Mindshare has implemented a number of processes into its organization to better manage and respond to quick marketplace changes, says Cindy Gustafson, Managing Director at Mindshare in an interview with Beet.TV about the advent of real-time advertising. That includes workshops, an operating system with data feeds and flexible budgeting, she says.
For starters, Mindshare introduced “The Loop” earlier this year. That’s a proprietary operating system that draws in data from more than 100 sources in real time to help the agency understand how to respond rapidly to the market. It also includes a physical space with multiple screens at the agency showcasing that data. In addition, the agency relies on “planning for agility workshops” that connect various stakeholders across a brand to help them respond to the market. As they “plan to be agile,” marketers need to have as many tools and assets available in real time, and that includes video, she says.
Finally, flexible budgets are helpful because they enable marketers to activate quickly across paid, earned and owned media. “Forethought is more important than ever before. There are so many things we can be ready for and ready to activate…if you can mechanize the process for a brand [about] what their adaptive marketing strategy is going to be then the ability to deploy at scale is the easy part.” As a recent example, the Huggies brand recently donated diapers to lower-income families for tweets supporting the Mets player Daniel Murphy’s paternity leave. The marketer’s response grew out of understanding real-time consumer behavior to the news about the baseball player.
We spoke with Gustafson as part of our series titled “The Road to Cannes,” a preview of the Festival and an overview on the state and future of digital media by a range of thought leaders. The series will be published over two weeks. The series is sponsored by Videology.
