If sunlight is the best disinfectant – well, Florida certainly has a lot of sun, and the online ad ecosystem needs a cleanup.
But despite forceful calls for a shakeup of the digital ad business from the main stage at the Possible conference in Miami this week, the online ad industry remains locked in a harmful holding pattern.
Ad tech folks love the opportunity to network at a swanky beachside resort. Several attendees referred to the vibe at Possible as not unlike “a mini, US-based Cannes,” and there was even a sponsored yacht.
But the onstage remonstrations felt a little stale, perhaps a reflection of the digital ad industry’s tendency to navel-gaze over the same old conundrums.
However, one theme stood out at this year’s show: For all its problems, digital advertising has plenty of untapped potential.
The same old calls for innovation
The idea that the ad industry can and should do better (in some vague, undefined way) is baked into Possible’s branding. Tuesday’s opening keynotes started with a supercut of presenters from last year’s show musing over what’s “possible” for data-driven advertising.
For example, in his keynote speech, Greg Stuart, CEO of MMA Global, which helped organize the event, accused the industry of being mired in harmful, outdated practices. Stuart compared the current state of digital advertising to the medical profession’s historical fixation on bloodletting and how the practice often did more harm than good.
But Stuart made the same comparison to bloodletting at last year’s inaugural Possible event. To be fair, it’s still apropos.
Meanwhile, professional provocateur Gary Vaynerchuk, CEO of Vayner Media, also hit the stage for an incendiary, profanity-laced speech … which hit many of the same notes as his talk at last year’s Cannes.
Vaynerchuk pleaded with the industry to abandon its outdated ways of thinking – such as fixating on creative awards for TV ads that “nobody watches.” And he excoriated misguided attempts at innovation, like blowing millions on building metaverse environments that attract almost no users.
Instead, he championed taking creative cues from social media. He advised brands to pursue organic engagement with consumers on the social platforms where they spend their time ignoring commercials. He offered similar recommendations at Cannes.
Granted, the industry hasn’t quite heeded his advice, so it’s perhaps worth hammering the same points. Still, it was ironic to see one of the industry’s most outspoken disruptors playing the classics while calling for innovation.
The inevitability of AI
But speaking of innovation, AI was a big topic (of course).
Stuart shared some of the MMA’s attempts to quantify performance lift from AI-based campaign personalization through its Movable Middles Growth Framework.
The framework looks at performance gains from using AI (really, machine learning) to personalize campaign targeting for the consumers most likely to be receptive to a brand’s messaging, rather than maximizing audience reach at all costs. The average performance gain from the “Movable Middles” approach was 149%, Stuart said.
Although Stuart stressed that these were early tests, he noted that they do help quantify the value of personalization over reach. He added that the gains for one recent case study were 0%, so personalization “doesn’t work all the time, [and] we need to learn to get this right.”
However, other AI-based content felt almost too fresh – as in, not ready for primetime.
Christian Muche, CEO of Beyond Ordinary Events, which co-produced the event, kicked off Tuesday’s programming by conversing with an AI-generated avatar of himself. But the avatar felt anything but human, with its janky facial animations immediately giving it away as artificial.
Canning Cannes
This year’s Possible also attempted to recapture last year’s Musk buzz when Elon took the stage with Twitter’s soon-to-be-CEO Linda Yaccarino. There were celebrity cameos, including a Miami-appropriate appearance by Mr. 305 himself, Pitbull. (Lisa Leslie, Ashanti and Janelle Monáe, among other stars, were also featured speakers.)
The roster of celebrity guests was reminiscent of what you see in Cannes.
Maybe we’ll run into Pitbull again in the Riviera in June. Not that everyone will have that chance. At least a dozen Possible attendees told AdExchanger that Possible presents an opportunity for some companies to save money on a trip to Cannes. They could send less-senior employees to Miami to get the dealmaking started, with smaller teams of senior execs later sealing the deals in the south of France.
And the need to cut Cannes costs is real.
Michael Kassan, chair of the board of directors for Beyond Ordinary Events (and recently formerly of MediaLink), even joked that he had originally bought the sweater he wore onstage at Possible for Cannes – and he plans to wear it again in France in June.
