Getting the attention of the masses was easier in the days when your product was exclusive to the masses and didn’t have as many competitors. In today’s world, your product is often just another drop in the ocean, and the real challenge is the art of capturing the attention of your target audience and, more importantly, keeping that attention among the vast array of options they’re pitching. It is truly a titanic task for companies to get their message across to potential consumers and encourage them to buy their product. The option of using technology as an advertising solution can be considered here, and in many cases it is in fact already being considered.
AI in advertising
AI solutions are entering the battlefield to help solve the problem of capturing the attention of potential customers. These solutions can discover leads through clustering and pattern matching, customise messages through AI-based hyper-personalisation, and determine the most appropriate time and means to communicate through pattern-based identification. A great example is Dixons Carphone’s strategy of forcing shoppers to join the Black Friday sale. It was the artificial intelligence software that helped the platform get the winning line: “The time has come.”
This line is believed to have worked since it didn’t include the obvious “Black Friday” words that the platform’s copywriters all mentioned when trying to craft the most compelling slogan. Ultimately, it was technology that managed to produce something different from this standard way of thinking. It was the technologies that broke that chain.
Interestingly, for the first time in advertising, an AI solution was used in 2018. The popular car company Lexus created an ad that was developed using an artificial intelligence system. The platform used data from 15 years of award-winning advertising worldwide.
An AI agent has developed a 60-second film that shows the story of a car that comes to life and explores interesting questions about humanity and creativity, and how these aspects relate to AI.
Lexus advertisement below:
How is artificial intelligence changing advertising?
AI is poised to revolutionise the advertising worldview with the promising benefits and benefits it offers. We have mentioned several ways in which organisations can use AI in advertising.
Personalisation
In the case of advertising, personalisation is the acquisition of information or information about consumers in order to increase the importance of an advertisement to its potential audience. These ideas may relate to demographics, buying intent, interests, and behaviour patterns.
For example, it may be possible that a younger target audience is more attracted to a particular visual-oriented advertisement, as opposed to an older target audience who may prefer more detailed and thoughtful advertising that focuses more on products and services.
This will help advertisers narrow down the issue and focus on preparing only one version of the approach that can be fine-tuned with artificial intelligence algorithms and then offered to the right consumer segments. Tools like Persado that use natural language algorithms are used by advertisers to create personalised wording for commercial copy.
One profitable personalised AI solution is conversational marketing. This approach can help advertisers maintain personal connections with their consumers, improve the relationship they have with their brand, and create a better shopping experience.
Creation of advertising
Interestingly, now AI is also being used to create ad copy. Some social media and online advertising companies have begun to implement tools that can help advertisers create a compelling message. Facebook and Instagram in particular are two platforms that have AI-powered tools to help their users both create ads and offer them options. This helps save time for platforms and also offers content with higher response rates.
Along with online advertising companies, many emerging platforms and startups are also expanding their reach with tools that help ad creatives produce better and more specific ads. While some solutions focus on maximising ad content, others focus on increasing ad spend and zeroing out channels.
We also have multiple platforms that are working on fully automated ad systems that can target markets, discover audiences, generate content, execute bids, and place ads independently.
AI is also being applied to monitor ad spend, track sales, and consumer behaviour. Platforms such as social media companies also use this technology to evaluate ads placed on their network.
Effective audience segmentation
The use of machine learning allows advertisers to identify patterns according to audience behaviour and message persuasiveness. This is achieved by using all the data available in the machine learning of a particular person, such as their online behaviour and preferences, to make the right decision about what content a particular segment prefers to see.
An example of this is platforms such as AgilOne, which allow marketers to improve email and website engagement by constantly changing their approach by observing user behaviour.
AI ads convert better
By looking beyond past performance and trends, AI is able to generate insights that guarantee fruitful decision making and ensure that the budget is not invested in non-commercial advertising copy.
This is done by moving away from conventional A/B testing to making data-driven predictions about how a proposed message will capture the attention of the target audience. This allows advertisers to become more proactive in their approach to creating ads and encourages them to strive to generate more qualified leads and conversions.
McDonald’s has reached out to IBM Watson Advertising to draw attention to its limited-time McCafe specialty coffee offering. The main goal was to increase engagement and attract consumers to purchase goods, as well as track shop visits by customers. To achieve this goal, McDonald’s used compelling and impressive backgrounds to capture the attention of users.
