The (hidden) Data / Exposure trade off

Taken to its most extreme , what you get when you combine two major characteristics of modern day communication -  namely, more data and higher ad avoidance - is a very curious paradox indeed : we are collecting more data to better target people - who are then going on to not see our ads !  

Now that is of course very extreme and said here only to convey the sense of the notion. To a lesser and perhaps less direct  degree though,  it's a not-inaccurate description of the marketplace today when you think about it. At a broad aggregate level , there is an invisible trade off between data and exposure happening out there. How the value added by more data offsets the value lost from fewer exposures is where the game is at today - and will increasingly be where it will be at going forward.

'Engagement'  (in all its forms -Social , Native and what have you) and 'efficiency' (i.e. less waste) are two of the ways we are responding today but that's just the tip of the icerberg. I believe data itself will need to be paid a LOT more attention to - not only to the answers they throw up but also to the questions we ought to be asking. It can - it must ! - start from the simpest basics of everyday data. For example, if  the 'Unique Views' on your video performance report is not truly that , i.e. not really unduplicated over the course of the campaign let alone across platforms , how reliable is 'Frequency Capping' ? If it is therefore not, then what is the unaccounted waste ? And so on. Brainware , the Human Touch if you will, is critical here if this has to be cracked.  

I touched upon this Data-Exposure trade off only in passing in my recent Campaign Middle East essay on Fragmentation. My point point here was that the 'problem' is not so much media fragmentation as ad avoidance which the fragmentation trend correlates with - though not necessarily in a causal way !  

Too much of a 'good' thing ? DON'T skip ad !

Facebook introducing autoplay video is an interesting development (read here)

This has game changing potential for the industry. As COO Sheryl Sandberg says , in terms of audience sizethis could be like a Super Bowl every day !  It needs to be done right of course , both from user experience and advertising POV.

Personally I feel we may have taken permission marketing just a little too far , especially with video ad Opt Out's. The free internet began unwittingly during Web 1.0. It has since  gone on to become a one way street.

Efforts at monetization by charging for access have panned out unsurprisingly : 'quality' content  with high perceived value and scarcity, stuff like Business and Sports  , can be put behind a pay wall but in a limited way mostly. Where inroads have been made , hybrid, limited- free-access is the dominant mode.

As irreversible as the free internet process is ,  there's scope to extract  higher advertising value from all those eyeballs by easing off the self-imposed sanctions just a little bit. Would audiences really mind watching a 30 second advert before a You Tube video ? Or having a display ad take up half their Facebook screen for a minute? We know the probable answer. But a couple of things have to be in place.

First, 'perceived value' is the operative word.  Users need to be informed and reminded of the value provided to them for free. It's become a blind spot that's taken for granted. And they need to be told of the costs involved. And, yes, also reassured that it'll lead to an even better usage experience.

Which takes me to the second point. The wider industry has to get it right on their part too. Sites  should continue to improve the user experience in terms of features , minimize intrusiveness , maximize product relevance, optimize for access device etc all of which is simple from a technical point of view. Advertisers and agencies should maximize  ad 'quality' the best they can. 

Once the benefits are seen by all concerned - user, site and advertiser / agency - we'll find it to be a  much smoother  roll out than we may presume now. I suspect all this will start to happen soon enough.