Advertising in the digital age

Big Business Ideas

Stephene Chikozho

IN this day and age, most aspects of our lives are found in the media. This makes the media the main tool through which we perceive the world and our role in it.

With constant technological shifts, the essence of advertising is changing.

The future is digital

What will the advertising of the future look like? Well, it seems we will have an indefinite spectrum of possibilities.

But one thing is certain: Advertising is going digital.

The future is AI

The digital media could inspire new forms of storytelling in future. Virtual reality and artificial intelligence (AI) will have an increasingly significant role in advertising, making the engagement opportunity even more accurate.

Advertisers have begun to experiment with new formats and mediums.

They seek to offer content that would be integrated across various media channels.

They want to track users from device to device, create multiple stories and use different media to become visible on multiple channels.

This means the media may soon become more exciting and creative.

The future is creative

That said, other forms of advertising will still remain effective and successful as long as they are creative.

Creativity without strategy is art.

Creativity with strategy is advertising. Without it, advertisers will not be successful, even in digital advertising.

In business, it is not helpful to be a creative, original thinker, unless you can sell what you are promoting.

Unpacking digital advertising

Advertising in the digital age involves marketing through online channels such as the digital media, websites, and streaming content.

Digital advertisements span media formats — including text, image, audio and video.

They can help African entrepreneurs and business executives to achieve a variety of business goals, for example, brand awareness and customer engagement, as well as launching new products and driving repeat sales.

The field of digital advertising is relatively young in comparison to traditional channels such as magazines, billboards and direct mail.

The evolution of advertising is not just about what the advertisements look like or where they appear, but also the way they are built, sold and measured.

Digital and traditional advertising

The primary differences between digital advertising and traditional advertising are flexibility and precision.

Flexibility

One example of flexibility is how quickly digital advertisements can go live.

The process of printing and distributing advertisements through traditional channels can take a significant amount of time. In contrast, digital advertising can have a much shorter lead time.

They can show up on a website almost immediately after the advertisement is created.

For advertisements that are automatically generated based on a standard template, the process can take literally a few minutes.

Print advertisements cannot be changed once they have been published but digital ones are flexible, even after the campaign is live.

Depending on the specific channel, it may be possible to adjust the creative content, timing, frequency and targeting.

This allows for in-flight optimisation, where you can make adjustments to advertising campaigns based on how they are performing.

Digital advertising is also extremely flexible in terms of budget.

Complex and high-profile digital advertising campaigns may be just as expensive as traditional advertising, — or even cost more — but the former are also accessible to smaller businesses without significant budgets.

Precision

Another key difference between digital and traditional advertising is precision.

Traditional advertisements in magazines and on TV or billboards reach anyone who sees them.

In contrast, digital advertising lets you use different methods of targeting in order to be more precise and reach audiences that are more likely to be interested in your advertisement.

For instance, if you sell construction and home improvement equipment, you may choose to reach audiences who are interested in building, real estate or re-engage shoppers who browsed your products but have not yet purchased.

Depending on the format, you may also choose to limit your advertisement to certain times of the day or exclude audiences who have already viewed your ad once from seeing it again.

Why is digital advertising important?

There are many reasons digital advertisements are a crucial part of the marketing strategy of any business.

Maybe the most important one is that consumers are spending more time connected to the internet through their computers, smartphones and smart home devices.

The average African with buying power now has access to the internet.

Secondly, digital marketing allows you to meet audiences where they are.

People make decisions about the goods and services they buy at all times of the day.

With digital advertisements, you can reach audiences when they are browsing online for products to buy.

Or you might reach them when they are streaming a TV show, visiting a favourite website or using social media platforms.

Even if they do not choose to purchase from you at that moment, reaching them in these different contexts can help them remember your brand later on, especially when they are ready to purchase.

Different types of digital advertising

There are multiple types of advertising formats in digital marketing.

The following are some of the most common:

 Search advertising

Search advertisements, also called search engine marketing, appear in search engine results pages.

These are typically text ads that appear above or alongside organic search results.

Display advertising

Display advertisements are online ads that use text and visual elements such as an image or animation, and can appear on websites, apps and devices. They appear in or alongside the content of a website.

 Online video advertising

These are ads that use a video format. Out-stream video ads appear in places similar to those of display ads: on websites, apps and devices. In-stream video ads appear before, during or after video content.

 Streaming media advertising

Also known as over-the-top, these are a specific type of video advertisements that appear in streaming media content delivered over the internet without satellite or cable.

Audio advertising

In the context of digital advertising, audio advertisements play before, during or after online audio content such as streaming music or podcasts.

Social media advertising

Social media advertisements appear on social media platforms such as Twitter or LinkedIn.

How digital advertisements work

There is no one answer to the question of how digital advertisements work. With the wide variety of digital advertisement formats, you can find ads that are simple to create and publish, as well as ones that require more complex tools.

There are different pricing models and targeting methods for different ads.

In the next instalment, we shall look at the practical aspects of digital advertising.

Stephene Chikozho is the managing director of Urbane Create Agency — a strategy, marketing and advertising agency. He writes in his personal capacity. You can follow him on social media (Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn), WhatsApp +263772409651 or email: [email protected]