Digital Advertising: Where is it Going?

Mariah Holland

6/7/2024

6-minute read

Key Concepts

• Advertising has rapidly made changes over the years with digital advertising being the bread and butter of current marketing campaigns
• VR Advertising – Ads will literally be “in your face”
• AI Advertising – The robots will take over
• Data and Algorithms – It will get creepier and creepier

We all love ads, right? From a Sears Roebuck catalogue in the 1950’s, to wacky 1990’s infomercials, to in-app interactive ads, we’ve come a long way over time. Advertisement has gone from newspaper ads, to radio commercials, to television commercials, to digital ads, to mobile ads.

The great thing is that, over time, ads have strayed away from being a static picture and words that take up space and have become fun and interactive. Ever played a mini game on Facebook then been given the option to download the full version? Ad. Ever heard of an influencer? They’re basically a walking ad. But we love them, we interact with them, and we bond with them.

With so many changes over time, its easy to wonder where digital advertising will go from here. What will digital advertising look like in the next five years? Read on to find out my thoughts!

1. VR Advertising

Virtual reality is the latest and greatest in digital technology. In fact, VR headset sales have been growing the past few years, with 11.2 million being sold in 2023 (Alsop, 2024). Some companies have already dabbled in creating VR ads. Virtual reality makes it easy to demonstrate and promote products and brands in a completely new and 360 degree way (Becker, 2024). For example, Roblox and Gucci partnered to create “Gucci Garden.” The garden is an eye-catching VR area with bright multimedia elements. Also, in the garden, users are able to purchase Gucci-inspired skins for their avatars (AdTech Content Team, 2023). I believe that virtual reality ads will continue to grow as the virtual reality industry continues to grow. There will be more and more sponsored spaces, some with the immediate ability to buy things and some just for awareness. I predict that this may grow even further and create a bridge between brick-and-mortar locations and online shopping. Imagine walking through the maze of IKEA and being able to touch things to buy them, all without ever leaving your living room. What will this do to traditional online shopping? How will it affect brick-and mortar shopping? There’s also the possibility that this may cause the resurgence of old-school pop up ads. Someone could just be scrolling through their Instagram feed on their Apple Vision Pro and receive a virtual popup ad to purchase an unrelated product. Not only will this enhance and extend the digital marketing world, it could completely revolutionize it. With such new technology, the advertising possibilities are endless.

2. AI Advertising

Artificial Intelligence. Some use it to generate silly pictures, some use it to plan vacations, some use it to get out of doing their own homework. But what can digital advertising do with it? If it can generate pictures and can generate text, who’s to say it can’t generate ads? AI is getting better everyday and new AI websites and apps are frequently hitting the market. Once videos are able to be generated by AI and it is able to be fully integrated into marketing strategies, it could greatly cut down the time and manpower needed to run digital marketing campaigns. For now, we’ll pretend that this doesn’t have the potential to put marketers out of jobs. We’ll cross that bridge when we get there. The marketing world has already started embracing AI technology but generally for smaller, non-content related tasks. Some marketers use it to enhance prediction accuracy and ad targeting (Davenport et al., 2021). Some companies, such as Heinze, have even used it to create campaign content. Heinz released a campaign completely centered around AI and was able to get the campaign completed in less than a month (Draycott, 2024). But imagine what the future might hold. What if, instead of an entire marketing team working tirelessly around the clock, a single person could type a few sentences and input some data into a marketing AI system and an entire campaign is built and monitored for them in minutes? Personally, I’m a fan of the personal touch a human provides but its hard to deny the possible cost saving benefits of an AI marketing campaign. Plus, computers never sleep so this could literally extend digital advertising.

3. Data and Algorithms

Big Data scares everyone, right? We swear that Facebook and Amazon are in cahoots with each other and constantly listen to our conversations to coerce us into buying more stuff. We’ve collectively decided that we all have our own designated FBI agent who monitors us 24/7 for illicit activity. But then why do we continue to agree and agree to more and more data sharing? Because nothing any longer functions without it? Probably. Because we refuse to read the Terms and Conditions? Also probably. Roughly 329 million terabytes of data is created everyday. In fact, it is estimated that 90% of all worldwide data combined was generated in just 2022 and 2023 (Duarte, 2023). As the powers that be extract more and more data about us, from us, the possibilities of what to do with that data grow. One way this is already used is through targeting algorithms. As more data is collected from consumers, marketing can get more and more personalized. It will end up feeling like ads and experiences are made specifically for each individual consumer. Imagine you were at a concert and you talked to someone about how cool their shoes are. Next thing you know, because of data that you and your new best friend previously shared, the algorithms worked their magic and you’re seeing ads for those same shoes. But not only are you seeing ads for those shoes, but the ad is your favorite color. Its written in a way that resonates with you. It has product pictures that appeal specifically to you. Then you go to buy the shoes. The website knows your name. It highlights the features it knows you care about. Maybe it even mentions that the shoes are great for concerts. The website even has your credit card number filled in and ready to go. This is what could happen as data continues to be shared and new data is collected. Data and algorithms can enhance digital advertising by promoting hyper-specific advertising tailored to each individual user.

Sources

• AdTech Content Team. (2023, August 31). Virtual reality: Will it change the Adtech Industry?. AdTech Holding. https://adtechholding.com/blog/adtech-virtual-reality-advertising/
• Alsop, T. (2024, May 22). VR headset unit sales worldwide 2024. Statista. https://www.statista.com/statistics/677096/vr-headsets-worldwide/
• Becker, B. (2022, September 16). 7 VR marketing examples to inspire you in 2022. HubSpot Blog. https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/vr-marketing-examples
• Davenport, T. H., Guha, A., & Grewal, D. (2021, August 30). How to design an AI marketing strategy. Harvard Business Review. https://hbr.org/2021/07/how-to-design-an-ai-marketing-strategy
• Draycott, R. (2024, February 8). Rethink shares secret sauce behind Heinz Ai campaign that won at the Drum Awards Festival. The Drum. https://www.thedrum.com/news/2024/02/08/rethink-shares-secret-sauce-behind-heinz-ai-campaign-won-the-drum-awards-festival
• Duarte, F. (2023, December 13). Amount of data created daily (2024). Exploding Topics. https://explodingtopics.com/blog/data-generated-per-day