Creating Content-Relevant Ads #SXSWi

"Blending commerce and content can build an experience that speaks to both sides of the target audience needs." ~ Keeping Loyal Customers Engaged by Shaking Sh*t UpToday was the first day of SXSW 2012, so it was short (cold and rainy) day of only three sessions. But in two of the three sessions I attended today, there was discussion about content-relevant advertising and how it improves the user experience.Thrillest co-founder and CEO Ben Lerer gave a presentation titled Keeping Loyal Customers Engaged by Shaking Sh*t Up. Lerer told the Thrillest start-up story from a single site to what is now an integrated media group. At the core of the success of the Thrillest properties is advertising that complements the content, making it uber-relevant to the user consuming both that content and the advertising. To make sure this symbiotic relationship was created, Thrillest created content for its advertisers, integrating it into Thrillest's content offerings beyond a display ad.An good example of content and advertising integration on Thrillest was the launch of McDonald's McRib sandwich. McDonald's placed display advertising on Thrillest's site, but Thrillest took it to the next level by creating a vintage-esque McRib tshirt in a limited quantity and sold it on the site with all proceeds going to the Ronald McDonald House. It helps that the Thrillest audience is young males who dig on McRibs, so the match was a perfect one.The second session in which this content-relevant advertising was a topic was the Fireside Chat with Vic Gundotra of Google+. Gundotra described Google+ as "a social layer across all of Google's services." What it turns out this really means is that Google's goal is to make ads into content by making ads relevant and serving them at the point of commercial intent (aka, search). Gundotra described it as "marrying the best of social with the best purchase intent." Basically, this boils down to feeding the user filtered search results based on his or her Google+ content/activity and the content/activity of his or her circles on Google+. He rattled off a quite impressive statistic to support this practice: if an ad is socially annotated (tagged with a note that a specific friend has already liked this product/service/site/etc.), there is a 5-10% click through uptick. Ultimately, Gundotra said that advertisements are going to get more relevant across all Google services because of Google+ and become part of the content the user is searching.All of this is good news for advertisers: the more integrated the advertiser's message can be with the content, the more likely a user is to pay attention to it and engage with the message. But, it means that advertisers must continue to refine their target audience definitions and recognize that one ad version doesn't work across all channels. This can get expensive and time-consuming, but will produce better results and build favorability with the target audiences.