Advertising Stakes Today Require Revamped Decision Making

It's a tale as old as time: An advertising team finds itself at the center of controversy and is forced to pull down offending ads, issue public apologies, and potentially contend with risks to brand reputation (and stock valuation). While advertising archives will tell you this scenario is nothing new, one could argue — today, the stakes are higher.

Escalated pressure is being felt across the entire advertising landscape — from brands driving advertising with goals of increasing business to agencies tasked with developing effective and efficient advertising plans to the increasing number of media platforms competing for ad buys. And of course, at the center of this ecosystem is the consumer.

So, it’s no surprise advertising strategies driven by consumer-oriented data are critical to navigating today’s increasingly complex and highly visible omnichannel ecosystem. But despite the veritable flood of data today’s advertisers have available, actually leveraging that data in an actionable or even useful way can be much easier said than done.

To understand this conundrum, let’s start with a history lesson.

Strategic planning: Past and future

In the past, advertisers would define their target audience and product; conduct quantitative and qualitative research to find product market fit and identify preferred creative concepts; plan channels from the considerably more limited options and budget; then run their advertising and measure performance by channel. This process could take months or even years from start to finish.

But today’s fast-paced, demanding media ecosystem doesn’t give advertisers the luxury of time, and increased scrutiny on budgets makes both efficiency and efficacy of advertising more important.

So, how can advertisers have confidence they’re pursuing the right strategies to deliver experiences today’s discerning consumers will love?

Redefining data-driven advertising

While there are indeed more signals available to advertisers than ever before, data-driven advertising isn’t just a numbers game. Disparate data sources and inability to seamlessly action that data leaves advertisers guessing or risking speed and relevance.

To combat this — and ultimately build strategies that can drive positive results end-to-end (while creating delightful consumer engagements and mitigating potentially costly missteps) — advertisers must incorporate data-driven marketing approaches much earlier in planning.

Advertisers need both quality data and tools to make sense of it. Rather than just relying on raw first- or third-party data from disparate sources, advertisers can leverage an identity-powered consumer insights solution to better understand and complement their own data, distilling data chaos into actionable, consumer-forward strategies. Introducing TruAudience® Consumer Insights: the solution suite from TransUnion that helps advertisers make better marketing and business decisions.

Let’s explore how this may come to life with an example.

At TransUnion, we recently conducted an analysis comparing Gen Z preferences regarding choosing a financial product or institution to those of Baby Boomers. Our goal was to understand top motivations for target prospects (Gen Z) and how they contrast in priority to the existing customer base (Baby Boomers). Findings revealed some obvious as well as surprising insights to consider when targeting these different groups. Below is a small snippet of that analysis which highlights behaviors and ratings.* 

*Penetration shows what percentage of the group meets the criteria. Index represents how likely the group is to exhibit that behavior compared to the average US household, with 100 being average.