However unfamiliar and unpredictable the marketing landscape may appear at times, when it comes to the quantum evolution of advertising and communication, there’s simply no turning back the hands on the digital clock.
As a child of the ’60s I can really relate to Donovan (No! Not Dylan. The other one.) when he sang
When I look out my window, Many sights to see
And when I look in my window, So many different people to be
They’re strange, so strange, It’s very strange to me
As a marketer or a media strategist in 2021 when you look out the window do you wish that things would just look the same as they did yesterday? Who do you see in the window? Someone who longs for the familiar and predicable old days of advertising?
The reality is that successful marketing and communication today is increasingly measured in terms of the agility of response to mystifying and even at times mystical change.
You got to pick up every stitch, Must be the season of the witch
More than that though. it’s about becoming a catalyst for change and in this first of the Ebony & Ivory Thought Leadership series we take a look at the media world through five focus points outlined in seminal whitepapers from WFA and WARC.
- Functionality
- Fusion
- Full lifecycle
- Full funnel
- Future proof
For some people the demise of AMPS in 2015 was the end of the world. For others it represents the start of a brave new world. Whatever your view, the simple reality is that where once there was a monolithic database called AMPS there is now a virtual cloud of databases which collectively offer more holistic insight into the complexity of consumer behaviour and media consumption than ever before.
The WFA Future of Insights project highlights the need to embrace this plethora of data by transitioning from the role of data librarian to becoming an agile insights explorer or a strategic consultant. A shift from data collection and distribution to applied functionality. Marketers don’t need more media data, they need functional media strategies that go beyond audience quantification and to embrace full funnel attribution to marketing outcomes. For all media formats – not just digital.
From a media perspective, at the core of this agility lies the recognition that a standalone single-source database is longer a viable option for planning in a holistic mediaverse. There is growing global recognition, driven by the WFA Framework for Cross-Media Measurement, that the key to navigating the marketing and media data tsunami lies in building a globally uniform lexicon of concepts and definitions of media consumption.
That lexicon should include common principles for market segmentation which accommodate both the sell-side (media owner) and buy side (marketer) drive for full lifecycle media measurement and attribution. A lexicon that can be used to fuel large scale data fusion.
Data fusion is the process of integrating multiple data sources by using common variables to match two or more datasets at the respondent level and creating one unified database which will portray the full lifecycle of all media platforms. A holistic and consistent representation of the mediaverse which includes the digital metaverse.
In order to future proof industry transformation we need to ensure that all these developments must be accompanied by world class training and skills development because transformation without training is really just another form of abandonment.
Ultimately the key to future proofing the advertising industry lies in full scale and totally inclusive collaboration between all industry stakeholders.
When I look over my shoulder, What do you think I see?
Some other cat lookin’ over, His shoulder at me
It’s time to stop looking and pointing at each other in the mirror. It’s time to break down the industry silos. There’s no going back. We’re all in this crazy kaleideoscopic mediaverse together.
Must be the Season of the Witch
You can watch the full presentation here:
