With today’s consumers demanding more original, personal and provocative experiences, advertisers need to find new ways of approaching digital advertising, digital growth agency IAB states.
At the 2016 IAB MIXX conference, it was clear that consumers were rejecting experiences that do not fulfill their needs and that agencies need to connect with consumers through authentic human stories.
Fast food company McDonald's senior VP Deborah Wahl told delegates at the event that the ad blocking trend was proof that advertisers needed to embrace a culture of listening. “Consumers have the freedom to tune us out. This drives us to participate in a new dialogue, where we put the consumer first.”
New York City-based digital agency 360i chairperson Bryan Wiener added that the agency of the future would offer storytelling that gets attention, uses a data-driven approach and is digitally led but not digitally limited.
New York Times advertising and innovation senior VP Sebastian Tomich also weighed in on the conversation, stating that while there is debate whether social media is going to be the future of where people consume journalism or news, there is no debate about social media’s dominance over people’s time.
“If advertisers want to get social with their customers, they need to devise valuable ways of entering the conversation,” he noted.