CHOICE IS THE NEW TARGETING. WHY WE HAVE RENEWED OUR CLAIM AND OUR POSITIONING.

Welect turned five years old this year. Five years ago, we set out to win over media companies, agencies and advertisers as business partners. In order to be able to compete with established companies in our industry as a young company, we focussed on the special features of our product in the first few years: self-determined advertising consumption and the successful delivery of advertising to AdBlock and no-consent users.

The fact that we have grown steadily as a company since then and have been able to convince more and more advertisers of our products shows us how relevant our USP has become outside the above-mentioned niches and especially as an alternative to cookie- and ID-based targeting. Welect has long since arrived in the digital advertising ‘mainstream’ and, just like the advertising and online industry, has constantly evolved. And that is precisely why it was time to adapt the positioning of our company. Three important messages are relevant:

A. ‘It is no longer appropriate to force advertising on people.’

This is still true for us and was our motivation for founding Welect. Many industries have changed dramatically in the last 30 years. Almost all of them in favour of end consumers, users and readers. Compare your own media consumption behaviour with that of 20 years ago: Whether it's music, books, films or series - users decide what content they consume, when and via which device. Our usage behaviour in the communication, transport/mobility, travel, retail/eCommerce and finance sectors has changed to a similar extent. Life is choice - we humans have become accustomed to having many choices and making self-determined or on-demand decisions.

And that is precisely the simple basic idea behind Welect - every day we enable millions of people in Germany to finally experience advertising in a self-determined way. This ensures a completely different and significantly better type of advertising acceptance. This is because, unlike other methods, the recipients of advertising messages take part in real advertising communication, resulting in high-quality and extremely effective campaigns.

B. ‘Welect is the leading solution for quality ads. This enables advertisers and media agencies to achieve the best advertising impact for their campaigns.’

People feel respected and taken seriously. Many market research studies and scientific papers confirm that this leads to more successful campaigns with better advertising KPIs (see, among others, ‘The power of self-determination. Advertising effectiveness study 2021’). In summary, the study found that, among other things For respondents who can choose the ad themselves, consideration increases by +51 per cent, willingness to buy by +42 per cent and also image by a significant +25 per cent compared to the externally determined advertising playout. Users also have a far more positive image of the brand selected. Brand recall is +8 per cent higher here. Liking is also +41 per cent higher and message understanding is +16 per cent higher. Pretty impressive figures, we think.

And now ask yourself: How often have you been shown adverts for a product for days after buying it online? How often did this make sense to you and how often did you find it more annoying than helpful?

This brings us to a not insignificant development that has led to our repositioning, because: Targeting, which for years was seen as THE solution for effective online campaigns, will no longer exist in this form; third party cookies are disappearing. It has also been no secret for years that cookie-based targeting could only advertise a maximum of 40% of the actual reach and that the new identifier solutions will generate significantly less reach. The advertising industry needs targeted and effective alternatives more than ever.

C. ‘The secret is choice-driven advertising: people decide for themselves which adverts they want to see.’

This brings us full circle to the first part of our positioning: until five years ago, people's ability to participate in advertising was limited to avoiding adverts. Now people take part in the process of selecting (targeting) and displaying adverts. They get involved. They are a real part of advertising communication.

Our advertising customers do not have to ‘track’ people online in order to identify and interpret their behaviour. They communicate with them. In times of GDPR, third-party cookie bans and restrictions on mobile IDs, this is a valuable side effect: choice-driven advertising is 100% data protection compliant.

And here we are, so close to the new year, which once again holds a colourful mix of tasks, opportunities and challenges in store for us, and we know one thing for sure: choice-driven advertising works exceptionally well if it is used to deliver the advertising message to the people for whom it is relevant, thereby avoiding wastage.

Or to put it another way:

It is no longer appropriate to force adverts on people. Welect is the leading solution for quality ads. This enables advertisers and media agencies to achieve the best advertising impact for their campaigns. The secret is Choice-Driven Advertising: people decide for themselves which adverts they want to see.

Choice is the new targeting.

We are looking forward to a great new year with lots of decisions and self-determined campaigns!