Modern Marketing - Blog by Collaborate PR & Marketing

AI And The Killer Robots!

In the digital strategy sessions I run we look at the operational aspects of digital marketing but also cast a wider view of emerging technology and trends.  Often these trends take many years to become relevant and this is the case with machine-learning and its development into Generative AI that has taken the world by storm this year. 

My interest in machine-learning began following a conversation with a Google engineer in 2014.  ‘We used to know what was in the algorithm but we don’t now’, the engineer commented to me about the software behind Google’s ubiquitous search product. ‘A couple of years ago, one of my colleagues would have written the code to define the ranking factors but now we tell the algorithm our preferred outcomes and it codes itself,’ he continued.  My first reaction to this was to ask, ‘have you not seen Terminator?’. 

However, with hindsight, I realised this was the first time I’d heard of a full-blown application of machine-learning in the digital marketing ecosystem, which the following year, in 2015, was launched formally as RankBrain – an update to the Gordian Knot that is the Google search algorithm.  The idea of RankBrain was to enlist the power of machine-learning to better understand the intent being individual searches – particularly ones the system hadn’t seen before – which makes up approximately fifteen per cent of the 8.5 billion Google searches carried out each day.

So, yes, my first reaction to apparently intelligent technology was ‘Killer Robots!’ - jumping straight to Skynet from the film Terminator, the fictional artificial intelligence that becomes aware and decides pesky humans are just getting in the way.  Jump to 2022 and it seems...

Digital Media And Marketing Is A Game Of Thrones

In the digital strategy training sessions I run, I try to use simple language and lively analogies to describe the complex world of digital media and marketing.

One comparison I draw is between the digital macro-environment and the legendary TV series Game of Thrones (GoT).  The aim is to help people see beyond the impenetrable wall of data centres, techno-jargon, capital risk and dystopian views of robotic horizons, and that the digital technology industry is just like any other; full of fallible humans, political battles, and egomaniacal plans.  Hopefully, bringing the issues alive for those whom the discussion of bits and bytes is a non-starter.

In case you haven’t seen it, GoT was an epic fantasy TV series about nine Great Houses – as in aristocratic families - competing to be top dogs, and take their rightful control of the Iron Throne in the fictional continent of Westeros.  The result is a convoluted, brutal non-stop war full of would-be kings, powerplay-plots, and bloodshed on a tectonic level.

The global digital marketing ecosystem is so vast, sprawling, dynamic and politically complex that a point-of-comparison...

Better ROI In Digital Marketing

One of my first jobs in digital marketing was to manage analytical reporting of the traffic to clients’ websites. At the time this all seemed very sophisticated with talk of ‘hits’, ‘weblogs’ and ‘webmasters’ hinting at scientific precision. However, in reality, our analysis in monthly client meetings often amounted to no more than showing that the overall traffic was increasing, with accompanying charts showing steep lines pointing northwards. Of course, this impressive data was merely the result of a rising digital tide lifting all corporate websites that, at the time, were a new phenomenon along with talk of the information superhighway exciting headline writers and stock markets around the world.

That was all very much when digital marketing was a niche player – and sometimes eccentric relative – in the brand marketing world. Twenty years on, such views look positively quaint. Today, digital analytics is much closer to financial modelling using powerful systems such as those from Google, IBM and Adobe – among many others - that can digest information from any digital source be it online, offline, in-app, in-store, onboard, in-home or out-of-home. A vast swirling ocean of signals that individuals are...

The Digital Tide Creeps Up On TV

Last weekend I sat down to watch the Champions League Final between Real Madrid and Juventus.  Historically, this has been a prime example of ‘Event TV’; a huge must-watch sporting occasion – shown live on broadcast networks. A genre that traditional broadcasters have held up as a final unassailable bastion against the efforts of Silicon Valley to take over the living room.  However, no longer it seems.  

After scrolling around and finding that only BT was showing the game, the familiar complexities of navigating today’s TV landscape began.  Although a BT customer, I didn’t have access to the right package but I noticed its coverage was live and free on YouTube.  With multiple remotes in hand I switched from Freeview via a Humax box to the TV apps on my Sony TV.  I then launched YouTube and fiddled with the sound settings and there it was: full-screen UCL action.  

