Sentiment Is Everything – Why Contextual Intelligence Means More Than Just Ads
The best technology is rarely only useful for one thing, which is why there is a rich history of spin-off innovations that find essential applications of their own. NASA’s space programme, for instance, can famously take credit for memory foam, scratch-resistant lenses, cordless vacuum cleaners and more.
In the same way, contextual advertising technology is starting to open the door to other possibilities. While it was developed for one, admittedly sophisticated purpose – to place ads, guarantee brand safety and optimise user attention, without any need for invasive third-party data – its ability to scan and interpret the whole of the open web, in real time, is leading to other, equally compelling use cases.
The applications of a tool that can interpret not only what people are reading, but also intuit the sentiment behind that action, are truly intriguing – especially in a world in which cultural moments, played out in real time through a chain reaction of live events, online impacts and real-world escalations, can suddenly and meaningfully shift the world in which we all operate.
Earth-shaking moments and quiet tremors
Every day offers up new examples, of which some are earth-shaking and many more are quietly significant. When Grammy winner Taylor Swift was seen cheering on the Kansas City Chiefs – confirming her relationship with the NFL team’s star player, Travis Kelce – she redefined the audience for Sunday Night Football in an instant.
This summer, during an animated Paris Olympics, Simone Biles became the most decorated American gymnast in Olympics history while French swimmer Léon Marchand took two gold medals in one evening. A tweet about the new Charli XCX album briefly appeared to have the power to influence the US Election, and events from the Glastonbury festival to The Met Gala hijacked the news cycle.
Some of these will interest you, some won’t. But such moments create waves of public consciousness that can build or change in a heartbeat. And, in the same way that contextual technology is able to interpret contextual signals to perfectly align brand messaging with mood, it can also stay one step ahead of these complex audience dynamics.
Contextual intelligence hears everything
Contextual intelligence can act as a powerful barometer to the ebbs and flows of key cultural moments. This means that, as an advertiser or agency, you can put your finger on the pulse of emerging trends or stories just as the momentum around them builds.
It’s a capacity that echoes Google Trends – not through the prism of people’s search terms, but via their consumption of content. This insight, in turn, hands advertisers the power to creatively and strategically adapt their campaigns in real time, plan ahead more effectively and extend into new, unexpected audience segments.
The benefits of such insights are about far more than simply piggybacking on breaking news – they have major implications for audience sentiment analysis and brand safety.
When ’90s superstars Oasis announced their reunion tour after a 15-year feud this summer, GumGum research found a massive swell in brand mentions, followed by a 26% spike in negative sentiment – no doubt driven by the ticketing fiasco that followed. At the same time, 85% of inventory mentioning Oasis was found to be brand-safe.
All of this forms a rich tapestry of mood-based insights on which brands can capitalise, as they reap the benefits of a dynamic surge in online debate.
If you understand sentiment, you understand everything
Understanding sentiment is core to brands making the most of cultural moments that are hard to predict, and contextual technology is the key to reading it. By using data to assess the large- or small-scale public reaction to live, paradigm-shifting moments, brands can understand how to lean into, or out of, certain talking points. They can also identify where the opportunities lie to augment a particular campaign.
The application of contextual tech to evaluate the meaning of content across the open web is broadening. It remains, of course, a platform for watertight brand safety and targeting precision. But in parallel, its capacity to channel enormous volumes of credible, reactive data around the cultural conversation represents a secret weapon for advertisers who know how to apply it.
Also pubished in: Advertising Week
