Facebook Presents… Ad Week Europe 2015

Last week, Facebook joined over 23,000 attendees for Advertising Week Europe. Ad Week sees the industry’s best and brightest gather in London to swap insights, share successes and discuss the future of advertising in a rapidly changing world.

But with over 200 events and more than 185 hours of thought leadership content, keeping track of all the topics raised at Ad Week is a challenge. So this year, we’ve decided to do something about it.

Welcome to Facebook Presents… Ad Week Europe 2015, our handy digest of the key themes that emerged from the keynotes and conversations at this year’s event.

If there’s five lessons worth taking away from Ad Week, these would be ours. I hope it stimulates some more conversation.

Here’s to Ad Week 2016.

Steve HatchManaging Director, Facebook UK & Ireland

All the images in Facebook Presents… Ad Week Europe 2015 were taken during Ad Week by Kevin Abosch using an Apple iPhone 6 and Instagram. Check out more of Kevin’s photography at instagram.com/kevinabosch

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If there’s one thing to be learned from Ad Week Europe, it’s that mobile is growing and brands are struggling to keep up. “Every industry’s seen big changes from mobile,” said Simon Andrews, Director at mobile agency Addictive, at the Facebook panel ‘Mobile Matters’. “Marketing has to follow but it’s happening more slowly than we might have expected.”

Why is this? On the same panel, Jon Mew, Chief Operating Officer at IAB, attributed it to industrial inertia. Companies become a little too comfortable, and thus become unresponsive to change. “Why is it that the whole motor industry is in Oxford?” he asked. “Why is the media industry in Soho? People get ingrained with the way they work. It’s quite difficult to get companies to do something different with advertising and media.”

One of the major barriers is the age-old problem of attribution, and the difficulty in properly understanding the influence of mobile ad impressions on consumers. “It’s a tricky one to

The small screen is the first screenMobile is growing fast. Is advertising keeping up or lagging behind?1

measure because cookies don’t work with mobile,” explained panellist Liam Brennan, Digital Strategic Director at Starcom. “We also have the problem of the single consumer view, because everyone is using so many different screens. It’s a huge challenge.”

Andrews summed up the current place that mobile enjoys in the pecking order when he declared that, “The average cost of a mobile campaign is the catering cost for TV.” And even when brands acknowledge the massive reach and cost-effectiveness of mobile, they’re still struggling to come up with creative, engaging content. “When someone clicks on a banner on a mobile, it’s usually

due to fat, clumsy thumbs,” Andrews concluded. This is set to change. Facebook released cross-

device reporting for Facebook ads in August of last year. Brands are now able to track movement between devices, and pinpoint the effect of an ad on the consumer with much greater accuracy.

In order to succeed on mobile, advertisers must be aware that, with mobile, they are inviting themselves into the audience’s personal space, and tailor their content accordingly. “When you move away from seeing mobile as just another screen, you begin to see how advertising could be more effective,” said Brennan. “Because it’s such a personal space, there is an opportunity for brands to be more personalised and fit into the user experience.”

However, brands are beginning to respond. “There are the green shoots of promising creativity,” Andrews remarked, “but we still have a long way to go.”

Further reading on Facebook for Business

The Mobile Revolution

How mobile became the most popular screen in the UK

Six Tips to Go Mobile

Great advice from the Marketing Director of Coca-Cola France

Why Mobile Marketing Matters to Brands

A whitepaper on the mobile opportunity

Simon AndrewsDirector, Addictive

“Every industry has seen big

changes from mobile. Marketing has to follow but

it’s happening more slowly than

we might have expected.”

Liam BrennanDigital Strategic Director, Starcom

“Because mobile is such a personal

space, there is an opportunity

for brands to be more personalised

and fit into the user experience.”

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This year Millennials will become the dominant generation in the UK workforce. By 2017, they will have the most spending power. In order to thrive, it is vital that brands are able to connect with these digital natives, and create content that engages them in a meaningful way.

But first, we need to understand them. “The stereotypes and misconceptions that have characterised the conversation about Millennials – that they’re lazy, apathetic and entitled – clearly do not apply to the majority,” said Nick Blunden, Global Managing Director of Client Strategy at the Economist, whilst chairing ‘The Future of Media: Boom or Bust?’. “We can definitely park that stereotype.”

Rather, this young, tech-savvy demographic contains arguably the most sophisticated consumers of media we’ve ever seen. “Millennials don’t look for banality. They’re looking for content that tells great stories, that’s meaningful and that

2Matt ElekManaging Director, Vice EMEA

“The frustration comes when brands say, ‘We want to be edgy but we don’t want any swear words.’ That immediately makes an ad seem disingenuous.”

connects in a great way,” explained Rob Newlan, EMEA Director of Facebook’s Creative Shop, at the ‘Boom or Bust’ session. “Ultimately it’s about craft, and that’s where we’re seeing brands step up.”

