Companies that embrace new advertising technologies and understand how they will work in consumers’ everyday lives, stand to gain a real first-mover advantage in the coming years. The third edition of ‘Targeting Tomorrow’, an Omnicom Media Group MENA initiative, the media holding company put the spotlight on some of best marketing practices in a data and technology era.
The forum explored innovations and techniques such as tag management analytics, cross-channel and cross-device tracking, chatbots, viewability issues and ad fraud. Other topics of conversation included choosing the right marketing technology partners from the plethora of product and service providers and machine-learning algorithms.
At the forum, Markus Varsikko, Managing Director, Resolution EMEA, previewed the future of media, agencies and brands, detailing how business models are evolving and the relationships between them will change. “The role of agencies is altering rapidly, as we now spend 10 percent of our time planning and 90 percent optimizing. Today, we are always in beta,” said Mr Varsikko.
Mr Varsikko also examined how technology will impact how a brand exists. “A human can’t converse with everyone but a chatbot can. They create a double-digit uplift in conversations,” he commented.
Matt Pilgrim, Vice President, Partners & Alliances at global software company Tealium, listed out six steps to future-proof marketing strategies, that blend technology with skills and corporate agility. “Centralizing data will give you that single view of a customer across all channels and the ability to tailor your real-time messaging and approach accordingly. Personalization is no longer a nice-to-have; it’s a necessity,” he explained.
“Targeting Tomorrow’s focus on a post-digital world illustrates how digital is no longer a specialism but at the core of everything we do. With developments such as AI and the Internet of Things, marketers are going to have to become fluent in a whole host of new technologies and data sources. Advertisers will begin to unlock that data and develop their own ad tech solutions that not will only rival established media platforms, but potentially even outperform them,” commented Dimitri Metaxas, Regional Executive Director – Specialist Companies at Omnicom Media Group MENA.
Annalect’s Raouf Ketani, Resolution’s Adrian Turcsan and Omnicom Media Group’s Christos Solomi covered the best practice and the future of analytics, search and programmatic, demonstrating how these disciplines are transforming marketing with the personalization of messaging. With analytics moving towards harmonized and personalized data, a stepping stone towards predictive modelling, search evolving towards smart tailored content, and programmatic offering sharper targeting opportunities, marketing is certainly getting up, close and personal.
