How Display is Bringing Moment Marketing into the Mainstream

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With an average UK household now owning 7.4 devices connected to the internet, according to a recent IAB UK and YouGov study,  the ‘omni screen’ consumer presents a huge opportunity for brands. The rise of 4G connectivity, demand for larger screens and growth of smart TVs gives us insight into how consumers are using connected devices.

With smart TV sales forecast to hit £2.3 billion this year, their growth has created another way for brands to connect with consumers. Moment marketing allows opportunistic brands to trigger their ad campaigns in real-time and react to specific events such as weather changes, sporting events and celebrity news, engaging their audiences with a tailored and relevant message even after the event has occurred.

Programmatic has changed the way display is traded

Traditional ad buying is very much a manual process where advertisers agree to run a certain number of ads on a publisher’s site locking them into a contract. This limits advertiser flexibility to analyse the campaign as it runs in order to change spend, creative or day parting for example.  

However, the adoption of programmatic buying technologies has the ability to leverage data to automate marketing across display channels and deliver improved targeting, efficiency and relevancy. These capabilities have fuelled moment marketing because an advertiser can now change their creative and messaging served to an audience within seconds through simply triggering a data signal.  

The value of capitalising on moments

The way in which a brand conveys their message cultivates brand favourability and loyalty. Therefore, as consumers are increasingly heading online to express their views, interact with others, or browse and buy online, a huge opportunity is created. With this wealth of consumer behaviour and data, brands can identify moments and engage with consumers. 

One notable moment of a brand which identified a key moment via their social campaign was Oreo. Back in 2013, there was a power cut during the Super Bowl which  prompted Oreo’s social team to devise a simple yet brilliant message, ‘you can still dunk in the dark’. With over 10,000 retweets in the first hour, Oreo’s lone tweet went viral and showed the power of capitalising on a moment. 

However, moment marketing is not limited to social media but can be linked to a plethora of digital strategies. Display marketing provides a platform to reach prospects at scale without relying on the hope a campaign will go viral. Brands can use moment marketing foremost as a branding opportunity but also by retargeting their audience base.   

The travel vertical may want to harness the power of weather forecasts as a trigger to help create a moment. If the UK is forecast to have a particularly hot few weeks a UK camping operator could use display advertising to promote UK holidays with creative and timely messaging tailored to that scenario. Similarly, if a brand is rolling out a hashtag campaign within their TV ad, the imagery generated from the hashtags can then be funnelled into display ads and shown simultaneously with the TV ads. 

Our learnings

Rakuten Marketing trialled moment marketing with a luxury client whose goal was to acquire new site visitors by syncing their TV spots with their online display ads for one of their prestigious product collections.  Two conditions were put in place; display ads would be triggered when either competitor's TV spots went live or their own TV spots went live. The client saw a significant 44% increase in average order values and are now exploring more deeply into the moment marketing arena. 

Marketers have always had the desire to connect with people in all the moments that matter. Thanks to moment marketing, this statement is quite literal. A more connected world creates opportunities for advertisers to continue to capitalise on moments which engage a consumer, and due to the advancements in technology, this will continue to drive forward display advertising. Fuelled by programmatic ad buying, which already accounts for 70% of digital display budgets, moment marketing will play a more prominent role in marketing strategies, as brands test against different moments in real-time.