Part 2 Trade-off relationship between portability and sensitivity [serialized by So Miyamura on LINE Yahoo]

LINE Yahoo is known for its corporate culture of promoting challenges for the younger generation, such as actively promoting young leaders regardless of age or year of joining the company. Among them, one person who has received particular attention is So Miyamura, who became the head of the sales promotion department at Yahoo (at the time) in his 20s, and now leads even more departments.

In this series, we ask Mr. Miyamura to talk about trends in the advertising industry from the perspective of platform companies and future trends in the industry. In Part 2, I would like to further deepen the concept of “frames” in digital marketing within the user-first mindset.

This column is a must-read as it is full of useful tips for all business people involved in marketing!

Marketing definition updated for the first time in 34 years

Hello everyone, this is Miyamura. This is the second article in the series, but at the beginning, let me briefly review the previous article. In the previous article, based on the changes in the digital industry that I have seen in my experience,

① No matter how much technology develops, the user comes first ② People x frame (people interested x desires at that moment) are important ③ Desire at that moment = motivation for using that platform

Based on these three unchanging ideas and trends such as privacy protection, now is the turning point in the value of digital advertising, and in order to move in the right direction, it is important to put the user first. I said this.

Although I did not mention it in the previous article, I feel that this idea is also relevant to the newly revised definition of Japanese marketing by the Japan Marketing Association in January of this year.

Source: Japan Marketing Association

https://www.jma2-jp.org/home/news/916-marketing

Regarding the part of “creating value together with customers and society” mentioned here, the source cites “techniques for analyzing vast amounts of customer data” and “mechanisms such as sharing crowdfunding” as examples. However, I interpret it to also mean “creating value together with customers by listening more closely to the real voices of users and reflecting them on the business side.” I think this is exactly the user-first concept I mentioned earlier.

User-first deep dive “Frame Edition”

Now, as I reviewed at the beginning, I said that one of the constant elements of digital marketing is that “people x frame” are important. It doesn’t mean that anyone who is interested will react at any time, and not just anyone who is in a highly effective frame. The idea is that it would be best to approach them based on the frame (location) they visited. For example, if someone who loves gadgets is offered a high-quality gadget product at the exact moment they are browsing gadget-related content, they will probably react without thinking.

In this series, we will delve into the theme of “people x frames” in three parts, divided into “people” and “frames”. At the risk of being presumptuous, I would like to share my personal opinion based on the work I have experienced and the characteristics and trends in the digital industry.

The first part starts with the “frame part”. Let me start by explaining the theme of the frame section: “The limits and role of frames in digital advertising.” It’s a disturbing theme that I don’t think someone who works in the platform business would come up with, but I hope you’ll stick with me until the end.

Once again, please be aware in advance that the content of this article is my personal opinion and has no relation to the views of the company I belong to.

The dilemma is that the easier it is to spread, the harder it is to express it.

Before we dig deeper into the story, I would like to let you and I, the readers, agree on the definition of the word “frame” as a basic premise. I think this is another word that is easy to interpret. If we break down the elements of advertising space structurally, we can see the following four levels.

1st layer: Device (which device)
2nd layer: Services (on what content on the device)
Third layer: Place (where on the content)
4th layer: Format (what ad format)

To give a more concrete image, let’s apply some examples to the four layers.

Basically, I think you can organize any frame by applying it to these four layers (by the way, the fifth layer will be creative).

Even when we talk about frames, we are sometimes talking about the “service” level in which they are posted, and sometimes we are talking about the “feat level,” which is a broader group called the in-stream video frame. , it is first important to unify the granularity and language.

Now that I have the premises sorted out, I will move on to the main topic.

As I mentioned in Part 1, the several years since 2015 have been the peak era of “frames to people.” In other words, it can be said that it was also a time when discussions about frames were lost. He also expressed that “ad technology has become first, and the user first, the moment of contact with an ad, has been left behind.” However, thinking about the optimal ad space means thinking about the experience of a single impression when a user comes into contact with an ad. I can say that. As business operators, we face an ocean of impressions on a daily basis, but for users, that single impression is almost the entirety of their advertising experience.

The first layer “device” is “canvas”

This is a little off-topic, but there is one unforgettable episode in my nearly 10 years of experience at my current company. I heard from a sales department in charge of the automobile industry that “One of our advertisers is talking about a customer who came to a dealership after seeing the PC version of Yahoo! JAPAN’s Top Impact (hereinafter referred to as mock).” That’s what happened.

