Creative innovations in programmatic display ads with Arta Pllana & Justin Campbell

[00:00:00] Justin Campbell: Hey, everybody. Welcome to our next event here at Shaping the Future of Programmatic Advertising. Our amazing event here with Tangoo Media today. I am delighted to welcome Arta Pllana to our discussions of the next part of the event. Arta is the Senior Graphic Designer and Project Manager at Tangoo.

Welcome on to this part of the event. Arta, how are you doing?

[00:00:35] Arta Pllana: I'm doing good, Justin. How about you?

[00:00:38] Justin Campbell: Yeah, great. Thank you. Very good. So Arta, can you tell us a little bit about what you're doing at Tangoo? What your role covers and what sort of projects you work on?

[00:00:47] Arta Pllana: Well, um, so as you introduced me earlier, I'm a senior graphic designer and project specialist.

Uh, my role, um, is to support Tangoo internally and externally, uh, collaborating with a creative team to innovate Tangoo's creative products, ensuring top notch services, uh, and high conversions for Tangoo clients. Uh, there is a lot in between, but I wouldn't waste time on that. Um, so. Yeah, this is basically what what I do.

[00:01:18] Justin Campbell: Fantastic. So I know you work very hands on with the team that are both managing the campaigns and those that are doing the creative idea and execution. Um, you're really in the weeds of, of creative. So quite my first question for you is how can you build, uh, how can you create great creative in, in the programmatic space?

What sort of tips do you have for people out there at the moment?

[00:01:43] Arta Pllana: Well, um, designing for programmatic, uh, campaigns, um, has a lot of points. So that's what, first of all, uh, throughout our collaboration with the client and the other teams within Tangoo, uh, the first thing that we do is understanding our audience and.

In what way we want to approach or reach a specific new audience. So after that comes personalisation, being that, uh, on data or in the creative part, and that includes, uh, of course the visual part where we introduce, uh, the brand elements. The visual brand elements from the specific client we're working for, and also like trying to build that brand recognition that is being reflected in our campaign.

Um, one thing that we noticed, uh, that is very effective in future campaigns is, um, adding as many interactive elements within those campaigns. So, uh, the user base is more engaged and, um, Kind of interacts with the brand directly through through our our ads

[00:03:00] Justin Campbell: great You mentioned something there about using data So that how how can you give some like real world examples about how you connect that data piece?

with the creative piece in programmatic

[00:03:15] Arta Pllana: Well, um, the data part is, uh, the one that informs our creative process. Um, as I said earlier, it always starts with an audience analysis. We want to know what type of products we are, um, going to advertise and which audience fits best with those products. Um, so the preferences and the behaviors of.

Of our end user are going to be what drives the creative part as well. But here we have different type of campaigns or funnels that we are trying to, uh, meet, right? If it's an upper funnel campaign. We have to present everything to a new audience. So in that case, we try to involve rich media as much as we can.

So from the movement being that a video or a motion design or, um, anything that could engage the user more is at the start of the ad. So we grab that attention and we try to convert as much, uh, a new user to, um, our client and drive more sales. Um, if we are talking about the consideration phase, uh, here we have different formats that we try to, uh, use to try to convert our user base.

Um, mostly we use DCOs, static ads, and motion ads. Um, in this case, It's easier because our user base has, um, expressed some interest on the brand itself. So it's easier to convert. And then we have low funnel where, uh, the usual formats that we use are DCO static banners for different promos, gifts, interactive ads, gamified ads.

Something that could, um, drive even more, uh, attention from the user and drive more sales for our clients.

[00:05:23] Justin Campbell: Brilliant. You mentioned something there about DCO. Now I know what DCO means because that's my background. I had a production agency for a long time and we were doing, I'm showing my age now, but we were doing DCO ads about 12 years ago.

Um, what is DCO and how important is it in, in this environment? Can you explain what the acronym means and can you explain, yeah, about how often you're using it in programmatic?

[00:05:49] Arta Pllana: Okay, so this DCO is dynamic creative optimization. I think that the name tells you everything. Um, first it's dynamic and it's optimised to reach the specific audience.

So in the background, there is a lot of algorithms that try to find the best audience and give the right content content to them based on their behaviors and the Internet. Okay. This we got through cookies that I think everyone knows for. So, um, and a D. C. O. Like a D. C. O. is. The perfect mix of data and creativity, um, where here, here we, I have to mention it again, the brand is very important.

Uh, at times there's not a lot of space to create, to explore on the creativity side. Um, if we go in the exact format of a DCO, however, we try to add always a human touch to the ads. We try to make them, um, So similar with the branding guidelines that the brand is trying to express kind of, and we try to reach the right audience every time.

The one thing about DCO is that you can actually, um, see the metrics and how it's performing and you can, um, Change, um, data or, um, the strategy how you see fit. So in this case, Tangoo really tries to do it as with the clients that we have to to try to change the strategy in a way that. Benefits the client and drives as many sales as possible.

[00:07:38] Justin Campbell: Brilliant. There's a, there's the data piece there and there's that human touch piece that you mentioned as well. So, in your mind, I'm going to ask you a double question here. And that's because a bit of my background in creativity too. How do you, uh, get across your message to, uh, brands that they should try certain things and be outgoing and creative and adventurous?

And then back that up with data and stats that certain things work. So maybe you've been in a situation before where you propose a creative idea and you kind of know it's going to work better than what you've already been given. Have you ever been in that situation before? How do you work around that?

How do you encourage people to be adventurous?

[00:08:26] Arta Pllana: That is, uh, very common. I would say, um, creativity has no limits, right? Like, and everybody, and it's subjective. Everybody has their own taste. However, there is, uh, there are times that we've received, like, a template that I am not a big fan of. Like, I don't like templates.

