As we get close to wrapping the 1st quarter, let’s check on how the industry is doing across the top 3 challenges brands and advertisers face this year.

• Challenge 1: Media and audience fragmentation
• Challenge 2: Drive for data transparency
• Challenge 3: Build an ethical and diverse landscape

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Challenge 1: Media and Audience Fragmentation

Between the increasing number of new media platforms and an overly distracted consumer, engaging a user has never been more challenging for both brands and advertisers.

As E.O. Wilson quotes, “We are drowning in information but starving for wisdom”. Data is available in plenty, and advertisers and brands alike are overwhelmed. Understanding how to sort through this data to find valuable information is the key to reaching the right audiences. However, while grabbing user attention is important, ensuring the quality of attention is also crucial. Leveraging the right platforms in the media mix, where users are not only spending time but spending quality time is fundamental to the media strategy. CPM is no longer a satisfactory metric, marketers need to go much further to understand the effectiveness of that impression. Understanding user behavior beyond basic platform metrics on how they engage with the brand post-ad exposure is where understanding its effectiveness comes into play. When you create a media mix that focuses on quality vs quantity, it also increases the creative strength by tenfolds.

At BGN, staying in a comfort zone is not an option on the table. We constantly challenge ourselves to find solutions and be innovative in our approach to ensure we are cutting-edge within the industry and primarily satisfying consumer needs. As people who are obsessed with media and numbers, we know it's about more than quantity and volume of impressions but instead about the quality that effectively engages the user. With this approach, we set up our clients not only for growth but mainly - sustainability.

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Challenge 2: Drive for data transparency

With Apple’s iOS14+ updates, and Google’s cookie-less future, combined with the concerns around consumer mental health, marketers are required to take a thoughtful strategic approach toward marketing efforts. In 2018, the government first stepped in with the GDPR regulation that affected the advertising industry and by 2024, the industry is aiming to go cookieless. Brands and advertisers must look at two things during this period.

Audience segmentation:

• 1st party audience expansion: Brands must have efforts in the marketplace to expand their 1st party audiences, as that is the most reliable source of data from a retargeting standpoint, and continue to advance their understanding of learning their audience behaviors that will influence their prospecting efforts. Additionally, maintaining these audiences over time through an ongoing engagement strategy is imperative.
• Contextual targeting: Contextual targeting will take a front-row seat in the cookieless environment. When you reach your audiences in relevant environments, cookieless concerns disappear as you are more likely to reach them in an engaging way. Hence knowing what your consumer’s browsing habits and media consumption behaviors are, is necessary.

Tracking and measurement:

• Attribution vs MMM analysis: The limitations of attribution measurement could not be more highlighted due to the loss of cookie tracking. As a result, brands and advertisers are now coming back to the traditional, more proven methods of MMM as it does not rely on cookies or personal user-level data. While challenges with MMM continue to exist, the flexibility and adaptability part of the model make it more promising and reliable.
• Reliance on AI and ML: Small brands that cannot afford to invest in MMM tools, can rely on AI and ML, based learnings that can offer both cost-efficient and speedy results. Experimenting is key in this environment as much as paying close attention to the evolving trends.

At BGN, we have an ongoing testing and learning process in place to ensure we are constantly challenging the status quo. When it comes to building audience segmentation, media mix, or determining creative needs, we have a custom methodology in place that gives us the accuracy of hitting the right users through effective mediums with engaging content that creates a meaningful experience for the consumer vs adding more to the noise.

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Challenge 3: Build an ethical and diverse landscape

If you have not read my previous blog post on Inclusive marketing and the state of the industry, I highly recommend going through it. You will learn, as an industry, we have taken steps backward in the past couple of years, and not much has changed in the past couple of months. Having an inclusive approach, not only drives better engagement with your users but also improves morale as a company.

Combining these 3 challenges with an economic recession, an ongoing war, and layoffs creates not only an unpredictable marketplace but a concerned consumer whose trust must be won and kept through careful measures. Hence advertisers and brands must work extra hard and ensure their strategy is both thoughtful and fluid that is adaptable to meet consumer needs.

If you enjoyed the read, reach out to us at hello@backgroundnoise.co to determine partnership/collaboration opportunities.