The move back to more long-term, emotionally-driven, brand-building advertising.

The move back to more long-term, emotionally-driven, brand-building advertising.

One of the trends we see going forward is the move away from PPC (performance-driven advertising mainly on social media and search) and back to more brand building, native advertising and branded content.

I think as an industry we have strayed too far into the arms of Facebook and Google because we are lulled by their instant results and ‘clear’ and ‘transparent’ reporting metrics.  We can fill in a spreadsheet every day and point to how much it costs to drive a user directly to our clients site / app / or service, and as long as that is below our KPI we can go to bed happy.  

But to me this all just feels a little short term, I know many businesses have done very well only using this approach but I do question how solid their brand foundations are.  All they focus on is the top and bottom of the funnel but totally ignore the valuable and long-term middle bit (the emotional connection).

I’m definitely not saying “performance media is dead” but I do think we will see a move away from that dominating an advertiser’s budget sheet and moving back to a more balanced approach where good honest brand building and great content will start to play a more important role.

Read an article I contributed to here about this very subject!

https://issuu.com/thelocationguide/docs/makers08_digital/96