Category: Advertising

Google’s 2019 Research Review Reveals Key Insights

Google’s recently released 2019 Research Review reveals five key themes based on Google and YouTube data and research and expects these trends to continue in 2020:

  1. Consumer journeys are becoming increasingly complex
  2. New media channels are emerging
  3. Satisfying immediacy is often more important than loyalty
  4. Traditional industries are transforming with digital
  5. Standards are being raised in privacy and digital well-being

Death of the Industrial Advertising Complex?

In his talk at L2’s Digital Leadership Academy, Scott Galloway argues that advertising is becoming less essential to brand building as consumers are discovering products with tools like Google, Amazon, and TripAdvisor. The brand is no longer on the tip of the tongue, it’s what Google says it is.

I do not agree with everything he puts forth in his lecture, but he makes some very thought provoking points.

Mary Meeker’s 2016 Internet Trends Report

Mary Meeker’s annual Internet Trends Report for 2016 came out last week. Some highlights include:

  • The global internet adoption rate was flat year-over-year at 9%, reaching 3 billion users or 42% of the world’s population
  • Smartphone adoption’s growth is slowing, while Android increases marketshare despite a shrinking average selling price
  • Video viewership is exploding, with Snapchat and Facebook Live showing the way, though video ads aren’t always effective
  • Messaging is dominated by Facebook and WeChat, it’s growing rapidly, and evolving from simple text communication to become our new home screen with options for vivid self-expression and commerce
  • US advertising is growing, with Google and Facebook controlling 76% of the market and rising, but advertisers still spend too much on legacy media rather than new media where the audience has shifted
  • Meeker predicts the rise of voice interfaces because they’re fast, easy, personalized, hands-free, and cheap, with Google on Android now seeing 20% of searches from voice, and Amazon Echo sales growing as iPhone sales slow
  • The USA could become the home of the auto industry again thanks to innovation from Tesla and Google despite US auto sales slipping since 1950, though car ownership will fall as Uber/UberPool sharing becomes mainstream

TV Drives Engagement

One out of every five engagements with brands on Facebook and Twitter is driven by television advertising:

Turner and 4C have released the first study to date that quantifies the impact of television advertising on social media brand engagement across Facebook and Twitter.

Covering more than six months of TV advertising and social advertising for 26 brands, our research found that TV advertising drives 1 out of every 5 social media brand engagements.

In addition to how TV ads affect social engagement for brands, the report covers the impact of premium vs. non-premium TV advertising segmented by type, and how cost factors in.

Get the full study here.

Give It Five Minutes

Jason Fried at 37 Signals wrote a great post about the fragility of ideas, gut opinions and learning to think before reacting. The advertising business is all about conceiving, nurturing and selling ideas so it’s important that we learn how to react to other people’s ideas.

Ideas are fragile. They often start powerless. They’re barely there, so easy to ignore or skip or miss.

There are two things in this world that take no skill: 1. Spending other people’s money and 2. Dismissing an idea.