Advertising in a Pandemic, Alan Daly, UM Ireland

Alan Daly shares his thoughts on how the pandemic is affecting the advertising industry, a bellwether for many other industries in an interview with Billy Linehan for Irish Tech News

Alan is managing director of UM Ireland, part of IPG Mediabrands. Clients of UM Ireland include Fitbit EMEA, Johnson & Johnson, Just Eat, Mater Private, Zurich and Mattel.

Resilient industry

“Advertising is a resilient industry,” Alan remarks, “we tend to be first hit and last to recover but the reality is that advertisers who keep investing in their above the line communications tend to increase sales and grow market share during and post-recession or in this case a pandemic.”

Future uncertain

He sees the future post Covid-19 as very uncertain. “What we are seeing right now are advertisers coming up for air and the market is becoming less soft than previous months, TV and Radio are starting to see increased demand. The Out of Home market has been really impacted by Covid-19 but as people begin to move around we should see this bringing more advertisers back into the medium.”

Advertising is not going away

“Advertising is not going away, especially digital advertising, “ Alan explains, “however we should be expecting the rise of more walled gardens and with the removal of third-party cookies we’ll start to see new audience targeting capabilities. Already data providers are powering themselves to tackle this imminent hurdle.

Data providers & data platforms

With proprietary data platforms now an important feature in the advertising agency landscape, UM uses the IPG-owned Kinesso technology offering which has been deployed in the Irish market since late 2019. Kinesso’s core principle is to drive smarter business decisions and better outcomes for clients using their suite of data and technology services. Big data and analytics can help a business predict consumer behaviour, improve decision-making across the board and determine the ROI of its marketing efforts.

Data-driven marketing services

Alan is delighted with Kinesso, “it has been a game-changer for many of our clients in this market. In a time where clients want greater impact from their marketing spend, Kinesso’s Marketing Intelligence Engine offers a connected suite of applications that improves consumer engagement,” he adds.

Data-driven marketing strategies aim to personalize messaging while also operating at a massive scale, and to provide better measurement of key performance indicators (KPIs) like Return on Investment for advertisers. Privacy is a significant political issue in regions such as the European Union, which last year enacted tighter restrictions on data sharing. Marketers must ensure they comply with those rules to avoid possible fines and other legal remedies.

And social media?

“Yes, social media especially Facebook is under heavy scrutiny currently. The big question is; are they doing enough to combat hate speech? Still TBC! Adding to this we also have some data privacy worries with TikTok, not ideal considering the scale of the user base. One thing is clear though, these platforms have democratised creativity like never before and allowed users to become viral quicker than ever.

This trend is only going to accelerate with the launch of Instagram Reels in the US in August. Instagram Reels has been a success in other markets around the world already and with the user base of Instagram behind it, it’s hard to see it being anything other than a massive success. Instagram Reels will also allow Influencers flourish even more, some Influencers who were famous on Instagram, were actually not naturally transferring into the TikTok space easily.

Alan says “the opportunity for creative people, brands and businesses to achieve mass scale viral success is only going to increase over the next few months. The hint is to get creative quickly.”

COVID-19 pandemic and changing online behaviours

And finally I ask Alan what should we expect in the run up to Christmas? He suggests “The Covid-19 pandemic has forced many people of all ages to educate themselves on purchasing online. Mobile versus desktop purchasing now have distinct differences during Covid-19, whereas previously Mobile purchasing was on a sharp increase. It’s even more important for businesses with an online commerce presence to understand that.

Now companies must invest in their online footprint even more, invest and understand the value in their SEO and PPC strategies. Christmas is around the corner and Christmas shopping is going to be different to previous years and companies should be putting in place the requirements to meet the new consumer demands.”

Thanks Alan for your time

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