Ad Tech Companies are Evolving but are Brands Moving at the Same Speed?

Emerging technology plays an important role in introducing new ways to drive business. With mixed reality, VR, augmented reality, and AI at the forefront of this new market segment, advertisers are persuaded to create cutting-edge strategies to help them promote their brand. This puts leading ad tech companies at an advantage.

Remember when everyone freaked out over Lowes Holoroom How To VR Campaign? Or when Magnum did an integrated campaign, including opening pop up shops, influencer play, fashion partnership and an amazing AR campaign? To stay relevant in their industry, brands are realizing that adopting emerging technology is a must-have.

So are companies still ad planning as if it’s 2015?

Not really. As they become more educated on the best ways to integrate XR/Mixed Reality into their Marketing and Advertising campaigns, companies continue to introduce new ways to excite customers. So yes, the adaptation cycle has become shorter, even with the diverse offering of new-age technologies that are trending, which is great! However, as immersive technologies are created at lightning speed, a majority of brands are still treading lightly. The deciding factors for implementation still rests upon a few factors:

1. Becoming more educated – The days of sending influencers to Paris for a branded event activation are still here, but are they delivering as much value as an Immersive Smart Ad campaign? Or even if combined with an event activation, does it make sense? Employees must decide that aligning or even advancing ahead of the competition requires teams to become more educated on emerging technology and ad tech trends. This might mean testing out new tools, running an ad demo, and being open to new ways to engage! Attend a local AR/VR conference. Brush up on AI and share the findings with your team. This will open the creative floodgates for more possibilities in the emerging tech space.

2. Hiring a skilled tech staff – New age media = new job roles. This means HR directors need to focus on hiring a mix of both young and tenured, data scientists, technologists, content producers, and video producers as a part of their Marketing team. Yes, there’s usually a tech team at all organizations, but ensuring there are some key players in the Marketing and Advertising division is crucial. Bring in a Senior level Marketing executive to balance a newly hired millennial tech team and you’ve got magic in the making.

3. Testing Immersive Technology – This is where speed is important. Most emerging technology companies are willing to provide a live demo for a fraction of their full price cost. Some will even offer to deploy a test initiative for free. Get a head start! Test now and you’re in a much better position to justify your ad spend when the time comes. Get in touch with an Immersive Smart Ad company and learn more about testing a demo that aligns with an upcoming campaign.

4. Sticking to your campaign flight – Things happen. Budgets shift, campaigns change, creative messaging gets better…we get it. Try to stick to the desired flight dates as best you can. There’s always “stuff” going on. Try not to push back or delay as again, emerging technology moves quickly.

This is great but who’s doing it right now?

Virtual Reality (VR) is also here to stay. L’oreal, the first corporation in the Beauty industry to test VR, has been in lockstep with emerging technology from day 1. L’Oreal was one of the first to leverage VR to help redefine the shopper experience. They are also the only global cosmetics brand (currently) to incorporate it into their corporate culture, by using VR to help staff make daily decisions in production to help drive “efficiency and productivity.” How amazing!!

Voice recognition for brand campaigns has also seen a steady climb in the ad tech space. By 2019, the voice recognition market will be worth $601 million. Marriott is testing smart speaker interactivity with TV creative by offering a new method for consumers to request web links, written text or visuals via a smart speaker and have it sent to their smart TV or mobile device. Cross-device integration is becoming more common as Amazon, Google, and others develop their ad tech programs more fluidly.

It’s time to jump on the emerging tech bandwagon. We won’t judge. We’re just as excited as you are about the possibilities within the ad tech industry. For additional encouragement, read our e-book and inquire within.