailored for each user, it has
come to point that ad agencies are struggling to compete with the likes of Goggle,
Facebook and Twitter, with whom they where once partners. The competition
has become intense, while putting pressure on ad agencies, it has also opened up
room for advertisers to try better alternatives that can increase ROI and decrease
advertising costs.
The recent merger between the Omnicom and Publicis groups to form the
worlds largest advertising group is a sign of the times. It is no secret that big data is
a partial influencer in this merger. Traditional Advertising such as print and TV are
becoming less important as tablets and smartphones are becoming the choice
technology for today’s consumers. Merging is allowing these two giants to field their
resources in a hope they will be more competitive with their tech counterparts.
On the other hand Google, Facebook, and Twitter are now able to use their
vast pools of data to target consumers directly and with accuracy. Making it seem as
though ad agencies are unneeded middlemen, while Silicon Valley has come to deal
directly with advertisers. With the algorithms these sites are using, advertisers can
now bid in milliseconds whether or not they want to purchase an ad on a webpage
by knowing some of the personal data about that person. For example, if BMW
wants to place an ad they will know whether that consumer is in the market range
for a luxury car or not. Automatically a program will purchase the ad if the case is
yes. This lets advertisers save money by more precisely using their ad dollars.
The ROI on these direct ad buys is much higher. Making them much more
effective and in demand by advertisers. Now that the mobile space is becoming
bigger and easier to advertise on we will see the growth of Facebook and like
become the new powerhouses in the advertising world. With ad tech moving at a
blazing pace it seems that ad agencies are going the way of Don Draper. They are
becoming Dinosaurs in a field that is moving too fast for them to keep up with.