Now while far from being a slick user-experience this felt like a moment when the tech titans had finally breached the last defences of traditional broadcasting.  It’s been a long time coming with Google launching its first salvoes at the traditional broadcasters almost ten years ago before launching into its own hardware venture with Sony.  Since then, there have been...

What Will You Bid For These Pyjama Tops?

In our Digital Strategy Sessions there is often a moment when the executive teams realise that digital marketing and media doesn’t come with a rate card that can be negotiated over a good lunch in Soho.

Nowhere is this more true than when reviewing the programmatic auctions that drive modern digital media markets. For executives used to well-thumbed pricing manuals for TV spots, out-of-home billboards or double-page spreads, this new environment can be disorientating.

Traditional media formats benefit from a baked-in sense of value and price. This may be down to an established econometric model, a long-held benchmark, a missive from the procurement department or simply the deal done by the media agency at an away day. Just like the company furniture, executives are comfortable with price and value. In contrast, when entering an auction-driven modern media market, the lack of historical payments to lean back on can be discomforting.

One of the disconcerting aspects of attending an auction – offline or online - for the first time is not having a definitive price for the items you want to buy. The cost is determined by your budget and the value of the auction lot in your own context.

To draw upon a simple example from my family history, long before the digital world, a much-loved uncle of mine...

Digital Marketing Grows Up

Digital marketing has grown up. For a good period of time digital marketing played by different rules than other areas of the brand business. However, now digital is the majority of marketing, with the associated elevated levels of investment, it has come under the scrutiny that all commercial activities attract. 

This moment of maturity was brought into sharp focus - with headlamps on full-beam - when Marc Pritchard, the grandest of grand fromage at P&G, stood up recently and announced that, ‘the days of giving digital a pass are over’. What did he mean by this?  To my mind, it was a combination of calling out the illusory emperor’s clothes and a grand reveal showing that the inner workings of adtech were not magic. In fact, as Pritchard threw the curtain back, Larry Page and Mark Zuckerberg could have been standing there exclaiming - 'Pay no attention to the men behind the curtain!'

Let’s call the subsequent period of maturity Post Marc Pritchard or PMP.

The only real surprise is how long it’s taken.  For a long time executives have been blinded by the digital light.  A couple of years ago, I accompanied...

KPIs Not APIs

Among the issues we cover in the Digital Strategy Sessions I run are the changing roles and responsibilities required to meet the new demands of digital and networked media. These can be some of the thorniest challenges involving the nitty-gritty of who is going to be responsible for what, and crucially, what level of investment will be required for new functions. We look at how to approach this tricky area using planning frameworks that focus on bringing digital marketing in line with traditional business planning. This means moving beyond the view of digital marketing as a box-ticking exercise - or specialist technical silo - and understanding how different techniques genuinely contribute to the business and its bottom-line. It’s an exercise that often raises as many questions as answers but is helpful in moving executives teams away from shiny technology and the latest gizmos. The shorthand I use for this, ‘KPIs Not APIs’. While APIs, or application programming interfaces to give them their proper title, are a core aspect of the modern web’s plumbing, unless they have context within a company’s business plan they are fairly meaningless. Only when that context is shared and understood in an organisation through a planning framework - that can be returned to and improved - can roles and responsibilities be clarified.

Understanding Programmatic

The jargon and opaque terminology around programmatic advertising, such as DMPs and PIIs, obscures – as is often the case in digital marketing – what is actually happening. The moment the link between audience and content was broken and brands started to target people rather than pages, a market emerged for information about individuals and what they are interested in. Think attention data or personal signals. This market has been expanding very rapidly ever since and now can be thought of as being similar to global financial markets, although less vast and sophisticated. That said, there is a lot of advanced trading occuring in these markets among some very big, very well-capitalised players ranging from Dunnhumby to Oracle to Experian. The layering of so-called first, second and third party anonymised data into elaborate targeting packages means companies can profit from media and advertising budgets without ever going near a channel plan. Of course, there’s nothing new in the idea of companies participating in media by supplying market research and targeting information such as email lists and direct marketing databases. However, comparing such old-school techniques to today’s programmatic markets for attention data is like comparing the modern world of global financial instruments to the city of London when all that was required was a bowler hat and a cut glass accent.  In the Digital Strategy Sessions I run we look at what these new programmatic markets mean for brands and what's required to participate.

