VIEQUES, PR – The transformative power of data is about much more than just being able to target audiences with more precision and relevance. Data also has the power to cure many digital ecosystem ills.
“Data is paramount to every strategy we put together with our clients, with our partners. It’s sort of the universal language that we have not just to transact on necessarily but to plan against,” says Adam Shlachter, President of Global Innovation at Publicis Media.
This language translates into understanding people as people, not just as broad-based segments to be traded on or targeted against. Tapping into mindsets and behaviors while grasping the effect of ad environments can unleash many useful changes.
“We can create better ads, we can certainly create better experiences and over time we can probably eliminate a lot of the waste that exists today,” Shlachter says in this interview at the 2017 Beet.TV Executive Retreat.
That wastes derives from a lack of transparency, lack of connectivity and “quite frankly an overly complex media ecosystem that is not as connected as we’d like it to be.”
It’s been just over a year since Publicis Groupe began to transform its media operations, eliminating some divisions while merging agencies, as The Wall Street Journal reports. From a central perspective, the realignment facilitates greater intelligence sharing while providing better access to talent, resources and technology, according to Shlachter.
“I do believe that these transformations take more time,” he says. “You have to make sure you have all the right pieces in place. Nothing’s going to happen overnight.”
Nonetheless, he’s excited about the momentum Publicis has exhibited in recent months. And he marvels at the pace of the long-discussed convergence of data, technology and platforms, plus the growth of industry partnerships.
“We’ve been waiting for it for a long time. The next three to five years are going to be super interesting,” Shlachter says.
This video is part of a series produced at the Beet.TV Executive Retreat in Vieques. The event and series is presented by Videology and 605. For more videos from the series, please visit this page.
