Innovative tech and all its shiny new things has dominated our mindspace within the media and marketing industry for the last five years. And that’s not about to change. But ask anyone how things are tracking this year and invariably, the conversation turns to the relentless speed of business.
It makes sense. Technology has done a lot to advance our industry; we are leaner, more efficient, more accountable – or at least we’re getting there. We also have an entrenched fear of missing out - and therefore, an insatiable need for speed.
If innovation has been the currency of the past decade, the new currency is speed.
Doing more with less
Australian businesses are probably operating at about three times the speed today than they were ten years ago. Given many of us have significantly less staff within our core function areas, operating in a highly complex, hugely fragmented media marketplace, this is no small achievement. Take a bow.
Then take a deep breath. Because 2017 isn’t looking too leisurely.
Our industry does more, faster and with less people. Yet there is a tsunami of new audience and market information to get our heads around. Note, I said “information” – not insight because very little of this abundance of audience data is properly analysed, meaning marketing professionals are often making decisions at record speed on somewhat questionable data.
With all this new data dropping in so quickly, many executives are working to 90 day plans and look visibly uncomfortable when anyone tries to engage on something as “long term” as a six-month commitment.
Still with me?
The efficiency dividend
As busy as 2017 is likely to be, on the upside, we are starting to see a true efficiency dividend generated out of our industry’s investment in innovative tech.
This is particularly apparent within television, where broadcast technology capability is closing the gap on digital ad tech. This is a significant game changer – allowing us to deliver the broadcast scale and premium content environment with the rapid and real-time targeting ability of online.
Innovations such as programmatic and dynamic trading are allowing television trading to match this new speed of business and keep media scheduling fast and flexible. On the data side, an investment in sophisticated TV audience measurement panel such as Multiview uses return-path-data from 200,000 anonymous homes combined with MCN Location allows advertisers to act swiftly on “actual” consumer behaviour, not just claimed behaviour.
What’s next?
Innovation goes far deeper than a product (or an app). The next level of innovation is in the way we deliver service – using our existing platform tools to deliver faster, more efficiently and with more accountability.
Despite all the hype around robots and automation, the next generation of innovation requires a more human touch.
The challenge ahead is not so much about introducing new technology as it is about helping bring teams up to speed with what’s currently available, and how they can use this to drive a true efficiency dividend for their business.
In 2017 expect to see innovation reinvented. We have the technology in place, we need to drive it harder to deliver more flexibility, faster response times, deeper insights from your data and to generate better creative and commercial outcomes for brands.