The Programmatic Revolution

For political parties, the program is the decisive factor (admittedly, sometimes the people involved are also important 😉 ): The vision, the objective, or in other words the program that a party pursues and which determines its actions.
Transferred to marketing communication, the program would therefore be understood as the entirety of communication strategy, story, messages, target groups, channels, etc. - a kind of "marketing program".

So what is "programmatic marketing"? Does it even exist?

Yes, it does!

However, the term does not mean that you have a "marketing strategy" in the sense of the "program" described above. Rather, it refers to the software-based, automated generation, display, measurement and continuous improvement of advertising - perhaps even the next revolution in marketing!
The Beatles were already familiar with revolutions in 1968. Their song "Revolution" may have referred to the political revolution back then, but some of the song's lines can be applied surprisingly well to today's programmatic revolution.

„YOU SAY YOU WANT A REVOLUTION?“ (THE BEATLES)

Programmatic advertising stands for nothing less than the next revolution in advertising, perhaps even in marketing communication as a whole.
"Programmatic advertising (PA) is the fully automated targeting of advertising supported by software and algorithms. The vision is that, in extreme cases, PA can be used to target individuals with an advertising medium created specifically for them.

However, "targeting" does not just mean filling free online advertising space, i.e. marketing the "leftover ramp". Rather, it refers to an advertising machine that not only places advertising, but also creates it. That not only scatters messages, but places them precisely. That doesn't just work online, but integrates all channels. That aggregates the data from all measures in one place. But which is also very transparent and provides information at all times about where which budget is being spent and with what success. And which, to top it all off, also ensures an optimal user experience.

So much for PA's vision.

In purely technical terms, the above is already possible today.

In practice, this ideal situation does not exist (yet), at least not in the healthcare sector. This has medical and content-related aspects, but also specific legal aspects. And there is also data protection in the form of the GDPR. However, it is time to be well prepared, as this scenario is approaching us in leaps and bounds and will have a major impact on the digital transformation over the next five years.

This preparation is agile in the best sense of the word: experimenting with small budgets, testing technology-driven marketing, identifying niche target groups and carrying out pilot projects - and above all: constantly and incrementally developing the whole thing further. In addition, you should always try to manage the newly emerging complexity and transfer it to your own organization (i.e. the management of complexity, not the complexity itself 😉 ).

You can roughly imagine where the journey is heading: marketing measures facilitated by software algorithms and optimized by artificial intelligence have what it takes to be faster, more precise, more cost-effective and more successful in terms of achieving objectives than conventional marketing.
Advertising companies that master the scenario outlined above will not only be 10% better than those that do not, but up to 10 times better.

Therefore: "Revolution".

ADVERTISING COMPANIES THAT MASTER THE SCENARIO OUTLINED ABOVE WILL NOT ONLY BE 10 % BETTER THAN THOSE THAT DO NOT, BUT UP TO 10 TIMES BETTER.

„YOU SAY YOU GOT A REAL SOLUTION“ (THE BEATLES)

Back in 2015, I read in the pamphlet "The Programmatic Giant" that "PA is the new operating system of advertising". This comparison fits well, as an operating system is also software. Six years ago, the term was still very much aimed at the automated purchase of online advertising space, the control of the placement of online advertising media and the last-minute marketing of free advertising space. The latter is done according to the motto: "Before an advertising space remains free, it is sold to the highest bidder with the help of cost-effective and efficient software tools."

"Highest bidder" is to be understood here in the truest sense of the word, as the procedure often takes place as an auction (so-called "real time bidding").

Basically, PA automates when and where the user addressed by the target group targeting sees the advertising tailored to them. Of course, it is also about minimizing wastage and at the same time using media spending as efficiently and effectively as possible.

„WE ALL WANT TO CHANGE YOUR HEAD“ (THE BEATLES)

The next big step that PA can take with the help of artificial intelligence and algorithms is "programmatic creation", i.e. the creation of advertising material with the help of software. The aim here is not to save the working hours of a designer, copywriter or programmer. Rather, it is about a different kind of creation. It's about presenting the user with exactly the advertising material that suits their current usage situation, the relevant context and their behavior.

Example: To advertise an OTC product, a banner construction kit is created that consists of ten headlines, ten visuals and five call-to-actions. These elements can be combined with each other and result in 500 possible banners to advertise a product. That's too many to produce them all manually in the traditional way. Using software, however, these elements could be combined, assembled and played out in real time. Which elements are combined with each other can depend on the following factors: Advertising medium, usage situation, user data situation (token or cookie), time of day, weather, location, etc. Many things are conceivable, but they should also make sense.

A product that strengthens the immune system could be advertised differently in a place where it is 5 degrees Celsius and raining heavily than when it is 14 degrees Celsius and dry - to give a simple example.

The basic banner template would be created by natural persons, including possible headlines and visuals. The "rules of the game" that determine which combinations are possible are also (still) devised by human brains. However, the creation of the final advertising material, which is displayed on an advertising medium, would be handled by software. In extreme cases, "one fits all" would become "one fits one", but in everyday life it would probably be "one fits some".

