Why Digital Advertising Will Come Of Age In 2017: Salesforce

hand touching digital tablet, social media concept

B&T recently caught up with Salesforce’s director of advertising products for Australia, New Zealand, Japan and Asia, Kevin Doyle (pictured below), to talk all things digital advertising, and whether or not the traditional channels are well and truly screwed.

Kevin Doyle

How do you rate Australia’s digital advertising market? Are we up to speed with other markets overseas?

I think it’s bloody good. I look after Australia, New Zealand, Japan and Asia, and I can say with my hand on my heart that Australia is the absolute leader for data driven marketing in the region. What Australian marketers have done better than the Asian marketers that I’ve worked with is they’ve put their customers at the heart of everything that they do, versus metrics. All the marketers that we’ve seen who have done this have been super successful.

What are your predictions for digital advertising in 2017?

I think this year we’ll see digital advertising grow up to reach the potential that it’s meant to. For the first time, we’re actually in a position to go ‘Alright, when do we not show someone an ad?’ If you’ve called up a telco about a bad experience due to an outage, we can use their customer data that lives in Salesforce, send it through to the ad network and say ‘Hey, this peron’s currently got an open service ticket. They’re not having a great time. Let’s not show them the ad.’ That’s massive – we’ve never been able to do that before.

For a long time, marketers have talked about having a personalised customer journey across every touch point with the right media at the right time, and it feels no more than ever that there’s a seismic shift underway in Australia to make that happen.

Facebook and Google seem to have a firm grip on the digital advertising space globally. Do you see this trend changing?

I don’t think we’re going to see that trend change in the short-term. However, if you peel back the layers and look closely at why they are dominating, it’s because they’ve solved some really critical issues for marketers, such as making sure they’re not advertising to a device or a cookie or a mobile ID, but the person who owns it.

Until the rest of the industry realises that they can use the customer data that’s available to customise their message appropriately, I don’t think they’re going to catch up to Facebook and Google.

What’s the biggest challenge that brands face when it comes to digital advertising?

The confusion of the market has never been greater in terms of all the different pieces of technology that exist out there and what you really need to be successful.

As soon as the industry can make technology, attribution and viewability as simplified and as consolidated as possible, then marketers and brands will be able to get back to doing what they do best – focusing on the customer experience.

One of the reasons why Salesforce acquired Krux is to help connect a lot of the dots so that brands and marketers don’t have to. We wanted to take away the stress of technology so they can maintain their focus on the customer journey.

Are the traditional advertising channels (TV, radio, print) screwed?

No, I don’t think so. Advertising is about getting in front of potential and existing customers in the channel that’s right for them, so I think TV, radio, outdoor and print will still play a role in the future. I think what it’s about is understanding the capability of having more personalised messages in other places.

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Advertising Standards Bureau Kevin Doyle Rob Creekmore