The challenge is how to connect with this group in a way that feels authentic and valuable. Vice has built up an unparalleled reputation for authenticity by refusing to patronise its audience. As Vice Managing Director Matt Elek explained at a Creative Talk session with Facebook’s Rob Newlan, if brands are to succeed they must not be afraid of embracing integrity in all its forms. “The frustration comes when brands say, ‘We want to be edgy but we don’t want any swear words.’ That immediately makes an ad seem disingenuous. There’s a level of caution that is applied to things that makes them banal and redundant. But if you take no risks you won’t end up with many rewards.”

Further reading on Facebook for Business

Coming of Age on Screens

Kicking off a global study of young people and technology

The Three Phases of Growing Up

A smarter look at segmenting Millennials

The World in their Hands

Understanding what mobile means to Millennials

Why Relevance Matters

What do young people think of social media and brands?

Rob NewlanDirector, Facebook Creative Shop EMEA

“Millenials don’t look for banality. They’re looking for content that tells great stories, that’s meaningful and that connects in a great way.”

Authenticity is currencyConnected, well-educated digital natives not only value craft and integrity, they are highly averse to any hint of inauthenticity.

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The struggle for women’s rights is one of the most pressing challenges facing society but what role does technology and social media play in this issue? On the one hand, it might seem that social media has simply offered a new platform to old prejudices. But social media has the potential to be not just empowering, but liberating. “The strength of technology is that everyone gets to have a voice,” said Salma Hayek, who was in conversation with Facebook executive Nicola Mendelsohn at St James’ Church, Piccadilly. “People have regained some power. It’s like a peaceful revolution.”

Social media has given a voice to the voiceless, and given women across the world a forum to cooperate and share their experiences.

This will have an enormous impact on advertising. Female consumers are ready to buy products and connect with brands. The implications of this go beyond healthier profit margins. By listening to voices that would once have been marginalised, the advertising industry can engage in highly relevant

3Salma HayekDirector, Actor, Producer, Activist

“Advertising is discovering women. Women are saying, ‘This is who we are and what we want.’ We’re empowering ourselves and changing the advertising world”.

conversations with an audience that has been all too often overlooked.

Advertising’s cultural power is undeniable. By listening to women across the world, the industry can adapt and grow, but also lead the way in running

campaigns where women are not commodified, but respected and empowered. “Advertising is discovering women,” concluded Hayek. “Women are saying, ‘This is who we are and what we want.’ We’re empowering ourselves and changing the advertising world.”

Further reading on Facebook for Business

Move Fast and Lead Well

Nicola Mendelsohn on what it takes to be a great leader in the digital world

Salma HayekDirector, Actor, Producer, Activist

“The strength of technology is that everyone gets to have a voice. People have regained some power. It’s like a peaceful revolution”.

Advertising for Good Salma Hayek and Avon

Salma Hayek has always believed in the power of advertising to bring about positive change. “I’m most proud of the campaign I did with Avon,” she told Nicola Mendelsohn during the pair’s Facebook Creative Talk.

Hayek used Avon to launch a campaign against domestic violence, a highly taboo issue in Mexico. “In the end they raised more than $90m. I used advertising to create social consciousness.

“Avon have millions of brochures, and because we put the domestic violence hotline number on it, women had a way to escape. ”

The emergence of new voicesTraditional advertising was slow to adopt the cause of women’s rights. All this has changed with social media, which is giving a voice to those who were once voiceless.

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The world is undergoing a profound and un-precedented shift from text to visual communications. Not only is video continuing to rise in prominence – with over 3bn video views every day on Facebook around the world – but we’re also seeing stickers displacing the written word in personal and text messages. “We’re seeing stickers emerge on Facebook as a core communications piece,” explained Rob Newlan, Director of Facebook’s Creative Shop, at ‘The Future of Media: Boom or Bust’. “We’re going back to hieroglyphics. It’s a big switch.”

Tracy Yaverbaun, Head of Brand Development for Instagram EMEA, echoed this view in ‘The Guardian Leadership Breakfast: Influence in a Fragmented Age’: “There’s a shift in how people are communicating, there’s a shift from text communication to image and pictures. We have to collaborate and adapt to that.”

