How are Disruptors Changing the Digital Playbook?

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The high pressure of this disruptive era yields pearls of creative smarts and innovative strategies that take the advertising industry’s digital playbook to a new level. Whether it’s turning the game on consumers by making them chase ads; or transform a super app that changes the game in the food delivery service; these disruptors have found their eureka moments.

Digital disruption looks set to intensify further, according to the latest 2023 Media Trends report from Carat, dentsu X and iProspect. It revealed key trends that will affect the speed and intensity of the development of digital commerce and the growth of gamification and associated platforms.

In terms of content, the shift to digital platforms shows no signs of slowing down, particularly in the video-on-demand and gaming sectors, with games becoming mainstream and gaining prominence on content sites to drive returning users. The report also shines a spotlight on the diversification of websites, apps and platforms, where consumers now have more options than ever before, by flipping the switch on “always shopping” mode. This is driving more retail platforms and websites to convert to advertising platforms, adding value to brands by generating valuable first-party data. The rise of super apps is also important to note, as they continue to build ecosystems that anticipate and meet more comprehensive user needs.

The ad that made consumers hunt for it

CHEP Network did a very smart thing when they made consumers chase ads with a vengeance, especially for Samsung’s Galaxy Z Flip4 ad. Not only that, they made Google their friend and turned the search algorithm in their favor. But it was a very intricate campaign to pull off on the back end, and it demonstrated CHEP’s digital savvy in aligning creativity with efficiency.

The team’s idea was to circumvent the public’s aversion to advertisements. “They hate ads, and they even hate sponsored posts from content creators. We needed a smart way to get them Googling like crazy on their device so they could see all the organic pieces that the creators we didn’t pay made about Z Flip4 . The internet was flooded with positive reviews, we just needed to get these things in front of people. Fortunately, the young whipper snappers of the world are pretty tech-savvy, so challenging them to engineer their algorithm to only show them Samsung content seemed like a doable task , says Joe Ranallo, senior copywriter.

The theory behind this campaign seems straightforward: create enough hype to pump up search volume or specific keywords, target the right keywords with the right search ads, and then retarget people who have watched the right series of videos, Joe and Will share and Will Winter- Irving, senior art director.

However, the mechanics behind it is another story of digital knowledge and expertise to overcome the challenges. They shared that one of the main challenges in making the campaign work was that each element had to be heavily integrated to be successful. “If something wasn’t right, the whole campaign would collapse. We really left it up to the community and content creators to get the word out about the campaign. The content was then used through our paid media channels to promote the launch.

“Media and technology worked together to solve ways to successfully protect the codes, the hidden winning page and the ‘hidden clues’ that we were forced to make public by Google. We knew people would turn to our social channels when they didn’t could figure out how to get the ad to target them, so our social and community management team was key to keeping people engaged,” says Will. “For a campaign that was highly technical and dependent on the performance of a beast like Google, we were forced to engage manual processes and use people to succeed, 9 times out of 10.”

It also involved intricate questioning by the CHEP team to find out the details. “Everyone knows you can target keywords with ads and use YouTube to retarget, but how well do you really know search and programmatic? Exactly how many unique users do you need in a total audience to retarget on DV360? Is that number different if you buy YouTube through Google Ads instead? How long does it take for Google to evaluate a low volume search term before determining if a keyword has qualified impressions? What is the theoretical number of custom audiences you can combine?

“Media success is almost always about scale and efficiency, so practically running a rarely seen ad presented a unique challenge and is a bit more the art of experience rather than platform politics and science,” concludes Joe.

This campaign set a standard for Samsung Australia. The campaign generated 41% higher search interest than the “unboxed” global product announcement, which is the highest search volume in the history of the Foldables range.

A super app that disrupted the food delivery space

Robinhood is one of Thailand’s fastest growing food delivery app and all-in-one travel service platform. It partnered with Accenture Song to drive the business transformation, which includes product management and strategy and customer experience.

Robinhood was initially launched “without concern for profit” and Accenture Song was chosen as the partner of choice to unlock the potential of digital advertising as a revenue stream, says Ramesh Rajandran, SEA Financial Services Lead at Accenture Song (pictured below).

“We helped the startup deliver on its promise to prioritize profitability for small businesses and affordability for consumers. We took the lead in shaping the super app ad engine and running operations to monetize and manage the data. With a robust digital advertising-as-a-service offering, Robinhood can more easily manage its ad program, fill available ad space and better leverage data to help sellers and evaluate the customer experience, Ramesh adds.

Evolving as a food delivery app that offers cashless, contactless payment during the pandemic, Robinhood is now “a super app that provides benefits beyond food delivery, including travel, mart, package delivery and soon Thailand tour”, says Ramesh. By focusing on a “life-centric” strategy as opposed to being product or customer-focused, Robinhood disrupted the food delivery industry in Thailand, rising to a #2 ranking in Greater Bangkok in less than two years.

With the app’s self-serve advertising features, Accenture Song will work to integrate more than 300,000 small, local businesses in Thailand, which will increase their visibility on Robinhood and help them connect with even more customers. This initiative will complement Robinhood’s long-term roadmap to expand into more business areas, including financial services.

Ramesh shares that super apps like Robinhood will gain even stronger momentum in the near future as consumers lean towards one-stop platforms that are easy to use and provide comprehensive features. “As companies, including Robinhood, look for new playbooks for sustainable growth amid economic uncertainty, turning their focus to looking at how they can make a meaningful contribution to customers’ lives will be beneficial in the long run. According to our research, companies that do so see an annual growth rate nine percentage points higher on average than their lagging peers, who are likely to shrink year-on-year, he concludes.