Understanding the New Contextual Age of Advertising

The First Contextual Age of Advertising started circa 3000 BC with an ad on papyrus posted to a rock in the Egyptian city of Thebes It was an ad for Hapu39s Custom Fabric Shop The ad was placed in a highfoottraffic location where upperclass people frequently passed The same city around the same time saw much more papyribased advertising including political adsamp160and ads for various religions The Hapu ad today is in the British Museum in LondonFrom then through the 20th Century the First Contextual Age flourished Handbills pamphlets andamp160specialized newsletters were able to charge more if they were perceived to either reach larger audiences andor if the audiences were the types of people considered most likely to buy andor if the credibility of the source of other content near the ad was considered to be so high as to rub off on the ad This carried over most strongly to the magazine medium when it appeared and from there into radio and televisionThe founders of the internet declared firmly at the outset that there would be no advertising This pipe dream quickly vanished as reality seeped in The first ads in digital had choice of placement in high credibility environments as well as less professional ones Website targeting was the mainstay method and so this still fell under the First Contextual AgeDuring the 3990s without intending to do any harm to the recognition of the importance of context in advertising I conceived and with much help built the first addressable advertising system which was focused initially on televisionBy the turn of the 21st Century addressable TV ads were not yet the rage A man who had been inspired by the idea of addressable ads while conferring with Next Century Media in the 3990s called me one day and invitedamp160me to come over and see what he had doneamp160He had created addressable ads in digitalamp160That man was Dave Morgan His company TACODA was later acquired by AOL Again without intending to harm the contextual approach but meaning to add the more precise and relevant targeting alongside context I did some studies for Dave which showed that in digital both CT Context Targeting and BT Behavioral Targeting meaning website viewing behavior which revealed the interest of the visitor lifted advertising effectiveness on average suggesting a bit more power in the addressable targeting than in the aggregated targeting based on contextI was surprised years later when I heard many digital salespeople saying that context was now irrelevant since ID targeting was better I argued that the combination was the way to go A few people listened to meMany more people started to hear this truth two years ago when the ARF decided it was a serious matter ARF Executive Vice President Horst Stipp published a huge metaanalysis in the Journal of Advertising Research and the ARF put out a formal CMO briefing subtitled Bestamp160Practiceamp160strongly advising that context be put back alongside targeting that the two are orthogonal ie additive one does not replace the otherThis was the dawn of the New Contextual AgeIn September 2020 at the threeday virtual ARF Conference AUDIENCExSCIENCE the one topic that reappeared again and again was context with highly consilient results being proffered And now the ARF is putting on a special webinar on the subject on Monday November 9 2020 from noon to 2 pm consisting of two special panelsThe first panel sheds new light on old questions about news as an advertising context and the findings may surprise you but I won39t be a spoiler Panelists include CNN39s Executive Vice President Research andamp160Scheduling Robin Garfieldamp160NBCU39s Senior Director News Insights andamp160Positioning Alex Gittleson and Lumen39s Founder andamp160CEO Michael Follett The moderator is Dartmouth College39samp160and Merchant Mechanics39 CoFounder and Chief Research Officer Kimberly Rose ClarkeThe second panel is about the hot new medium known as Programmatic Premium OTTCTV recently shown to have higher ROI than any other television or digital media type and how contextual optimization works at the best practices cutting edge in that medium Panelists include Nestle39s Director of Marketing and ECommerce Chris Nanos Crackle39s Executive Director Advanced Products andamp160Partnerships George Castrissiades Reset Digital39s Founder andamp160CEO Charles Cantu Hearst39s Chief Data Officer Michael Smith and Mindshare Partner Director Invention and Private Marketplace Lead Rachel Lowenstein The moderator is Ipsos39 Global Lead of Neuroscience Manuel GarciaGarciaHope you enjoy and profitClick the social buttons to share this story with colleagues and friendsThe opinions expressed here are the author39s views and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaVillagecomMyersBizNet

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Understanding the New Contextual Age of Advertising

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Bill Harvey

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