August 2018, the SRI has just published its “observatory of advertising” #OBSEPUB and its analysis confirms that digitalization and media transformation has indeed taken place and inexorably continues to redistribute the cards despite the numerous questions that have stirred up the media landscape in recent months. Questions about the reality of digital performance, as it disrupts existing players who cannot help but challenge, sometimes rightly, the effectiveness of this digital medium. (Traffic generated by bots, non-certified audiences, Brand Safety and Brand Integrity, programmatic, inventory quality, ad-blockers,).

Several figures from this study call for reflection, notably the fact that in the 1^st half of 2018, digital progressed in France by 15.5% in millions of euros, which, after three consecutive years of growth, brings it to a 39.2% market share. This represents the largest increase and brings the market to a gross 2.2 billion euros in the 1^st half of 2018, while at the same time TV stagnates in market share in investments with -0.01% to reach 27.4%, and both the press, radio, and advertising also see their market shares decline.

Is this the end of traditional and historic media?

Is it the end of the king of media that is TV and of the traffic media that are advertising and radio, not to mention the press which, despite state support in the name of the plurality of ideas, has seen its audience and market share decline considerably year after year?

Probably not, as traditional media continue to demonstrate their effectiveness on a daily basis, when measurable.

Simply put, the advent of digital has profoundly altered advertisers’ expectations, who today rightly demand a measure of the ROI of their media investments, similar to what they have today in digital. As a result, traditional media are challenged on their ability to measure both their contribution to brand awareness, as well as their drive to store or drive to web, and even their CPV (cost per visit) or their CPA (cost per acquisition or cost per action).

Commercial teams have had to evolve to adapt their messages and approaches to new expectations and the transformation of advertisers, while at the same time marketing teams have had to adapt and evolve from Push One to Many offers to Pull One to One offers, and accompany them with measurement tools to justify advertisers’ investments.

Mass and coverage media such as TV have managed to retain their share of voice, but have fragmented it with audiences now distributed between national historic channels, terrestrial channels, thematic channels, and pay channels. At the same time, they have had to adapt to changes in TV consumption habits, with multi-screen viewing, and young and CSP+ audiences increasingly consuming VOL (Video on Line), catch up TV, and less and less traditional TV.

Fortunately, at the same time, a few innovative agencies have proposed DRTV (Direct Response TV), which allows, thanks to powerful algorithms, measuring the immediate and delayed effect of each TV spot appearance on the traffic of the brand’s website. This approach has reshuffled the deck between different channels and questioned some historical ideas about the ROI of TV channels or certain prizes on national channels in favor of DAY or NIGHT slots on thematic channels with much more attractive CPV.

Outdoor advertising has evolved to become digital with the appearance of DOOH digital totems in malls, airports, train stations, and subways, and gradually in the streets when local advertising regulations permit it, thus offering this “old medium” the possibility of being reactive, immediate, and commercialized like digital in CPM or auctions, for example.

However, the digital offer is not the perfect solution because it has become complex to grasp and requires increasingly specialized expertise from market actors, which must be constantly updated to avoid becoming has-been and to continue to support advertisers, including SOHOs, ETIs, or Large Accounts, in their digitization.

The Search, with +8.5% in H1/2018, is announced by communication directors as one of the major challenges for 2018 and the following years. The arrival of voice commands will inevitably upset the game rules as the general public adopts voice assistants such as Google Home, Alexa, for example.

Likewise, the adoption of mobile, which now represents over 50% (with 37% growth in H1/2018) of searches in France and can now be geo-located within a few meters, will necessarily challenge the way current mobile campaigns are organized.

Google, with its first mobile index, is not mistaken, since as of July 2018, it is now the mobile version of a site that is indexed as a priority by Google robots and therefore conditions and impacts the site’s ranking with regard to Google’s 200 secret criteria, which change regularly.

Of course, there is no shortage of existing actors to assist advertisers in their digital strategy, and traditional agencies have all developed their capabilities to offer support and advice to advertisers in their efforts to integrate digital into their investments. However, at the same time, the market is now fragmented between a few very large historical players whose power generates inertia in challenging a business model that has been established for a long time, and the weight of historical recruitments associated with this business model. These actors themselves are subject to the vagaries of a forced march towards digitalization, which does not necessarily declare its name and also forces them to transform themselves in a country that may not necessarily be the most flexible on the subject.

Other smaller established players are also faced with the need to challenge their economic model based on a communication policy of Push when the market increasingly demands a Pull approach based on the provision of relevant content that creates brand preference, which will justify its differentiation at the time of the consumer’s purchase decision. They must integrate the new approach of Inbound Marketing associated with modern CRM practices and face marketers who have moved from Paid media, to Owned media with Brand Content and now to Earned Media with social networks.

Everyone knows that it is essential to be accompanied both in their digital life and in the integration of UI and UX into their media sites and APPS during the design phase, but also afterwards in the optimization of SEO (natural referencing) and SEA (paid referencing) of their site, and then in SMO (social media optimization), because otherwise it’s a bit like opening a magnificent store in which no customers come and convert.

Given the above, it is certain that it is more important than ever to be well accompanied so as not to miss this strategic appointment that is digital transformation, regardless of the size of one’s organization.