At home, work, or on the move, we are constantly connected through devices and services; virtually every facet of life is now enriched by consumer technologies. For advertisers, this creates an exciting and expansive digital playing field for creativity and technology to converge.
The creative opportunity is also fuelled by changing consumer expectations. People powered advertising with consumers in the driving seat demonstrates the importance of brands being relevant, agile, and interactive. The age of advertising enchantment has arrived.
Digital advertising is as much about being memorable and creating social currency as it is about knowing how to build campaigns that flow seamlessly into consumers’ everyday interactions with different devices.
The highly anticipated Windows 8 represents this new era of devices and services that enable people to explore and discover, without having their experience disrupted.
The evolution is about meeting consumers where they are, inviting attention and inspiring engagement, not interrupting their journey. Advertisers are now thinking beyond the traditional linear marketing funnel and learning the importance of constant streams of social touch points.
Microsoft’s broad digital portfolio reaches 83% of the UK online population and with the widest range of products we have over 35.7 million monthly unique users. Attention is our business and we are uniquely positioned to help advertisers connect the dots at scale.
Microsoft Advertising works with brands and agencies to develop technology and approaches that demonstrate the people-centric, interactive campaign opportunities.
Kinect for Xbox illustrates the first major steps in physical input/ User Interface (UI) since the mouse, thanks to the touch, gesture and voice capabilities. Unilever was one of the first global brands to pilot the NUads format to advertise its Lynx brand here in the UK.
For brands to adopt this new wave of advertising, approaches to media planning and content creation need to continue evolving. We are already starting to see less lock-in models across the industry and more cost-per models used instead.
In response to this, we will see glance-through rates and larger investment in smarter technology assessing engagement time and level of interaction.
In a world of connected experiences, the consumer, not content, is king. By placing the consumer in control across their choice of devices and services advertisers can deliver the next generation of experiences that feel like the future, in the palms of our hands, today.