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Why advertisers should think like comedians

By Naj Kidwai

Article Highlights:

* Customize your message similar to the way a comedian tailors a joke
* Video ads should not be delivered in a one-size-fits-all approach
* Personalized video increases ROI and engages consumers with your brand

Before walking on stage a stand-up comic scopes out the crowd. A comedian isn't going to start a skit to an all-female crowd with "So a guy walks into a …"

Comedians don't just walk on stage without preparation. They have several key points in mind, sit in as an audience member, mingle, check out the location and come into the room with adequate knowledge of hot topics in the news.

Online advertisers can learn a lot from comedians.

If you've ever been to a comedy show, you know that the audience plays a huge role in the delivery of a joke -- whether it influences the topic of the joke, the level of emotion with which it's told or how the audience influences the details of the joke itself. There's a feedback loop necessary for the successful execution of a joke. Take away the audience or the ambiance and it's guaranteed that the joke won't be as funny.

Outside of the comedy-club environment, the comedian loses his direct connection to the audience, minimizing the art of a good punch line. Every audience requires a different punch line to incite a laugh. Advertisers are similar in this respect when they're trying to reach their audience. Every consumer requires a slightly different message to entice a purchase.

The art of storytelling requires a push and pull between the storyteller and the audience. In the case of advertising, it's a push and pull between the delivery of a brand's message and its target consumers. In advertising, every message that will lead to a purchase resonates differently with each consumer. Personalization is a way for advertisers to use storytelling to their advantage, to build a connection with the consumer and increase ROI. Recent personalized video campaigns have resulted in more than double the click-through rates and 50 percent more sales conversions than traditional video campaigns.

In many respects, advertising online has branched out too far from the basic idea of storytelling in the hopes of reaching a mass audience with a one-size-fits-all approach. Consumers want more control over the advertisements that they engage with online -- ads that convey relevant, real-time stories about the products that interest them.

Personalization is a new trend in advertising both online and in television. Companies like Visible World and ZillionTV are using viewer advertising preferences based on geography, programming, inventory levels, time of day, weather, and category selections to offer brands a highly targeted and engaged audience. In the case of online video, personalized online video ad technology today like my company Real Time Content make it possible for brands to assess consumers' interests based on profile data and user interaction to not only tailor the type of ad, but take it a step forward by creating an advertisement in real time.

Storyboarding technology enables brands to create thousands of different ad variations by segmenting and tagging the video content in the initial campaign stages. The relevant video segments are assembled using the technology platform, which develops the video in real time based on the expressed interests of each individual viewer. Rather than having a handful of different storylines canned, storyboarding technology opens the door for thousands of different video combinations. The resulting ads are customized video experiences that give consumers more control over the content they are watching. The result? Consumers are more likely to be converted to a customer, which leads to an increased ROI.

The typical production process for the development of a personalized video campaign includes three basic steps:

1. Campaign development: During the campaign planning stage, video clips are segmented, tagged and categorized based on the goals of the ad campaign.
2. Ad creation: The video segments are assembled using a storyboard technology platform that creates thousands of different ad variations, which are personalized based on viewer interaction and user profile data. The platform enables contextually targeted ads based on a number of different profile variables, including geographic location, date and time, language, or viewer input about what they want to watch.
3. Real-time delivery: The technology instantly delivers a video ad that directly reflects the user's interests and behavior. Consumer reactions are measured for the advertiser and used to optimize future content.

Personalized video is akin to a brand's version of the comedian. Brands need to customize the delivery of their message similar to the way a comedian tailors a joke. A large part of the issue in linear video advertising is the lack of personal feedback that one gets from direct interaction with an individual based on the basic premise -- "What are you interested in?" Personalized video is about maximizing engagement with the individual.

Personalized video campaigns have resulted in greater effectiveness and better return on investment. The consumer is more engaged with content that caters directly to their interests, while spending more time with the advertiser's message and increasing the brand's awareness.

Nationwide, a leading U.K. financial services company with more than $480 billion in assets, recently executed a personalized video campaign to help increase the effectiveness of online advertising campaigns on its website as well as on third-party portal sites. The goal was to generate increased purchase intent through personalization of existing video assets. Consumers who interacted with the ad could experience more than 16,000 different video versions based on a broad number of content variants included in the campaign.

The personalized video campaign resulted in a 300 percent higher click-through rate for product offerings and a 100 percent increase in sales conversions compared with the standard video campaigns the company had executed. It also resulted in more than 8 million impressions and served more than 100,000 personalized video ads.

Advertising is no different than telling a good story. It's about a message and the delivery of that message in a way that touches your audience. Personalization in this capacity is a new way of looking at online advertising by bringing in the age-old basics of storytelling. By playing on the individual's interests, emotions, and online characteristics to fit the ad to the viewer, brands are able to target consumers more effectively.

Naj Kidwai is CEO of Real Time Content.

Original Article Here

Amazing Future Technology

Push Your Clients, Your Employees and Yourself

By Bart Cleveland

We all have a comfort zone. For example, people who make ads tend to first create the ad in a voice that appeals to the audience they know best: themselves. This makes for some interesting creative reviews when the assignment is to sell health insurance to geriatrics -- since few of us have geriatrics on staff. I remind my staff that just as a great actor can convincingly portray characters much different from himself, ad makers must be able to communicate to any audience with their voice. To succeed at this particularly difficult task, they must get out of their comfort zones.

We are all familiar with stories of successes that happened after years of trial and failure. Yet fear of failure keeps many of us from trying something new or even contemplating the possibility of thinking of something new.

It is important that an agency help its employees avoid their comfort zone. This means its leadership must ensure its employees do not fear failure. In fact, an agency would be well served to reward those who continually push the envelope. I believe that one observable trait of a creative thinker is a contrarian attitude. People who like zagging because of all of the zigging they observe tend to discover success where no one else has thought to look. They have the perspective that if it has always been done a certain way, there must be a better way that has yet to be tried. These are the employees you hang on to at any cost, because they are rare.

Pushing your clients out of their comfort zone is as important as pushing your employees. In fact, the latter can never happen without the former happening first. Take a look at the work you're doing for your most conservative client. Is it pedestrian or pioneering? If pedestrian, when was the last time you failed to sell that client an idea because it was a little too "risky"? If it has been awhile, you are most likely letting that client lounge in its comfort zone, and one day its management will hold you accountable. That day will happen when a threat, a new competitor, a flat market or some other problem raises its head, and all of that comfortable thinking you've been providing will suddenly seem pretty dull and ineffective.

But before you push your employees or your clients, you need to check the zone where you are residing. When was the last time you had clammy hands before a presentation because you knew your thinking was going to make the client squirm? If it's a short-term memory, your agency and your clients are probably pushing the envelope too.

If you're in your comfort zone, don't expect advertisers who are looking for innovation to take notice of what you're doing. Your agency is not going to attract clients who are looking for innovation just because you have the potential to be innovative. If there is one comfort zone clients have the most trouble leaving, it's when they leave their old agency to hire a new one. They want a sure bet. That means they must see the proof in your pudding.

In some ad shows, there is actually a category for work that didn't get bought. I never will enter that category. It's admitting the idea is dead. Worthless. Without hope of ever being produced. I don't know who thought up that award category, but I bet they think that being awarded for an idea that died is some kind of justification for failing. To be brutally honest, failure is their comfort zone, because even those who are succeeding have the same trouble making great work happen. Those who succeed simply overcome the obstacles. I believe their success comes as a result of wanting it a little more.

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