In this post-digital era, the challenges faced by advertising companies are no longer a simple digital transformation but rather how to stand out in making innovations in applications and satisfying immediate demands of people. The core competitiveness of the advertising industry lies in deep insight into content, media and user experience by capturing the context of changes here.
Facing difficulties and moving forward following the trend
How can advertising companies pursue longtermism and stand out from the tide in the post-digital era?
Is the Internet a good thing? The answer is
undoubtedly "Yes", if asked five years ago. At that time, digital
marketing was in the ascendant, and the Internet created many employment
opportunities, innovation space, and profit channels. But now, the answer seems
to be not clear anymore. Advertising companies are gradually losing their
"jobs" to the Internet as a result of people's panic during economic downturn,
in-house marketing capabilities owned by more brands and small workshops
increasingly established by outstanding creators.
They are meeting the most challenging
difficulty of "how to achieve post-digital transformation", rather
than "how to achieve digital transformation". So what is the
"post-digitization"?
The keywords in the post-digital era are differentiation and immediate demand. Differentiation derives from the application of digital technologies in an innovative manner. Unlike the traditional digital era, simple application of digital technologies alone is not enough to make marketing stand out. In the post-digital era, consumers' needs can be immediately captured by big data. Advertising companies are also required to deliver on demand immediately upon its arising, while better understanding consumers, business partners and their goals than before, undoubtedly increasing their workload.
In 2022, Oriental Selection became a hot brand, and it continued to hold a post in the top list of Tiktok anchors selling goods. This is a perfect example demonstrating that advertising, or what we used to know as "advertising", no longer exists. These record-high marketing figures are not based on high-profile advertising campaigns, but lies in deeper understanding of content, media and evolving user experiences. In the post-digital era, people always highlight the "content priority", but considering the great collision between content and various media, we have to change our direction of thinking:
Building agility
Nowadays, we need more agile and flexible creative engines. This involves producing brand-oriented contents. Channels are as important as contents. These creative contents, which may include 6-second trailers, 3-minute videos on Weibo, 30-second advertisements on TV, 1-minute KOL broadcasting on TikTok, or multi-brand co-broadcasting that attract millions of fans, need to be activated on appropriate platforms. That is the real "advertising campaign" these days. Therefore, ADAO actively introduces digital talents, adopts digital transformation and provides integrated digital advertising solutions in its organizational structure and middle platform building, including talent and technical models in search engine optimization (SEO), search engine marketing (SEM), social media marketing, content marketing, digital analysis and other fields.
Transforming the leading role
In this post-advertising era, what matters is to change our attitude and way of thinking. Traditional advertising focuses on product or brand, now we must put this concept aside and shift to consumers as the leading role. If you put consumers at the center of communication, you provide them with something related to their lives and culture. Brands need to look upon media, culture and narrative from the perspective of users. Therefore, advertising companies need to provide more accurate and targeted digital advertising services by collecting and analyzing user data. ADAO has made an advertisement for the middle-large size SUV of an automotive product. We found through digital analysis that most audiences of this product were male with a sense of responsibility, so we advised the brand to sign a contract with a domestic top tough man star, who is greatly aligned with the tones of the product and the audience. Our advertisement received praise from users and as a result, the product was sold well.
Creating resonance
In the post-digital transformation era,
every industry is under threat posed by digital native competitors and finds it
increasingly difficult to maintain its market share. One of the most direct
ways to stand out from the "homogenization ocean" might be
understanding the emotional state of consumers, otherwise the brand may lose
its distinctive features. In this new dynamic, brand and experience constitute
indeed two aspects of the same thing. Digital and physical interactions are
driving brand awareness. Advertising companies can help customers stand out in
the market and establish brand awareness and loyalty through storytelling and
emotional resonance. Therefore, the company needs to integrate the unique
emotional connection with the brand into every experience to develop a positive
and lasting impression, and establish brand awareness and loyalty through
storytelling and emotional resonance. For example, in our outdoor advertising
for a car product, we embedded the audience's head portrait in the product and
present it on the interactive screen in real time using the camera on the brand
display board, so that customers can further understand the product features
and usage scenarios, while participating in the interaction, to obtain more
information of target users, thus creating conditions for product tracking and
conversion in the future.
It is often said that an advertisement must provide customers with the information they want within only seven seconds, if not, they will try other competitors. In the post-digital era, the linear purchasing journey has now turned into a complex and disconnected path, through which consumers can reach new brands beyond traditional advertising channels. With a new round of digital transformation, however, opportunities are emerging. Interestingly, advertising companies fail to see a clearly defined formula for success, when embarking on a new journey of transformation. Once you launch a digital experience, it's time to consider the next wave of iterations to anticipate what customers will want next.
In the digital marketing era, good and bad get mixed together in advertisements, and consequently the advertising format is increasingly chaotic. ADAO adheres to the longtermism. It never pursues short-term success brought by traffic, nor blindly follows the hot trends, because as long as the fundamental principle of the market remains unchanged, you always have a foothold with good quality. Staying calm and keeping concentrated is invaluable in the post-digital era.
Next, advertising companies can actively explore and apply emerging innovative technologies, such as augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR) and smart devices. Applying these technologies, advertising companies can provide customers with unique, interesting and distinctive advertising experiences, making their brands more attractive and influential. Meanwhile, advertising companies can cooperate with emerging industries, such as rising AI, VR and blockchain, to provide these industries with professional advertising and marketing support. Through collaboration with emerging industries, advertising companies can expand their business and get access to new customers and projects.
Conclusion: Consumers on the Internet have a new set of unreasonable expectations, which are within reason in fact. All consumers know that they can get the answer to a question in a few seconds, and they expect advertising marketers to recognize who they are and what they need. In the post-digital transformation era, a brand still has more work to do than just provide interaction and interfaces, provided that it wants to succeed in customer loyalty. Advertising companies need to keep learning and making innovations, training digital capabilities, core creativity and professional knowledge of their teams, pay attention to industry trends and the latest technological developments, and timely adjust and optimize their service modes to meet market demands. We must also maintain communication and cooperation with customers, provide them with digital and personalized solutions, and continue to deliver high-quality services and results. With good word-of-mouth and customer relationships, advertising companies can stand out in the fiercely competitive market and realize a breakthrough of traditional advertising companies in the new era.