How to get ahead through advertising

Tal: CIOs have the chance to be “business architects”

Recent technological advances mean today’s chief information officers (CIOs) have an increasingly important role to play in the way organisations target customers through advertising and marketing. Computing spoke to experts who are ahead of the curve to find out exactly where future opportunities lie for ambitious CIOs.

There are chances to add value to a business’s marketing arm through innovations such as augmented reality, geo-tagging and neuromarketing, which uses technology to measure consumers’ subconscious responses to stimuli contained in advertising campaigns. These technologies are much easier for IT managers to understand than they are for advertising executives, according to Motti Tal, co-founder of marketing technology specialist OpTier.

“It’s a great opportunity for the CIO to influence the business because marketing technology can make a big difference in terms of market reach, customer acquisition and the bottom line,” Tal said, adding that new developments in advertising allow CIOs to become “business architects”.

Many businesses are dabbling with online advertising, but not in a traditional form. Christian Howes, head of solutions engineering at online analyst Webtrends, argued that advertising spend on ad banners is often fruitless, and companies are better off investing in social media.

“I’m seeing many companies switch to Facebook. How many people now click on banners for display advertising? The answer is very few,” he said. “We’ve spent four or five years focusing on this type of online advert and actually they return little value.”

He said that one Webtrends client saw six times more traffic to their web site through Facebook advertising than they had through ad banners.

“The rise of Facebook as an advertising channel has grown immeasurably in the past six months,” Howes said.

However, looking beyond the established advertising channels, other, more innovative marketing techniques include neuromarketing, which can be used to create products and marketing materials that are optimised to appeal to consumers’ subconscious. The technology uses electroencephalography (EEG) capabilities to measure responses to adverts.

Mobile device-based coupons, which would see stores send coupons to customers using location-based services that determine when the customer is nearby, are also expected to become key to retaining customers, according to analyst Gartner.

In addition, IBM is trialling an outdoor advertising system that targets individuals – similar to technology depicted in science fiction movie Minority Report. The company has upgraded its Websphere Sensor Event product. The solution now allows advertisers to display adverts on billboards and flatscreen TVs to consumers while outdoors, based on who they are and what their interests are.

“It was originally developed for our conferences,” explained Brian Innes, research scientist at IBM. “We use radio frequency identification tags in conference badges to automatically collect data about what electives participants are choosing to attend.”

Innes said IBM has been talking to several firms about using the technology for advertising purposes.

Webtrends’ Howes highlighted another emerging advertising channel with huge potential. “We work with a number of car manufacturers and the way information is given to drivers has now changed. Gone is the speedometer and now it’s a head display unit. That not only tells you how fast you’re going, but it will soon be telling you where the next petrol station is, how much the petrol costs and how big the queue is.”

The technology could also be used to provide information on hotels, nearby retail outlets and transport, for example.

He added that augmented reality, which is currently largely limited to smartphone apps, will be used widely in cars, as they are a “captive channel” for advertisers. Some new cars already overlay sat nav information and speed onto the windscreen.

“It’s much easier to use a car screen than a phone for augmented reality applications – I mean, who wants to hold up a phone while walking around a city?”