Page 61 - The EDIT | Q3 2017

Now that programmatic has become de rigueur in media meetings, I am regularly asked “Why create assets to target the whole
category? Why not go after the audience subset who will definitely buy what I’m selling? Surely mothers aged 25-30 who watch Anime and love wakeboarding on the weekends are ALL going to love my highly relevant message, right?”.
A younger, more belligerent Me would have rolled my eyes, but the older “softened-with-age-I-mean- experience Me” sometimes plays devil’s advocate and wonders ‘Why not?’.
The broad vs. niche targeting debate boasts signi cant minds on either side of the thin red line: Do we chase scale or do we go a er audience segments that have a higher propensity to be engaged? And in a world where technology and human behaviour are evolving in parallel, how do marketers make smart choices from the plethora of options available these days?
Let’s start with the theory
Humans have now created algorithmic systems
to empower extremely niche targeting. Any programmatic presentation will have that one slide
on how programmatic helps get the right message
to the right person at the right time. Look no further than Josh Samuel’s compelling argument for building what he calls ‘brand like’ (not brand love). Essentially, he states that brand affinity is effective at driving future purchase behaviour and accelerating growth beyond Byron Sharp’s principle of salience.
But as anyone buying new jeans knows, just because you can go tight doesn’t mean you should...
Je Goldblum being right in Jurassic Park (1993)
Byron Sharp and the Ehrenberg-Bass institute have demonstrated the benefits of driving scale and targeting broad categories — but it’s important to note that this is within the context of working within categories where the spread from heavy to light users is vast. To grow, brands must forgo focusing on a small group of loyalists who offer limited gains,
Continued over >
Thoughtleader
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Broad vs. Narrow, Mass vs. Niche. Loyalists vs. flirters. When it comes to targeting in advertising, the choices always seem to sit at two ends of a spectrum — creating a dichotomy that is challenging to manoeuvre, argues Priya Jean Alexander.
THE EDIT ISSUE 7 | Q3 2017