MIAMI-While advertisers’ first-party data is very powerful at helping them connect with consumers, it must be structured in an optimal way so as to be matched with other data to achieve scale, according to George Musi, Publicis media agency Blue 449’s EVP, Chief Data, Analytics & Insights Officer.
By itself, “First-party data, although powerful, it limits scale, and if you can’t scale in this environment, scale with the pace of a consumer, it becomes very limiting,” says Musi.
One of five global Publicis brands, Blue 449 calls itself “the open source media agency.” Its goal is to “move the equation to create a tighter connection between marketing and business,” Musi explains in this interview with Beet.TV at the 4A’s Accelerate conference.
“I think what’s happened in this day and age with the abundance of information is that the first-party data has become so expansive, it’s lost in its core focus of what we ultimately need it for.”
The key to leveraging first-party data is how to structure the information so that “it’s most meaningful for me as a business so that I can work with my agencies in order to connect the right data sources, second party, third party.”
Musi believes that just because micro-targeting, particularly with digital media and increasingly via television, exists doesn’t mean it’s applicable in every instance for every brand. “So I have a philosophy that’s saying you don’t really want to be too precise,” he says. “Pizza, everybody loves pizza, everybody loves hot dogs. Why do we need to be one-to-one at that level?”
Contemplating the “past, present and future of our business,” Musi thinks the fundamental things have not changed. “We’re still trying to connect a consumer to a brand. What’s changed is everything in the middle. I don’t know why we think performance or accountability is a new thing. It’s always been around.”
What is different is marketers’ expectations of the pace of ROI for their media investments. “What I think the expectation is today, which is maybe sacrificing the long-term health of a brand, is the short-termism of the ROI that is expected today,” says Musi.
So it pays to think both short- and long-term. “For every dollar we’re going to invest, we expect the return to be X, that X will be delivered today, because we’re meeting the demand that people are presenting today. The Y will be delivered as we meet the demands in the future.”
This video is part of a series titled The Road to the Digital Content NewFronts. It is a preview of topics to be explored at IAB’s NewFronts, which begin on April 30. This series is presented by Meredith Corporation. For more videos from the series, please visit this page.
