A Digital Win

“Digital” can mean just about anything these days. Websites. Banner ads. Mobile ads. Digital Pre-Roll. Social media. Games. VR, AR, IA. LMNOP. Regardless of your definition, the rush continues to be digitally-savvy and digital-first.
Adding fuel to the fire, a report by Accenture, “Winning Experiences in the New Video World” measured the change in where consumers are viewing TV shows. In just one year, television watching on TV set dropped 29 points from 52% to 23%, while laptop/desktop rose by 10 points, from 32% to 42% and smartphone rose 3 points from 10% to 13%. Clearly the “platform” is moving away from home television viewing with more people relying on digital devices for pretty much everything.
But there’s a paradox at play for clients and agencies – digital advertising isn’t the panacea. Today, 38% of US adults have actively installed ad blockers, and the average click through rate of digital ads is .35%. Half of US adults actively avoid ads on websites and another 47% actively avoid mobile in-app ads.
Companies are taking a more active role in auditing digital buys and some have frozen digital media spending altogether.
The answer, as always, is to be engaging with content, information and entertainment that is meaningful and rewarding. A great and timely example of this is from Kraft Macaroni and Cheese. Instead of running banner ads, or pre-roll of boring TV spots, they created Swear Like a Mother, just in time for Mother’s Day. Thanks for sparing us your sales points about how “cheesy” the product is and how much kids love it. And instead, tapping into the reality of parenting. Now that’s how you do “digital.”