This post was created in partnership with Silverpush
Contextual intelligence is a powerful tool for helping brands target media viewers in a new way.
During an ADWEEK House Advertising HQ panel co-hosted with Silverpush, Trishla Ostwal, AI and tech reporter for ADWEEK, sat down with panelists who shared how they are “reversing the algorithm” to reach audiences through what they’re watching instead of who they are.
Playing content matchmaker for brands
Amy Unrau, VP of sales at Silverpush, kicked things off with some Contextual Intelligence 101.
“It means understanding the content across the entire video landscape, and then being able to identify and match that content with brands,” she explained. “We’re able to eliminate a lot of media waste by targeting more accurately.”
In a complicated vertical like pharma, for example, contextual intelligence can be a game changer.
“We can’t just check a box on Google that says I want to target a patient that has XYZ condition,” said Sydney Axelrod, paid search director at Good Apple, an independent healthcare and pharma advertising agency. “We have to get creative with how we are reaching those people.”
Axelrod shared how one of Good Apple’s clients, an eye-care prescription brand, worked with Silverpush to use contextual intelligence to reach its target audience of older users based on related content they viewed. That included not only relevant eye-care content or videos by popular doctors, but also the entertainment and lifestyle content they may engage with.
“For this audience specifically, some of the contextual triggers we have are retirement cruises, senior fashion, or classic TV shows like I Love Lucy,” explained Axelrod.
Contextual intelligence also helped power a campaign for Kids Help Phone, a service for teens across Canada, specifically to address the rising rates of self-harm. Figuring out where to place this sensitive message for maximum impact was a challenge, especially since Canada does not allow advertisers to target those under 18 by age.
“We talked about how we could get that to the right people at the right time, and in one of those what-if sessions I said, ‘What if we reverse the algorithm and actually showed up when people were actively searching self-harm on YouTube?’” explained Scott Stewart, EVP of Epitaph Group.
Silverpush’s precise targeting identified the exact audience that could benefit from Kids Help Phone’s message. “It was a really important moment to be able to tell somebody that you don’t have to do this. It was about using marketing technology for good,” said Stewart.
The campaign earned recognition for its achievements at this year’s Cannes Lions.
Measuring contextual intelligence success
Stewart shared that his team is realizing that longer ad engagement and higher video completion rates strongly correlate with downstream results. “It sounds like a pretty simple equation, yet we work in an industry that’s been accepting one second as a video view,” he said.
Axelrod cited pharma’s long lead time as a measurement challenge, explaining it can be hard to know if someone goes on to get a prescription after seeing an ad. Metrics like brand lift can help. For instance, the eye-care brand saw a 3X lift above its benchmark after applying the contextual intelligence layer.
“When you have these brand names that we might not be able to pronounce, the fact that people were able to recall that and say, ‘I recognize that brand name’ was great to see,” she said.
Unrau acknowledged measurement’s evolving challenge. “We’re working toward tying an omnichannel contextual strategy back to a larger kind of successful performance metric,” she said.