*The above is an image, not the actual creative.

When I heard this story, I remember being shocked not only by the power of advertising, but also by the power of this frame. I may be a bit biased, but I think this space, which occupies a large portion of a relatively large device called a PC, is closer to the term “ad experience” than “ad contact” like a normal banner. Isn’t there? I think it is easier to express one’s worldview, appeals to the five senses, and leads to positive behavior.

There are two things I feel through this story.

① A device is a canvas, and expressions that go beyond the canvas are not possible ② The physically larger the device, the easier it is to express experiential advertising.

One of the things that cannot be ignored in my field of work is TV commercials. Although TV commercials are a must-fight competition for digital advertising, the tremendous value of experiential advertising that TV devices have is becoming more and more keenly felt every day. In a user survey I conducted in the past, the interest and liking for TV commercials were more than twice as high as for digital ads. In recent years, the number of game companies and start-up companies that are appearing in TV commercials is increasing due to the low cost per app install. Even if the demographics that can be reached change, I believe that the size of TV devices and screen occupancy of TV commercials will still have strong power as an experience per impression.

For example, the huge outdoor vision advertisements seen in Tokyo can also be called “large devices.” In recent years, visions that can express powerful images as if they are popping out have been created, allowing you to have an “advertising experience” that feels like a video work.

We are human beings who receive one impression no matter how far we go, so there is no way that the impact of physical size does not affect the sensitivity we receive from advertisements.

No one carries around a TV device.

If you think about it this way, the “smartphone devices” that now occupy a dominant position in advertising are extremely small devices with limited expression. As someone who works in the platform business, I am always thinking about how to create experiential advertising space on smartphones, but it is extremely difficult compared to PC devices.

In the first place, the reason why smartphone devices are mainstream in advertising is “scale”, which is one of the marketing principles, that is, the usage rate and penetration rate of users. So why have smartphones become so popular? Needless to say, it’s the portability.

This is an interesting and difficult part of the frame (device), but there is a trade-off between portability and device size. Even if you can carry a PC with you, no one will be carrying around a TV device. lol

Here, I expressed the experiential advertising value as “sensitivity.” “Scale” is a form of justice in marketing, so placing advertisements mainly on smartphone devices is a logical strategy, but from the perspective of “frames”, there are strong restrictions and it is difficult to stimulate sensibilities. I think it should be done.

What is a device? We will explain the meaning, types, and related terms.

Limits and role of slots in digital advertising

Too harsh on downtrends due to rapid changes

The reason why I decided to take a deep dive from the device level this time is because I feel that TV and PC devices are being subjected to more negative campaigns than necessary, and that their strengths tend to be obscured.

One of the major characteristics of the digital industry is that it is extremely sensitive to trends. This in itself is amazing and is the reason why the industry has grown, and even now, AI and privacy tech are being reflected and introduced into every business at an amazing speed and are evolving. Without exaggeration, I feel that trends have changed significantly every year in just one year.

On the other hand, as many “new things” are created, “old things” are also created. Honestly, I think there are many cases where old things are overly expressed in a way that makes the new things stand out. I think the victims are TV devices and PC devices.

In fact, TV viewing rates and PC usage rates are decreasing year by year, but there are still tens of millions of users out there. I am also writing this article on a PC, and many of you reading this article are probably tired of using your PC on a daily basis. And for users, a single impression experience on a TV or PC device may be more valuable.

If excessive expressions such as “the end of old media” become widespread using trends as a weapon, I feel that it will lead to a repeat of the digital boom era that left users behind.

The important thing is to understand your strengths and weaknesses and compensate for each other.

I mentioned that there is a trade-off between portability and sensitivity for devices, which can be called the denominator of the frame components. In digital marketing, this can be said to be a trade-off between reach scale and impact. Therefore, it is important to understand the strengths and weaknesses of each device and use them properly and complement each other, rather than deciding which is better or worse.

Digital devices (smartphones, PCs, etc.) are smaller in size than television devices or outdoor advertising, so there is a limit to how much more expression can be achieved. So, is the role merely to supplement reach and frequency by leveraging the strength of volume? I don’t think so.

Digital devices are relatively weak at providing experiential advertising value compared to large devices, but I personally believe that by having them take on a different role, they can better demonstrate their value as a framework. Masu.

In the next article, I would like to touch on its role as the second half of the framework. I hope you will read it next time.

Thank you very much for reading till the end.

Are newspaper ads effective? Explanation of benefits and points of use