Following Facebook’s quiet attempts to re-enter China is a study in patient persistence. We have seen Mark Zuckerberg’s personal diplomacy including learning the language and using it at local appearances.  Recently the company’s photo app, Moments, was launched in China through a local partner under the culturally friendly name Colorful Balloons. Though Facebook itself has been banned since 2009 for political reasons, the government seems to be letting Colorfull Ballons fly for the time being. The latest report is that the company is searching for office space in Shanghai.

Facebook’s desire to get back into China is obvious given the size of the market and given its absence relative to other Asia-Pacific counties. A Kantar TNS study shows that Facebook is the most used social network in the region with an average usage of 83.5% in 15 Asia-Pacific countries.  By comparison, usage in China is estimated to be a mere 19% and those users are circumventing the government with VPNs.  Source: eMarketer.

Artificial intelligence firm GumGum surveyed marketing and advertising executives in June 2017.  The result is an optimistic view of AI’s current adaption.  The data suggest that 55% of marketers use Chatbots while 77% use predictive analytics and auto-personalized content, some are more committed than others. From our perspective, those numbers seem more like wishful thinking.  After all, we have watched as it has taken several years for programmatic technology to be widely adapted and still, it hasn’t been fully exploited.  To argue that AI has already made the penetration rates suggested in these data seems to be a stretch.  The time will come for AI and programmatic advertising will benefit from integrating predictive analytics, but for now it feels like we are talking near to mid-term futures rather than existential reality.  Source: eMarketer

It is pretty obvious that fake news is top of mind these days.  More than half the respondents to a BrightRoll survey of North American programmatic advertising decision-makers said they intended to pressure their programmatic partners to screen for fake news.  Almost one third of respondents “said they would reduce their spending with programmatic partners whose inventory includes publishers associated with fake news.”

It’s clear from the numbers in the above table that many of the respondents are applying a combination of several initiatives to clean up the quality of their buying.  Better targeting, white lists and shifting from open exchanges to private buying are among them.  Few are doing nothing.  Source: eMarketer

1. Personal Discovery – Chinese shoppers tend to go to an online mall to shop as though they were walking to a physical mall, which leads brands to set up stores in online malls rather than as stand-alone sites – a contrast to the west. To attract customers the stores have to appeal to known interests, which they do by augmenting standard demographics with sophisticated AI
2. Seamless Sales – Where a western in-app ad a customer clicks to the ads site, in China the users can click the interesting ad while remaining in the app they’re using be it social, search, maps or news.  The sales process is integrated into the various apps of choice.
3. Content is King – Live streaming is yet another area in which advertising is made easily available.  While some brands connect with celebrities and internet influencers others create their streaming content to connect their products directly to their customers.
4. C2B Innovation – The standard practice of business-to-consumer is often reversed in China. The consumer data informs the business.  It becomes an interactive loop that a brand can use to feed products to the right person at the right time and to quickly evaluate success or failure of the ad.
5. Agility, Flexibility, and Speed – The idea of ‘just-in-time’ manufacturing is juiced up with sophisticated communications technology allowing for products to be manufactured after they are ordered and for changing trends to be responded to in real time.  Lag time is eliminated and delivery is efficient.

Source: TechNode

Russ Cohn, Quigley-Simpson’s VP of Creative Marketing & Innovation, expresses a frustration that there seems to be a division between the ‘big idea’ people and ‘big data’ people.  The big idea folks stress need for the great creative while the big data people are programmatic true believers. Cohn makes the point that the two are not mutually exclusive and should instead be considered two sides of the same coin. He suggests the two are interdependent for many reasons.  He asks, in effect, what good is the most accurately targeted ad if it doesn’t connect with the audience? Unfortunately, having both big ideas and big data under the same roof is an expensive luxury that most brands/agencies don’t have.  Source: CampaignUS