Relax. The IoT Is Going To Make Online Advertising Much, Much, Better.

Sunrise or Sunset? It's Your Call

If you've paid attention to our industry recently, you've seen all kinds of very unfortunate developments. There are big concerns about viewability. Malware is sneaking into new places, creating exceptional risks. CPMs are plunging for publishers, penetration levels dropping in key demographics. SEO is threatened by full automation and click fraud. Email is Dead. Copyright piracy is on the rise.

It's a wonder anyone can get out of bed.

But I've always been the kind of marketer and advertiser that prefers executing a positive message (Hope) over a negative one (Fear). So it comes as no surprise that I can't wait for New Tech and New Ways to make our lives better. And that's why I'm hyped for the Internet of Things (IoT), the blanket statement given to non-traditional devices getting online access.

In a slight paradox, I'm probably also going to be the last guy on my block to actually install a Web-connected fridge and smarthome tech (I have kids and pinch pennies). But who am I as a consumer isn't what's going on in the market. And the IoT is going to make our lives as marketers and advertisers much more interesting and effective. Let's get into the reasons why.

1) More data means less irrelevant messaging. 

Any grown woman who is reading this can, in all likelihood, rattle off the names of several prescription medications that she will never, ever purchase for her own use. Any grown man can do the same with hygiene products. On an everyday basis, especially in dense populations, we are drowning in advertising messages that are, at best, useless to the individual, and wasteful to the advertiser. At their worst, they are in placements that actively discourage use or encourage ridicule. And since the attention paid on all of these ads is constantly on the decline, because they are not relevant... well, you've got to show more. Tragedy of the commons writ large. In an IoT world, we just might be able to get to a point where the data starts to close out poorly placed ads. (Yes, I'm an ad and marketing pro who dreams of a world with fewer ads.)

Several SaaS providers are already offering the promise of single-casting ads in broadcast based on data from the user's web use, or from additional sources. So, taking this down to the individual level, maybe the fact that I'm a homeowner, father and husband who watches pro sports and lives in the suburbs (i.e., prime target for financial services and big family-friendly cars)... will finally get synched to the data that also says that I own a hybrid hatchback, multiple bicycles, and adopted CFC light bulbs as soon as they were available. Working from that data, perhaps my ad feed is best served not with truck ads and horror movie trailers, and more with fast food and the latest from Disney/Pixar. But the impact doesn't stop with better ads on just one screen.

2) Less irrelevant messaging makes for more interesting campaign choices.

Once we've eliminated the waste from those distribution campaigns, you and I will have many more choices as to what to do with our budgets. Maybe you put more into creative, and develop "Easter Egg" content for your site about your movie, and a guerrilla campaign that gets the word out. If we're selling trucks, maybe we invest more in co-pro campaigns at lifestyle events, or just pass the potential savings from the more effective spend into a better price point, or give our dealers more incentives in financing and rebates. Maybe both companies just pocket the difference and pay their employees or shareholders more. In any event, we've got a better situation than today.

3) Routine chores get easier for consumers, and advertising becomes more of a service.

The knee-jerk reaction to the IoT is that no one wants to get email from their freezer. But on the consumer level, I can't tell you how many times I've been at the grocery store, staring down a 2-for-1 deal on some of the stuff my family eats on a routine basis, and not knowing if we've already got it, or if there will be room for it once I get home. And sure, I could plan better, or just buy less, but wow, that's a great price, and everyone in the house loves this. So in it goes, for good or ill. Or I wind up making multiple trips. The IoT, as imagined here, is saving me money and time, cutting down on local traffic, lessening demand on the infrastructure, and so on. And that benefit scales.

Now, let's return that to the advertiser. In the example above, the refrigerator is connected to the smartphone, and helps to populate my grocery list (let's say, by an app developed by the store chain). The app then has the ability to offer coupons for products in super-targeted categories, in real-time... and also, to learn from past data, so that less attractive offers are filtered out. I'm still getting ads, but only for what I want to buy, and when I want to buy it. (A small aside: one of my past start ups provided just this sort of opportunity for marketers at the PC level. Our response rates, and CPM, were absolutely phenomenal. But I digress.)

4) The true market is revealed.

Want to make an online advertising pro grind their teeth? Talk about Super Bowl ad pricing. But at the end of the day, it's difficult to prove that one ad format is "better" than the other, because the online ad has near total data accountability and little brand appeal, while the latter is more or less completely flipped.

Now, consider a full IoT world, where marketers can connect viewer data from the screen. The fridge reads the bar codes on CPGs. The car can track to various locations. Information flows from the laptop, smartphone and tablet, and it all connects. Slowly but surely, we can start to get a much more complete picture of what ads are working, and which ones are not... for more than next-day recaps of which ad was funny, or touching, or, well, whatever.

Data analysis is its own reward. Connections serve to inspire further concepts and ideas. And while there are substantial privacy hurdles to overcome, and a great deal of permission to acquire and "last mile" pipe to install, the rewards are too great to ignore. The IoT, if done correctly and with enough policing to ensure that good faith efforts succeed over black hat types, will make our world more efficient on time, money, and resources... while also giving marketing and advertising pros better and more engaged audiences.

We can, of course, turn this into a "Blade Runner" / "Minority Report" dystopia of constant intrusion and irrelevance. Poor choices that lead to frequency cap abuse for high value categories, or "cyberstalking" concerns around sensitive products or categories, are going to happen, as part of the warts and all rollout that occurs with any development.

But when I see those future dystopia images, they seem a lot more like what we endure today, rather than what we will enjoy tomorrow.

Sunrise, not sunset. Hope, not Fear.

It's a better product to sell.

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You've read this far, so by all means, connect with me personally on LinkedIn.You can always email me at davidlmountain at gmail.com. And, as always, I'd love to hear what you think about this in the comments.