This year, the Cannes Lions attendees heard a formidable provocation: within 10 years, agencies are going to be replaced by algorithms. Not any old agency. Most agencies. What chutzpah, to climb on the main stage and give it both barrels to some of the most awarded creatives in the world.
The challenge had a tinge of real danger due to the inexorable rise of programmatic. It’s a real-time, lighting-fast and hugely diverse approach to targeting and messaging based on consumer signals: breadcrumbs of our intent and behaviour left in the digital space.
It’s gold dust, because it’s real. No one does a pretend search on Google or YouTube, we search for things we are interested in. This library of intent is a creative Narnia, but, sadly, it is still not talked about – nor understood – like that.
However, although algorithms are brilliant at spotting signals, bidding and replacing a headline or a price point in a template, they can’t tell a story and they can’t make people laugh or cry. Not yet, and not soon.
Programmatic ads are a formidable selling machine, but creatively, they still have some way to go: simple, fixed templates are every creative’s worst nightmare. Their format, though, is the wrong focus; it’s the creative messaging opportunities from stitching the signals together in a sequence, that hides the secret.
What if we used them as a new way to tell a story? Instead of traditional fire and forget campaigns, they could usher an era of swarm campaigns: a tapestry of micro-stories, a little world of creative assets, each flowing from the same brand source, but each targeting a particular set of signals, such as this early Brazilian example for Axe.
Instead of being chased around the web by dumb ads, as in the traditional retargeting, consumers would see ads that reflect their signals: lifestyle, browsing, searching, viewing, purchasing.
They also break the wall between advertising and customer relationship management, as one of the powerful signals is also product purchase or ownership. Talking to an existing customer at a moment of specific need often beats a bland, scheduled email.
Creating this live tangle of messaging will require new ways of organising: planners and writers working as a writing room, HBO-like, devising agile scenarios and narrative arcs based on real-time actions (or the lack of them). No silos and rapturous planning revelations to be passed on to the creatives to execute.
This may require internal production capabilities as well, or drawing on a constellation of video creators adept at capturing millions of eyeballs – and watch time – with some of the fastest production reflexes around.
So, to me, it’s not the algorithms that are a threat, but the transformation speed of agencies trying to resolve a very tricky equation: how to innovate their structure, while making money at the same time.
I think that consumer signals, and an ability to use them to tell a better story, are the new creative opportunity for agencies. Not just media. Creative. Like the Pedigree Found campaign which helps people find their lost dog.
Algorithms are not a threat to agencies, then, but a chance to continue thriving as the magicians and drivers of brand fame – the only long-term advertising effect.
Lazar Dzamic is head of brand planning at Google ZOO (NACE)
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