I used to sneer at ‘creative’ programmatic, but now…

Perhaps ‘creative’ programmatic isn’t as big an oxymoron as Dominic Mills first thought…

I know what you’re thinking: that Dominic, he’s gone soft. He’s been consorting too long with those swivel-eyed loons from the world of programmatic.

Indeed, I was consorting with the ‘progs’ all last week – chairing three conferences/seminars, no less, and judging some programmatic awards (who knew, eh?) – and some of them aren’t as bad as you might think.

And so it is I am slowly coming round to the view that there can be a ‘creative’ element to programmatic, and that programmatic can be a means to deliver more creative ads.

Ok, there’s a long way to go, but put it this way: it is no longer the oxymoron that I used to consider it.

You can see how I used to think here, when I wrote about a trading desk that pronounced – like Moses from the mountain – that ads with a green background worked best for telecoms providers.

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Of course there are all kinds of problems in trying to define creativity, but essentially I am talking about display ads (or video) that are more nuanced, more relevant to the person targeted, and seek to reflect their personality, or the way they think and behave.

I am not talking about the kind of blockbuster executions that get the whole world talking. I mean, when was the last time you heard someone say, “Wow, I saw the most amazing home page takeover yesterday”.

And nor, by the way, do I think ‘creative’ programmatic is going to solve the adblocking problem. It’s hard to imagine a consumer saying: “You know what, the ads have got so much more creative I’m going to uninstall Adblock Plus, tell all my friends and post on social media about my Damascene conversion.”

Anyway, this is impossible since, by definition, anyone with an adblocker isn’t going to be seeing any ads (or at least only those from advertisers who have paid the adblockers to be white-listed).

But I have seen a few examples in the last week – notably from John Lewis, Thomas Cook and one other I can’t name because I’ve signed an NDA – that showed sufficient creativity to persuade me to shift my position a little.

These ads were different and better for a number of reasons: a) they were more personalised b) they contained elements of wit and humour c) I could see how they were designed to match or reflect the mood of the potential viewer d) they sought to understand the need state of the consumer and e) there were multiple executions, and I don’t just mean two or three based on crude segmentation.

Between the client, the media agency, the creative agency and the trading desk, they had made the effort to go the extra mile.

I suppose the key to unlocking the creative potential is in data. This was very much the theme of the VisualDNA breakfast event hosted by Mediatel that I chaired last week.

More data, certainly data beyond the standard stuff available, will help. For example, if an advertiser were to use the VisualDNA psychographic profiling data, they would get a much better understanding of the way individuals purchased products or services.

I live in a block of 14 flats. The only thing we have in common is that we share the same postcode. Yes, an advertiser could layer on other data, but that which helps them understand us as individuals would make a huge difference.

Of course, we are light years away from a universal acceptance that better creativity (or indeed, what it is) is necessary. But as more display is served programmatically, so it will become more important.

Part of this is down to crude economics: if advertisers are pumping out, let’s put it this way, bottom-of-the-funnel shit into dirt-cheap media on an industrial scale, then they’re not going to either afford or bother with better creative.

But as they move up the funnel, better creative becomes more important.

The Ad Contrarian Bob Hoffman makes the point in this interview with Brian Jacobs (about 10-11 minutes in) that, as a rough rule of thumb, the amount spent on creative should be proportionate to the cost of the medium. That’s why TV ads have big budgets, and why retargeting messages don’t.

Online display is clearly more expensive than retargeting inventory (or less cheap, if you prefer that perspective), so the budget devoted to creative should be in sync.

So while the core message and framing of the creative should reflect this, most of the budget should go into multiple executions – matching as many of the variables as possible.

This would allow the advertiser to practice DCO – it stands for dynamic creative optimisation, which is an acronym entirely new to me till last week. A number of specialists, like Jivox and Scoota, have emerged to service this need.

It sounds simple, but from what I understand, it’s not happening. A lot of the blame seems to get laid at the door of the creative agencies: too slow, too expensive.

But I would say this has more to do with the disconnect between creative agencies and those on the programmatic side. If the gap between creative agencies and media agencies is wide, it’s even larger when you add the trading desks and data analysts to the picture.

And this extends even down to client-level where the digital teams who want DCO (sorry, but when you get an acronym into your brain it’s hard to shake loose) are in a different silo to their more brand-related colleagues.

So for better digital creative, we need to see the constituent parts of the industry come closer together. Broadly speaking, I’m not optimistic, since the trend is for all parties to entrench themselves more deeply in their own silos.

But on the other hand, evidence is emerging that some advertisers and their agency partners get it, and are doing it effectively. Everybody else just needs to see it and follow suit.