With new age advertising becoming more and more digital, brands and advertisers need to evolve their strategies. The days of banner advertising are now over and marketers need to think about non-intrusive advertising practices to reach out to the consumers.
What annoys the users most while browsing YouTube? The redundant pop-up ads. Explaining further Milind Pathak, COO, Madhouse South Asia, says, "Data suggests that 68 per cent of the users have download an ad blocker. Then, how should the advertisers get their message across without being ignored? The new trick on this front is smart advertising, which is done very subtly on e-commerce platforms."
Seen those "other products you may like" at the bottom of the webpage on an e commerce platform? That is what the marketers call non-intrusive advertising. The positioning is such that the web user does not even realise that he is consuming an ad but also willingly goes through what the brands offer. In this scenario, the probability of the consumer to buy what is fed increases trifold.
"I believe that the counter to ad blocking is a smart and subtle ad placement. No matter what you are trying to sell and however relevant it is to the consumer he will not have a look at it unless he is in the shopping mode. Forceful pop-up ads are not something that the audience is willing to consume," Pathak explains.
Another way to prevent ad blocking is that the brand and marketers focus on the relevance of content and its placement on the consumer's plate. Shivnandan Pare, Head New Digital Business Aditya Birla Fashion and Retail opines, "The finest example of this practice are from Facebook and Google. Both the search engines are best examples of content management and its right placement. Facebook keeps a track of your likes and shares and delivers the exact content the user is looking for. Google, on the other hand, does the same by offering the best ad based on the user's data. This makes both the platforms user friendly, knowledge worthy and the primary choices in their respective domains."
"Substantial, subtle and smart advertising is the key to success. With the advent of technology, the consumer has a wide choice and a far reach, the only way to grab their attention is to give them what they want and when they want," said Pathak.
On talking about the reinvention of digital landscape in India, Mr Pathak said the biggest challenge the advertisers are facing today is showing an advertisement to the consumer at a time when he does not want to consume it.
"The consumer will only pay attention when I present to him information that is relevant to him at the right time in the right package, which will not make him feel that I am in anyway disturbing him," concluded Mr Pathak explaining further.
(These are excerpts from discussions that took place at ad:tech 2017 held in Gurgaon on March 9 and 10, 2017.)