Templates are not something that should be used, uh, in multiple clients at the same time. Um, So I received, um, a template that was not creatively right, balanced and didn't have a lot of contrast, but that was part of this 200 page brand guideline where everything was fixed. Right. And now I have to convince the client.

Yeah. At first you have to go on with us with Tangoo, with this campaign, uh, on the creative side, uh, and we have to change something. We have to go outside of your branding guidelines for, uh, better effect and, uh, better performance. It was like an exchange of seven emails of trying to convince the clients, uh, why our.

Creative work works better. Uh, we tried to test it and, uh, we were able to sell it, you know, we were able to change something that was fixed. And that's where I see the importance of creativity because, um, data is. I like to see data as, um, something that informs the creative process rather dominates it.

So in this case, uh, the creativity dominated and it drove, uh, data and the sales afterwards. So it was a success. This is one specific case.

[00:10:24] Justin Campbell: Great to hear. Yeah. It's, it's having that key balance between sort of, there's so many opinions involved, but there's a strong brand guideline. But then if you can bring the data and the proof and the build trust with people, then you can really get some exciting things over the line.

Fantastic. Exactly. So, um, right. Next, next question. Are there any exciting formats that you think are something people should be looking at at the moment? I know that. Tangoo has been really strong recently with Digital Out of Home, so is there anything exciting to look at with Digital Out of Home? Are there any new video formats that people should be keeping an eye out for?

[00:11:05] Arta Pllana: Well except digital out of home. Um, what we are currently focusing, focusing on, and the way that we are developing our services right now is completely based on interactivity. Um, so the big thing right now is, in my opinion, um, interactive ads, gamified ads. Augmented reality, because only there you can either like engage a user fully, or you can give the opportunity to a user to try the products that you are trying to sell in their own environment.

So, uh, that's why our creative lab is called. Continuously working and developing these, uh, creative formats even more and try to push them into our clientele because, uh, they definitely have higher impact, bigger conversion rates, and they are definitely going to, to, to drive your brand further, uh, in any type of campaign that you are, um, willing to invest on.

So,

[00:12:14] Justin Campbell: yeah, it sounds really good. It sounds like they're basically the formats of the most engaging ones to look out for, right? And that bring some value to the user when he's talking about augmented reality, uh, that's, they are great, aren't they? They, they kind of sticky and gamified ads as well. They keep people in engaged for longer.

Which can build brand trust. I'm a big, definitely a big fan of gamified ads too. Um, one trend that I've also seen recently, which is getting better with time as technology gets better, but it's dynamic out of home ads where you use like the markers from, you know, what day of the week it is, what the weather is, et cetera, you use these markers and you integrate them in out of home.

So there's lots of exciting things there. Good.

[00:12:59] Arta Pllana: Exactly. Yes.

[00:13:01] Justin Campbell: So let's talk about AI. Everybody's talking about AI. The use of AI nonsense. AI saying it's going to Not really.

[00:13:11] Arta Pllana: I wouldn't say so.

[00:13:13] Justin Campbell: Okay, interesting. Well, there's a lot of people saying that it's going to damage the creative industry. That, um, you won't need to do photo shoots anymore you can shove everything in AI tooling and create great photo assets.

But what's your thought on that and how are you using it in your work at the moment?

[00:13:31] Arta Pllana: Um, if we are talking about creativity in general, I really think that A.I can enhance the productivity and you're, uh, the visual part of your work, you know, you can definitely use it to be more efficient. In your work.

However, I do see a lot of limitations, but that's in creativity as a general concept and, uh, industry. But if we are talking about, um, AI and programmatic advertising and create creatives for programmatic advertising, that's a different thing because, uh, it's definitely optimizes our processes. We have a partner currently that, um.

Included, um, AI everywhere in every part of their processes. So for example, uh, a very specific example, actually, uh, if I want to design a whole campaign that is going to have a lot of motion and I really want to get. The best out of it for a client. If I had to do each dimension, uh, separately, it would be very time consuming.

So with this partner that we currently have, uh, I can design 300 with 250 pixels once, and I can do the, all of the work in that size, and then I can automatically add all the other sizes. And make a little, little bit of tweaks into it if needed, you know, so for me, that is definitely helping, uh, my work process and maybe I can focus on more important things in the creative side for that specific client or another client, you know, like, I can invest on my time for research more with the help of AI.

And I don't see that as a negative thing at all. I really think that it should be pushed forward and, uh, areas that don't affect you completely, kind of, uh, and. AI, not letting AI lead you, but you leading AI, kind of.

[00:15:46] Justin Campbell: Very good. Good, good embracing. I, I, uh, I tend to agree that that would take away, can take away the boring bits, the production work.

But you're always going to need that human creative eye because it's like you say, it's, it's objective. And right now AI doesn't have that opinion as such, which maybe is a good thing. So maybe you should trust on it a little bit, a little bit more because it doesn't talk back, does it?

[00:16:14] Arta Pllana: Let's see, maybe in a bit of time it's gonna.

So then it's going to be risky.

[00:16:22] Justin Campbell: Let's see. Indeed. Wonderful. Arta, thank you so much for sharing your opinions and your insights on creativity and combining it into the world of programmatic. It's been an absolute pleasure. And I look forward to seeing you soon in Pristina.

[00:16:39] Arta Pllana: It was a great pleasure talking to you about this.

And of course, you are always welcome in Pristina. So I'm really looking forward to see you soon as well. Um, for anyone, um, trying to get in touch with Tangoo. Lastly, um, you can reach us. And all of our channels being bad, Instagram, uh, LinkedIn, um, X, our website, uh, Tangoomedia.Com. So, uh, I hope that this is, this was something that will help you, um, in the future, uh, on your professions and, um, get in touch with us with anything that you need.

Thank you.