What is behind this shift to images? In conversation with Facebook Director Steve Hatch,

The rise of visual communicationsThe days of old text-based advertising may be numbered, as consumers and advertisers move towards video and photography to communicate brand messages.4

Mel Exon, Managing Director at BBH, argued that this is due to the emergence of new platforms that allow users to create their own art. “Instagram was a real watershed moment”, she said. “That was when people saw the beauty that was involved. I don’t know any creative person that isn’t moved by something that looks extraordinary.

“The beauty of digital is that backlit tablets can make images look better than on paper. The text-based advertising of old obviously still exists, but I

think we’ll see people moving away from it.” Video is a central part of this. “The shift is not

just in views, but in what people are posting,” Hatch responded, “On Facebook in the UK, we’re seeing an 88% increase in the amount of video people are posting themselves.”

Advertisers now have a host of new ways to present their brand to the public. Not only are they adopting new visual techniques, such as the cinemagraph, but the huge rise in video content posted by users enables brands to engage with consumers in new, more authentic ways.

Exon, in the same session, recalled a BBH KFC ad campaign that tapped into the YouTube community. “We found a YouTuber who had a funny piece where he imagined what it would be like if KFC shut down. We contacted this guy and asked him if he was interested in partnering with us. We didn’t tell him what to say, he did it completely in his own way, and we achieved 2 million views. He was just a great guy with a natural connection to the brand.”

Further reading on Facebook for Business

Video on Facebook

What does the growth of video on Facebook mean for brands?

McDonald’s FryFutbol

A look at video creative on Facebook with this award-winning campaign

Rob NewlanDirector, Facebook Creative Shop EMEA

“We’re seeing stickers emerge on Facebook as a core communications piece. We’re going back to hieroglyphics. It’s a big switch.”

Mel ExonManaging Director, BBH

“The beauty of digital is that backlit

tablets can make images look better

than on paper. The text-based

advertising of old obviously still exists,

but I think we’ll see people moving

away from it.”

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Anticipating longer-term developments in any field is difficult, but Ad Week Europe provided an ideal forum for some of the industry’s leading figures to speculate on market trends, and how the industry might adapt to them.

One serious development is the continuing public loss of faith in the advertising industry. Whilst in conversation with BBH Managing Director Mel Exon, Facebook MD Steve Hatch showed the audience a graph taken from a presentation at the Ad Association’s Lead 2015 summit. The graph tracked positive and negative sentiments around advertising from 1994-2014, Hatch explained that, “Last year, for the first time, the nays outnumbered the yays.”

One solution to this is the increasing fusion of advertising with other forms of content as brands adapt to people’s demands. “We’re seeing a big change: people want less straight advertising and more interaction,” said Ruth Mortimer, Content

5Director at Centaur Marketing, in ‘The Guardian Leadership Breakfast: Influence in a Fragmented Age’. “I think it’s brilliant. People want to contribute to something significant and interesting. Great content is just great content.”

There is cause for optimism, as this content driven approach does not have the same negative association as clumsy, intrusive banner ads. Exon, responding to Hatch, believed that the industry was moving in the right direction. “We’ve been

seeing this data for a while, it’s serious. But I suspect that when people are asked what they think about advertising, they’re probably thinking in quite conventional terms.”

Programmatic advertising, the purchasing of digital advertising by software was another key trend and is revolutionising ad buying, particularly on mobile platforms. In 2014, 37% of all display ads on mobile were programmatic, compared to 28% overall. Although it’s difficult to tell how quickly programmatic advertising will evolve, what is certain is that it is more cost-effective, more efficient and will expand even more in years to come.

There may also be a profound structural change in advertising, with relationships between agencies and firms becoming more collaborative. “If you’re going to influence people in the new landscape you’ll need a lot more collaboration,” said Mark Creighton, CEO of Mindshare at the Guardian Leadership Breakfast. “That’s how the fragmentation in the current situation is going to be brought together, and we can begin to deliver.”

Further reading on Facebook for Business

Creativity Now

What does great work look like on Facebook?

The future of advertisingThe last two decades have witnessed technological change on an unprecedented scale. What challenges might the advertising industry have to adapt to in the near future?

Ruth MortimerContent Director, Centaur Marketing

“People want less straight advertising and more interaction. I think it’s brilliant. People want to contribute to something significant and interesting. Great content is just great content.”

Mark CreightonCEO, Mindshare.

“If you’re going to influence people in the new landscape,

you’ll need a lot more collaboration.

That’s how the fragmentation in the current

situation is going to be brought

together.”

“When you’re in the midst of the white heat at midnight,

you have to keep holding on to your integrity and ask: Is what we’re doing useful

to people, is it entertaining, is it adding value to

someone’s life?”Mel Exon

Managing Director, BBH