Millennials are consuming media in different ways, and this has various implications for brands. The change trends will only intensify as Generation Z brings in newer ways of interacting with content and companies. However, for Vice President of Business & Marketing Partnerships at Facebook, David Fischer, some trends will not change.
In an onstage conversation with Adobe’s VP of Strategy, Alliances & Marketing, John Mellor, at the Adobe Summit 2017, Fischer explained that the iconic form of storytelling will not go away. Companies may just have to adapt. The big trend for him however was around the prevalence of purpose-driven marketing, and the role that precision targeting may play in that.
A perfect case in point for this is the Coca-Cola campaign ‘America is Beautiful’. While this was among the many campaigns at the recently concluded Super Bowl that were focussed on diversity and inclusion, Coca-Cola took the campaign on Facebook to very specific audiences for maximum impact.
“The targeting opportunity is immense. Many businesses are doing very interesting things cutting down their messaging, and tailoring it to specific audiences. The Royal Caribbean or Westin for instance that look to create interactive experiences,” Fischer said.
Another trend that he highlighted was the role of mobile. Arguing that mobile is still the next big thing, he said that the industry was still in very nascent stage on the role that mobile will continue to play in connecting with consumers.
“You have to build creatives for a mobile first environment that connects with people. Mobile is not the second screen or the small screen — it is the main screen. We have to ask ourselves are we doing the right things with mobile,” he said.
The focus on mobile necessitates a discussion on video, and very recently on messaging platforms. As brands look to make conversations with consumers more intimate and one-on-one, the relevance of messaging apps becomes more evident. Fischer asserted that for Facebook, the current area of priority was to make commercial sense of its messaging platforms — Messenger and WhatsApp. Within that, work on Messenger has been going on but commercial formats for WhatsApp too are enroute.
“Messaging is a great commercial opportunity and at present, we have seen incredible engagement on it but not the commercial aspect. You will see some action on that in the near future,” Fischer said. He also reiterated Facebook’s focus on videos, and the concept of thumb stopping content that capture attention upfront and creates the right experience for the user.
