2019 Digital Media Forecast: Don’t Stop Media Now | Zizzo Group

2019 Digital Media Forecast: Don’t Stop Media Now

AYYYYYYYYYY-OH! Friends, it’s been an exciting year. Not only did 2018 set up the building blocks for a higher level of digital media evolution in 2019, it also reminded me how much I love Queen. What does that mean for you? Well, tonight you’re gonna have yourselves a real good time as I, your personal tour guide in the digital media world, present you with another educational blog post that may or may not rock you with a few musical references.

Based on what we’ve been seeing here at ZG, 2019 is going to continue taking us in the direction of a more immersive, engaging, tailored ad experience. As we know from last year’s post, Programmatic buying is the new normal, and we’re used to targeting users on the individual level. This leaves media planners and buyers with the challenge of finding new tactics to further captivate and connect with audiences. So, how can we make campaigns dynamite with a laser beam that are guaranteed to blow your mind next year? Let’s dive in:

Crazy Little Thing Called Connected TV

Last year, we predicted that CTV was picking up steam. Turns out, we didn’t have to wait forever anyway; CTV is just about ready to play the game with all audiences.

Heading into 2019, we’re in the middle of a race between TV broadcasters and digital platforms that are feeling the pressure pushing down on them from agencies and client partners who are looking to blend the power of digital targeting tactics with the impact of television. It’s a kind of magic that was once a luxury reserved for big brands with big audiences and big budgets. But, it didn’t take long for scale and targeting to catch up to the needs of small-to-middle sized businesses with matching budgets/audiences.

In 2017, eMarketer estimated that 60% of all U.S. households had CTVs. In 2018, eMarketer estimated that over 70% of all U.S. households have CTVs – beating their prediction of 65%. With consumer adoption shooting past all of us in a flash (a-ah!), the scale and inventory problems of yesterday are no longer real life – they’re just a fantasy. The more consumers with CTVs, the more granular our targeting capabilities get, and our media partners are in a constant state of updating their software to do just that.

Native Ads Are Your Best Friends

What if I told you that you could get the targeting benefits of a standard programmatic ad campaign with the authority of an advice article, and the appealing visuals of a social media post? Would you want it all, and would you want it now?

Enter native ad formats. Native ads typically appear in an article list format – perhaps in the middle of a page full of news articles, or as a recommendation at the bottom of an article you’re currently reading. Now, native advertising is not new. But, it’s yet another digital format that is taking on a higher and higher rate of adoption. In fact, eMarketer predicts that native ad spend will increase by 25%, and make up over 60% of all digital display ad spend in 2019.

If brands are looking for somebody to love, native ads could be the answer. Don’t worry – standard banners certainly haven’t bitten the dust in the digital space. It’s just that native formats have a tendency to speak more gently, coaxing an audience in with the allure of quality content and reliability. They feel more organic and relevant than a standard ad; consumers trust them, and are therefore inclined to learn more and interact with a brand or product in a native advertising format.

Out of Home Makes the Rockin’ World Go ‘Round

Why am I talking about billboards and posters on a digital media blog post, you ask? Well, Out of Home (OOH) companies have been growing a little better and a little wiser every day, and they’ve been interested in using digital data to power their channel.

Main players in the OOH space have created solutions that tap into mobile location data to provide a more dynamic view of who, exactly, is regularly passing by each board. This mobile data also gives advertisers the opportunity to layer in behavioral data to create consumer profiles – we know what a viewer’s interests are, how they spend their money, etc. Furthermore, we also know what their daily routes are, which can help us better understand the reach of specific board locations. Finally, mobile location data also gives OOH companies the ability to measure ROI – for example: they can see how many viewers went into specific, physical locations.

So, don’t sit there waiting for the hammer to fall. Go forth – be the champions, my friends! The tactics are out there, and they have yet to have their finest hour. Let’s keep building on this overarching 2019 trend of deeper, more meaningful brand connections with consumers. Questions? Comments? Concerns? Contact us to keep this conversation going.

 


Want More Insight?

Read about our other 2019 predictions throughout the months of December and January.

Marketing  |  Design  |  Immersive  |  Web  |  Social Media  |  SEO  |  Digital Media  |  PR

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