StopPress asked Adele Wieser, Index Exchange Regional Managing Director, APAC, to look back on the year 2020 and share her predictions for 2021. With over 12+ years digital experience and 8+ years in programmatic, Adele has secured a reputation as one of the top authorities on programmatic media trading in Australia and the broader APAC region.
Before we delve into the future, let’s discuss what the biggest challenge was for the digital advertising ecosystem in 2020?
The current state of ad targeting has led to the inflation of the consumer perception of mistrust, so it’s no surprise that consumers have started to feel as though they no longer have control over their data.
Trust and transparency, in digital advertising, remains a key theme that should be table-stakes across the ecosystem, instead of a company differentiator.
It’s this need for greater transparency, that led to the challenge of 2020: the preparation of the impending demise of the third-party cookie.
The industry has been grappling with the mission of re-architecting the ecosystem since Google’s announcement earlier this year, and the future of this collaborative task-force is to build solutions that will not only replace the cookie but future-proof the success of digital advertising.
Do you think the ecosystem will overcome this challenge in 2021?
Given that Google has imposed a deadline of 2022, it’s no surprise that this challenge will impact marketers in 2021, as they work to future-proof their strategies in preparation for the cookie’s demise.
Luckily, it’s not all doom and gloom; marketers should think of this as an opportunity to rebuild the consumer trust that was tarnished by the use of the third-party cookie.
This is where people-based marketing solutions come into play – as an industry, we should rebuild with consumer privacy and consent in mind. There are several paths ahead and marketers are going to need to think about what strategies will help them unlock true value and return.
Looking ahead, what are the key opportunities over the coming year for marketers?
Personalisation will play a key role in the coming years, because of the deprecation of third-party cookies.
Though challenging in the short-term, the death of the third-party cookie is an opportunity for marketers to build closer relationships with consumers as well as publishing partners.
Working in tandem, trusted marketers and publishers can utilise first-party data to provide scalable, addressable advertising opportunities, underpinned by consent and control.
The second opportunity for marketers is to create further consumer engagement through impactful creative. This means harnessing the power of high-impact media formats for display advertising.
According to the IAB New Zealand, 11.9% of ad revenue comes from display advertising.
Therefore, high impact creative placements are a way of reaching consumers where they are by matching creative to environments such as mobile and tablets.
It’s likely that we’ll see more brands adopting these ad formats to keep consumers engaged.
Are there any emerging trends specific to this region that are not as prevalent in global markets?
Looking at New Zealand and APAC at large, there is a clear focus on creating a clean buying environment.
This is commonly achieved through the use of exclusive private marketplace deals that are strategically and custom-built buying structures designed to connect the buy- and sell-sides at scale.
They also help to foster a curated and transparent path of supply and maximise working media dollars for brands.
