People are spending more time at home online and this is impacting how they consume media and how advertisers reach them.
Jack in the Box has seen an explosion within their digital guest experience this year, reporting a 50% increase in downloads of their mobile app. This means that the brand has been shifting to support this growth and new ordering demand.
“Many of those come from consumers you would consider late adopters – Baby Boomers and I don’t think these habits are going to change, said Adrienne Ingoldt, CMO at Jack in the Box, at Brand Innovators’ Future of Media livecast on Dec. 14. “I don’t think we’re going to go back to the world we lived in before the pandemic. It’s important for us to recognize that our relationships with our consumers have changed. They need us to continue to support them through our digital channels and with specific messaging moving forward.”
As brands support consumers in digital channels, they are faced with the challenge of attention. Even as consumers are spending more time online, media is copious. Consumers are jumping between social networks, streaming sites, gaming platforms, ecommerce sites and each of these brands is trying to appeal to their awareness.
“In today’s climate, attention is a very scarce resource. We all need to work together in order to align in a way that we can capture and incentive people’s attention,” said Paolo Provinciali, VP Media & Data, US, Anheuser-Busch InBev. “We know that 30% of the ads that air on TV are airing to an empty room. We know that people are distracted on multiple devices at once. In this context, impressions become meaningless. We need to constantly be working on how we can provide an attentive environment. I believe attention-based measurement and media currency systems are the future of the industry.”
Brand Innovators’ event addressed some of these key challenges that brands are facing and offered advice on how to adapt to the changing world. Here are three key takeaways for how brands can prepare for the future of media. Head to Brand Innovators’ YouTube page to watch the whole event.
Test screen-free media. Even as digital consumption rates have skyrocketed, Zoom fatigue is real and people might be more receptive to those messages they experience offline.
“While we have seen that digital has really exploded, at the same time people are experiencing a little screen fatigue, working from home and being on the computer all the time,” Ingoldt said. “We don’t even walk between meetings anymore, we just click. I think it’s important for us to continue to highlight other screen-free media like audio and also provide opportunities to engage on the human level because we lose that human connection when we’re stuck in front of a screen every day.”
Embrace the challenges. When the pandemic hit, Anheuser-Busch InBev was challenged to activate sports fans in news ways and found the experience educational.
“The golf tournament, the NBA season, how do we cater to a world where there isn’t a live audience,” said Provinciali. “It was a very interesting challenge but we had to adapt, but we learned a lot.”
Explore Video Channels. Campbell’s has found that consumers are engaging with Twitch, therefore severa of their brands are active on the platform. For instance, the company did a custom content piece with Twitch last year in which they brought a Campbell’s Chunky Mama’s Boy campaign to life using a Twitch player and his mother.
“I think it’s interesting when you look at what’s happening with video, a lot of platforms are aging down because they might have been older, while Twitch is actually the opposite and aging up,” said Marci Raible, VP, Global Media & Marketing Services at Campbell’s.
