Clearly, automated ad-buying deeply degraded user online
experiences, digitally chasing or harassing audiences relentlessly
through powerful cross-channel, retargeting or predictive big data
technologies.
The ad-tech engineers, tone deaf to the human response of their
onslaught, were quick to assume no one wanted advertising, so they
devised nefarious ad-tech shenanigans to jam ads within every inch
of a user's digital life. The technologists missed the subtle but
critical point that consumers actually welcome advertising to
enrich their online experience -- if it is relevant.
So without understanding the central importance of the user
experience, programmatic platforms continued to push ads that were
intrusive, out of context or just plain annoying -- perpetuating
the race to the performance bottom.
Through all the dysfunction of the ad onslaught, marketers
rarely challenged the technology itself, even as it appeared to be
an unguided missile likely to hit "something," but probably not an
advertiser's audience. But true to form, we marketers took it on
the chin when the technology did not realize the promised
efficiencies and we assumed we were doing it wrong. We continued to
try again and again with predictably deteriorating results.
Grant now that it's fair to say the evidence identifies the real
culprits in this debacle -- and marketers didn't cause this mess.
Regardless, it does rest with us to fix it, given that we are
living with the consequences as human beings and as
professionals.
It would be overwhelming to think about how to rehabilitate the
ad-tech ecosystem if the answer wasn't so basic to what we
marketers are trained to do so well, which is to put the end user
at the center of everything we do.
This time, though, we do it with a disruptive twist. This time,
marketers will not follow the technologists but will lead the
technological expression of welcome user experiences by a
commitment for all levels of marketing to learn how to swim at the
deep end of the technological pool. All of us, not just the
technological few, need to become experiential designers,
well-versed in utilizing new technology to create new types of user
interactions. We can't allow anymore the "digital doing" to be left
to ad-tech engineers, and we can't afford to tolerate ventures
whose near impenetrable tech black box makes it hard to understand
how they deliver value for advertisers and audiences.
Redemption will be achieved by delivering genuine and quality
digital user experiences where trusted engagement is the metric
above clicks -- the ultimate expression of the science and art of
marketing. If we can match our understanding of the art of
marketing with the science of marketing, then marketers will have
the last laugh because we understand that a billion impressions
can't buy anything -- only people can. So everyone take a deep
breath and repeat after me -- ad blocking is not our fault.