McDonald’s – used IBM Watson Advertising location data and store locators to get the following results:
- ~ 5,000,000 impressions
- 168% more cost-per-visit performance compared to category benchmarks
- 0.71% CTR for mobile branded backgrounds + 25% vs benchmark
- 79% of open users visited McDonald’s restaurants within 3 days.
Campbell’s Soup Company – Known around the world for Andy Warhol’s paintings, Campbell’s canned soups have also become famous in the tech community for one of the largest video ad campaigns ever called SoupTube.
In 2016, the brand’s marketers created 1,700 different versions of video ads for soups and broadcast them before videos on popular services. The neural network determined the content of the video and assumed which audience could watch this video. Based on these data, the most suitable commercial is selected out of 1700 possible.
The results of this experiment are simply stunning. Marketers managed to achieve 1.67 million total ad views before the main video. Approximately 24.9% of people did not skip ads after the first 5 seconds, but watched them. And the company’s sales increased by 55.6%.
Google Outside – Naturally, this selection should have included a campaign from one of the most famous technology brands in the world. We will talk about the Google Outside advertising campaign, in which Google showed that it is a leader not only online, but also offline marketing.
This campaign was carried out in 2014 and its goal was to attract users to Google Search. To do this, advertising was shown on electronic billboards in London, which changed depending on the weather, time of day, day of the week and other factors.
For example, on Friday evenings, billboards showed the route to the nearest discount bars, and during football matches it displayed a list of the nearest pubs with free seats. And in rainy cold weather, a route to the nearest coffee shop could appear on the screens.
As a result, 80% of people surveyed from a focus group who often saw Google billboards at bus stops called them (Google) the most technologically advanced company. And more than 20% of those surveyed have installed Google Search on their smartphone.
Allows you to make profitable decisions that increase your ROI
AI-powered tools consume massive amounts of data to accurately predict future trends and analyses. Because AI is a powerful tool that is constantly innovating, adapting and learning, it helps creatives make better ad decisions.
While advertisers have long sought to measure the success and impact of their campaigns, analytics are a saviour in helping platforms decide what works and what doesn’t. This ensures that advertisers remain vigilant in making decisions that will effectively drive their campaigns.
A great example is Spotify and Netflix. These platforms use artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms to offer music and content to users according to their preferences.
These algorithms help the platform make effective decisions about what content to offer based on the likes and dislikes of their audience. The more consumers get used to the high level of personalised recommendations offered by these two platforms, the more they prefer brands that provide a similar experience.
Benefits of using artificial intelligence in advertising
Artificial intelligence can offer a competitive advantage to advertising campaigns by facilitating the user experience and minimising human error. The potential benefits are clear and organisations are paying attention to them.
Choosing the Right Influencers
Influencer marketing is a strategy that is very useful for brands looking to develop further personal connections. However, the real problem lies in choosing the right influencers. Using artificial intelligence, you can find the right influencers, develop the right content strategy, and increase engagement across platforms.
Target the right audience
The biggest challenge marketers usually face is attracting the right people. Artificial intelligence can interpret various data sources to determine the chances of users taking a particular action, making campaigns more effective and proactive. From building lookalike audiences based on past campaigns to discover new contacts and grow your sales funnel, to using AI and location data to target people from nearby stores to increase traffic or create customised offers based on the weather. AI can be used for a variety of purposes when it comes to attracting the right audience.
Making fast and accurate decisions
With the right insights and data, marketers can make quick and accurate decisions at a faster pace. This is necessary in order for the ad to remain relevant to the target audience.
For example, during a pandemic, an increase in cases can reduce the likelihood of shoppers visiting stores. AI can act as a decision maker and ensure that fast decisions are made to set up messaging and switch campaign focus if and when needed.
Improve your ROI(return on investment)
The real struggle is to invest in advertising and face the lack of expected results. Advertisers constantly struggle to learn about the impact of their campaigns and the steps they need to take to improve their results. The use of analytics can help these platforms determine an effective strategy and in turn improve ROI while reducing any waste generated.
Conclusion:
Advertisements may seem nasty when they stop us from consuming content, but we can’t deny their power and the promise they offer when presented in the best possible way, at the best time, and to the ideal audience.
While we may not have realised it yet, AI is definitely innovating the world of advertising, simplifying its strategies and revolutionising its approaches. From customising the approach used to serve ads, improving ad relevancy, to monitoring ad quality, AI has taken root in all areas, offering advertisers the ability to get the most out of their ad spend.