„"PROGRAMMATIC PRINTING" ATTEMPTS TO TRANSFER THE LEARNINGS FROM THE DIGITAL WORLD TO THE PRINT WORLD.“

„YOU SAY, YOU’LL CHANGE THE CONSTITUTION“ (THE BEATLES)

You might think that all of the things described here no longer have much to do with the good old printed advertising world, that the new digital wave is slowly but surely decoupling itself completely from traditional measures.

I can only say "Not at all".

"Programmatic printing" is trying to transfer the lessons learned from the digital world to the print world - and this is quite possible up to a certain point, for example when it comes to individualization and personalization.
You could say: "Print goes digital"!

Why does squaring the circle make sense?

Because cookie bans, ad blockers, consent management and GDPR have what it takes to thwart some digital advertising ideas.

But what can be achieved with „programmatic printing“ (PP)?

Well, for one thing, we all know the good feeling of holding a high-quality printed product in our hands. Something printed can certainly have a higher "value" for the recipient than, for example, an email in a digital mailbox.

In the case of certain illnesses with complex explanations, which keep a patient occupied for a while and where the sales price of the medication and therapies administered does not play a major role, it makes perfect sense to produce something of value and a certain sustainability and make it available to patients.

A simple example: printed, personalized information can be produced at the patient's request and then sent to them. On request, certain questions can be asked about the patient's personal condition or illness data in order to find out more about the recipient and to compile and prepare their own personal "folder".

Of course, these print products do not have to be completely personalized. A fixed content framework, flexible components and interactive elements such as QR codes, which in turn build a bridge to the digital world, make perfect sense as a mixture.

In the end, it's a cost-benefit calculation: Can I achieve more impact, awareness or even customer loyalty with a personal brochure that has been put together to meet individual needs than with a sophisticated email campaign? Or can the two be combined even better?

The answers depend on the topic, budget, target groups and objectives.

Another example from the PP world is a self-mailer. The advantage over the digital world is that print is not subject to the same GDPR regulations, as no explicit consent is required from the addressees. In contrast to email newsletters, the opt-out procedure applies to postal mailings. This means that you must expressly object if you do not wish to receive mailings.

The address data of anonymous users can be obtained using the IP address. The abbreviation "IP" stands for "Internet Protocol" and means that every device on the Internet is assigned a unique IP address so that all networked devices can identify and find each other. In principle, a kind of ID for each device.

These IP addresses can be used to pinpoint the locations of internet users very precisely. Specialized companies such as "Deutsche Post" can even assign the locations determined in this way to households and subsequently enrich them with further data that is of interest for marketing (e.g. household income, milieu). Individual advertising material, such as the self-mailer mentioned at the beginning, can be created and delivered to the target groups identified in this way. In this case, a certain degree of distribution is desirable, as neighboring households are generally in the same milieu, have a similar income, etc.

Additional content in such individually tailored advertising material can include directions to the nearest pharmacy that has a particular specialization or certain medicines and care products in stock. Or a reference to the nearest therapist with a treatment focus in precisely the indication that is relevant for the recipient.

This type of address generation by reading the IP address must, of course, be specified in the data protection conditions of a website in accordance with the GDPR.

„YOU’D BETTER FREE YOUR MIND INSTEAD“ (THE BEATLES)

The legendary "artificial intelligence" also plays an important role in all of the scenarios described above, for example when it comes to "predicting" the next action of a user on the web, i.e. being able to deduce with a certain probability based on their previous behavior ("predictive analytics").

However, this is all very abstract and difficult to understand at first. Furthermore, in order to be able to realize this, sufficient data points must be available to be able to form such derivations and probabilities at all. This takes time.

The following very specific applications for artificial intelligence in everyday marketing exist and are already being used by us at antwerpes ag in Cologne:

1. Software tool for analyzing visuals. These analyses are 85% accurate in predicting how a person will look at a visual in the first three seconds. The design of the visual can then be changed step by step until the gaze is exactly as imagined during conception ("data-driven design"). A "visual" can be an advertisement, a single motif, a homepage, a brochure page or whatever. It's fascinating, only takes a few seconds and really helps to improve design in terms of CX and UX.
2. AI-based software tools can take traditional market research to a new level. Trend analyses for future market developments can be created today by collecting, aggregating and evaluating historical data. For example, long-term search engine data can be analyzed to look into the future, provide new impetus for the next brainstorming session or identify product features that will be in demand in the future. And so on...

Here, too, I can only advise you to test, try out and see whether all of this is useful for your daily tasks. It doesn't have to be, but it can be - "you better free your mind", to end with the Beatles. Because ultimately, it's about the revolution in marketing: creative, automated, software-based, algorithm-driven, AI-enhanced. And to start this revolution, we have to keep trying new things!

By the way: The last AI tools mentioned no longer belong to the "programmatic topic" strictly speaking, but in my opinion they must be included in the big picture.