Would Your Digital Strategy Pass The Chairman’s Test?

One of the common scenarios I come across in the Digital Strategy Sessions I run is when a company has invested in a range of disparate digital products and programmes but are left feeling unsure about what is really being added to the bottom line.  In the majority of cases the problem is that the digital marketing programme is not delivering against business outcomes that senior executives genuinely care about.  This is partly because, in recent years, digital marketing has grown up and slowly joined the mainstream but has not yet been integrated with existing business planning procedures.  For example, senior executives don’t care about clicks, fans and followers. They might like the idea of having the latest digital wizadry but what they really care about are revenues, business development, growth markets, cost efficiencies and recruitment. If the digital marketing programme can’t be demonstrated to deliver against these issues – even in a minor way – it can never expect to receive the full support of those signing off on major investments. The question I pose in the Digital Strategy Sessions is would you be happy to stand up in front of your chairman or your clients’ board and present your digital marketing plan?  And, more importantly, are you happy you are addressing the issues that are top of their to-do-lists?

Getting The Data Habit

In the Digital Strategy Sessions I run I often talk about acquiring the data habit. The world of web analytics and data can be utterly overwhelming for those who are coming to it for the first time. It’s the part of the digital marketing ecosystem where jargon and strange language goes on steroids and the whole thing can easily sound like a geeky maths class. Even when looking at simple tools, such as Google Trends, it can be easy to get lost in the vast data sets that it uses. How can so much information be so meaningless is the sense that I think a lot of people – understandably – have. That’s why it’s important to find a single business-related issue and focus on that. And then, crucially, keep on returning to that data on a regular – maybe weekly – basis. The next step is to find a way to log the changes that you see and the picture will begin to appear. You could do this with a few screen shots – or maybe download a CSV file and create a chart in Excel. It doesn't have to be too clever to begin with. Perhaps just try following a company’s brand name on Google Trends and see how it changes over time. Before you know it, you will have developed the data habit.

The Creepy Line

Whilst the constantly changing world of technology is interesting, the way it affects our lives, opinions and behaviour is where marketeers should focus. Nowhere is this more prevalent than in the way technology affects our privacy. In the Digital Strategy Sessions I run, I call this The Creepy Line. It’s the feeling or idea of technology becoming too pervasive. The interesting aspect is that everyone has a different threshold. For some, being tracked their every waking moment is a positive choice, as they see immediate useful feedback, maybe in the shape of health data - such as sleep or exercise patterns. For others, the mission is to stay ‘off-grid’ to as great an extent as possible. For most, it’s somewhere in between where people are happy to offer up very intimate details about their lives in some areas, such as a fertility app, but want to keep everything else under wraps. Understanding where your customers’ Creepy Line sits and what, if anything, you can do to influence it, is increasingly important. The difficulty arises when using so-called second or third party data – or someone else’s first party data as it’s sometimes known. Third parties may guarantee the ethically sound nature of their data using, ‘privacy-safe’, ‘scrubbing’ techniques to remove Personally Identifiable Information (PIIs). However, such talk immediately takes me over The Creepy Line.

Marketing Strategy In A Digital World

In the Digital Strategy Sessions I run I sometimes start by saying that I am going to try and make an argument with which the people in the group should feel free to disagree.  I go onto suggest that digital marketing is dead, and that we should talk about marketing strategy in a digital world.  To illustrate my point, I occasionally describe meetings where I’ve sat with a group of senior executives who are grappling with how they should handle the effects of digital and networked media on their market. However, when I raise a few issues for discussion there is a slightly awkward moment and the executives in question say words along the lines of, ‘Let’s wait for Fred – he’s our digital specialist’.  At that point, the barriers go up and, ‘Fred’ becomes a way of avoiding the digital issues – whatever they may be.  The idea of marketing strategy in a digital world can sometimes help overcome this obstacle and ground subsequent conversations.  We can then go on to discuss which aspects of the digital world are relevant to the executives' specific market sector and planning techniques for including them within ongoing business planning - in ways that everyone can understand and appreciate.  Not just Fred.