The Role of Programmatic in Creative Advertising

Conversations from programmatic marketers about creativity and vice-versa have been an interesting thing to follow. Particularly as it often displays a healthy blend of excitement and eye-rolling.

To generalise, some programmatic solutions promise to automate the creative process so that “never again will advertisers need to spend a fortune on something our AI-driven solution can do!”. Of course, this is met with heavy criticism and rightly so, but it is worth outlining where programmatic advertising can be used when aiding creative execution.

Neilson Advertising Effectiveness Study

The diagram above is a Neilson produced study that shows the contribution of advertising elements in driving sales. While the numbers can be debated, what I don’t think can be debated is programmatic’s role in influencing Context, Targeting, Recency and Reach. We at TPA see programmatic as the use of data and technology to drive greater marketing efficiency and it can absolutely be applied to drive efficiency in these areas as they largely cover how advertising is delivered.

Where we see the greatest debate is its influence on the creative.

“Shit that arrives at the speed of light is still shit” – David Abbott.

Creativity is defined as “the use of imagination or original ideas to create something”. Creative marketing addresses brands’ unique problems and the best execution of it produces bespoke, original solutions (strategies).

Personally, I believe that all the data and technology in the world could not produce the emotive, thought provoking creative marketing strategies that address for the unique challenges’ brands’ face. Changing consumer perceptions is an art and it takes tremendous skill. It may be a longer process than what can be offered by automated solutions, but it needs to be because the quality of the message is paramount. Think about the best ads you’ve seen and how they made you feel. I’m confident that they weren’t created in under a second.

Using programmatic advertising to ensure that these messages are delivered at scale, on target, in the right context and with effective recency is where it has the potential to perform best.

Having said that, not all advertising is needed for the purpose of changing perceptions and brand building. The message can be straightforward and direct because the perception of the brand has already been established. Not only that, there are scenarios where we can see that specific consumers are moving down the purchase funnel as intended. This is where programmatic can influence the message.

Programmatic creative for direct marketing

The key use cases for using programmatic technology to create ads are;

1.     To increase the relevance of the message shown. E.g. Displaying the product or service the consumer is most interested in.

2.     Increasing the efficiency of asset production. E.g. Creating a large quantity of ads at speed and at low cost across a variety of formats.

3.     Increasing the efficiency of ad-operations. E.g. Reducing the number of creative files needed and therefor the amount of resource needed traffic them.

4.     To test the effectiveness of creative assets. E.g. Testing colours, images and copy.

To reiterate, these use cases are most applicable to direct response advertising. We need a very strong understanding of consumer intent to ensure that the correct message is displayed, we need to ensure that the execution is on brand and that the message doesn’t undermine existing brand messaging.

Being on brand doesn’t just mean that the same font and colour scheme is used. It ensures that the entire ad reflects your value to a consumer. Unfortunately, the quality of execution has fallen short for some brands in recent years, generating criticism. When the barrier to entry is so low across most digital advertising channels, you’re likely to see poor execution.

Programmatic plays a strong part in driving marketing effectiveness through digital campaigns and does so well when used to deliver high quality messaging. While its role in creating this message for brand marketing may be limited, I believe it can add tremendous value for direct marketing campaigns.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this from both sides of the marketing spectrum. Is there anything I haven’t considered or that you disagree with?