COLOGNE — How does LiveRamp – a company which combines consumers’ online and offline personal data with browsing behavior – view the current landscape?
In this video interview with Beet.TV, LiveRamp GM Jeff Smith notes a change in brands’ own sentiment.
“I used to walk in and try to convince marketers and agencies of the import … not just the importance of the technology, but the importance of the privacy controls that are built into the technology,” Smith explains. “Sometimes the eyes would glaze over. Sometimes there was interest.
What’s changed in the last six months is I don’t have to convince people about that anymore. They’re asking me how they should approach it and what they should do about it. So that is a refreshing change for us.”
Acxiom bought LiveRamp back in 2014, saying the move “will expand its capability to bridge the gap between offline data and the rapidly growing universe of online marketing applications with better matching, more connectivity and faster onboarding”.
“Onboarding” is Smith’s term for porting offline data about consumers to digital environments, part of LiveRamp’s approach to “identity resolution”.
In all, the company aims to help move offline data to online, to move online data around digital platforms and to help brands use online data in physical environments.
“When you combine those three things, you’ve got omnichannel marketing, which is what most of our clients are aiming for,” Smith adds. “It’s their holy grail, is to be able to engage the consumer irregardless of channel and just have a conversation with the consumer.”
This interview is part of a series titled Advertising Reimagined: The View from DMEXCO 2018, presented by Criteo. Please find more videos from the series here.
