As the promises of advertising inch ever closer to science fiction territory, Agency Solutions APAC’s VP Zuzana Urbanova reminds marketers that being data-empowered is the key to unlocking the future.
From the real world to virtual playgrounds, from the living room to the city streets, digital advertising’s future will be connected, intelligent, and relevant. Breaking down barriers between the digital world’s many stakeholders will lay the groundwork for this future, with the free flow of data between them acting as its fuel. Become data-empowered, and you can stake your claim in this future today.
Visions of the future portray cities drenched in neon lights and glowing with screens, and that’s not far from the experience of walking through many of APAC’s metropolises today. The plummeting costs, spectacular brightness, and high efficiency of modern display technology have filled shopping districts and malls with dazzling internet-connected screens.
What science fiction didn’t anticipate was privacy regulations. While a digital billboard directly addressing a passer-by may have a futuristic appeal, it would be deeply off-putting for the person experiencing it, and would certainly trample over data usage laws. But thanks to advances in data connectivity, digital out-of-home (DOOH) advertising doesn’t have to address someone directly to deliver highly effective targeting.
That’s because everyone carries a proxy of themselves in their pocket: their smartphones. These devices hold a wealth of non-personally-identifiable data which, when combined with location, allow DOOH platforms to anticipate the movements of highly specific audiences and serve ads to them.
There’s always been an element of this with billboards (office wear adverts have long been a staple along commuter routes) but the richness of data today and the speed of automation means DOOH creative can be refreshed programmatically to, for example, direct university students to a local cosmetic store’s flash sale or alert fans of a particular pop artist of a new merch drop.
Where we still have a gap between today and this LED-bright future is in the connectivity of data to power such targeting. For DOOH to achieve its full potential at scale, brands, retail stores, media publishers, app developers, and anyone else who has a piece of the data puzzle need to be sharing aggregated audience insights scrubbed of any personally identifiable information.
Data collaboration technologies have enabled many such partnerships, and more will follow as companies realise the goldmine of insights they are sitting on and the rewards they can reap from intelligent advertising powered by widespread interconnectivity.
TV screens will become shopping destinations
The screens inside the home are evolving just as fast as those outside. CTV advertising is benefiting from the same data collaboration opportunities described above. A retailer can overlay their aggregated audiences with those of a CTV publisher, for example, enriching audience profiles with otherwise unknown relationships between content consumption and purchase history and providing a direct link between ad exposure and sales uplift.
This is especially valuable for either end of the exchange because both have massive gaps in audience understanding if they rely exclusively on their own first-party data. Understanding someone’s media tastes provides little targeting fodder in isolation, while shopper data is largely inaccessible for the CPG brands that need it most if it is only activated within the retailer’s domains.
Data connectivity is weaving the next generation of targeting behind the scenes, but it’s the user-facing end of the advertising experience where change will be felt the most. Shoppable ads are both a convenience for the viewer and bring addressability to the big screen through the CTV equivalent of a “click”, with users scanning a QR code or hitting a “send to phone” prompt to go directly to a product listing or even a pre-filled shopping cart ready for checkout.
CTV advertising is not just becoming more interactive, but more accessible too. TV was historically the home of big brands’ campaigns, while the majority of digital spend has been driven by performance advertisers. This lucrative long tail is starting to make the jump to CTV thanks to generative AI lowering the creative barrier to entry, platforms integrating easy-to-use programmatic buying interfaces, and a wealth of supply opening up budget-friendly inventory.
Virtual adverts will deliver real results
We’ve covered the future of screens inside and outside the home, but what about the mobile screens that straddle both? Beyond leveraging the same data connectivity advances coming to DOOH and CTV, mobile advertising’s next frontier is in its ever-expanding virtual worlds.
In-game advertising is nothing new, especially in the APAC region, which has the world’s biggest population and proportion of mobile gamers. While free-to-play is the dominant financial model for mobile games, there has always been a tension between the advertising experience and the gaming experience, with ad slots delaying or interrupting play.
This limited advertising experience was driven in part by the limitations of the games themselves. Today, many of the biggest mobile games are not 2D puzzle games interspersed with repurposed display ads but full-fledged 3D worlds, with games like Genshin Impact, PUBG Mobile, and the global phenomena Roblox taking full advantage of the powerful hardware of modern smartphones.
3D mobile games provide the opportunity to place ads directly within the game environment, spanning everything from a virtual equivalent of DOOH with in-game billboards through to sponsored apparel worn by avatars. Real-world products can even be dropped in directly, as seen with PUBG Mobile’s extensive partnerships with automotive brands, allowing players to drive their flagship cars.
From the real world to virtual playgrounds, from the living room to the city streets, digital advertising’s future will be connected, intelligent, and relevant. Breaking down barriers between the digital world’s many stakeholders will lay the groundwork for this future, with the free flow of data between them acting as its fuel. Become data-empowered, and you can stake your claim in this future today.
Ready to learn how to turn your data into a powerful growth engine? Let’s talk — connect with Lotame’s team of data experts here.
