Views from the NYU Conference Center

Unraveling Big Data at NYU Stern’s GMA Conference| Impact & Precautions for the  Future of Marketing

Geoff Ramsey, CIO & Co-Founder eMarketer

Last week, my alma mater convened a half-day event to tackle the current thinking around marketing and big data – the subtitle of the event was in fact, How Marketers Use Big Data and AI to Connect with Consumers.   To set the stage for the astronomical growth of this field, Geoff Ramsey, CIO & Co-Founder eMarketer ran through a slew of statistics including the trajectory of the digital ad spending market and a speedy SWOT analysis for vendors and intermediaries in the space.  The numbers were astounding – $200B in total ad spend and over 50% of that digital.   Mobile, naturally a key driver for growth.

Takeaway #1 – A duopoly has formed with over 58% of every dollar spent ending up at Facebook or Google.  Amazon grabbing its share further down the chain via shopping assistance – catching end-user buyers to help close the sale.  It’s not clear that this duopoly is good or bad for the consumer, but it’s certainly going to raise the stakes for other retailers vying for their online presence.

Takeaway #2 – Beside the blowout number, the key message seemed to be the significant shift away from programmatic advertising.  Why? This type of automated buying, though the most efficient, does not provide for transparency and as such may compromise a brand’s positioning or “safety” as the ad can easily land alongside content or another ad Further complicating this shift is “multi-touch attribution,” in other words, crediting the success of an ad to a specific ad channel or program.  Moving to more custom ad buying environment will no doubt be more expensive for brands and change economics across the board.

Takeaway #3 – Now it gets interesting.  Trending forward is the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) to power personalized, dynamic creative.   In fact 5 of 6 Americans are already using AI but just don’t know it. He places bets on “Voice as a Utility” as the most powerful disrupter.  As your phone for recommendations for any product or service.  The responses will have to be limited due to the reality of the end user being able to retain the information and also act real-time.   A smaller list means that each advertiser is getting more value per voice response.   AI also means the opportunity for Augmented Reality but to date, it has very low market penetration as an advertising tool.

Most intriguing is the use of Magnetic Content – to fully engage the consumer.   He used an example of an ad in Brazil that gets young men involved in cooking by asking them to post a photo of the contents of their refrigerator.  From that point,   it recommends a recipe and to take it further, engages them in a web-based experience to make the recipe.  Of course, he points out that if the user has an icebox full of beer, it makes for a very limited dining experience!

Breakouts

From the panel called, Unlocking E-Commerce Potential with Big Data we heard from consumer oriented companies including MealPal, Zola, QVC, and Boxed.  Across the board, these are low margin services and data is being used to maximize Customer Lifetime Value.  They have parsed and measured every advertising dollar to understand this formula – ditching ineffective tools or messaging quickly.   QVC clearly on the bleeding edge of customer engagement using Facebook Live and other tools to create deeper customer experiences.   They are all striving for a holistic look at the customer and data can help, but it still needs interpretation.

From the panel called Building Analytics Capabilities in Organizations, experts came from Google, Casper, Zocdoc, and Nielsen Rhiza.  The panel strived to recommend the best place for analytics capabilities.  The struggle is whether to place it inside a function where it can be most readily deployed to make changes (e.g. Marketing) or keep it independent as a resource to the entire company.  There was a robust discussion on the skills needed to work in these positions.   All the panelists felt that being trained in the languages of data – SQL, Python, and R (to name a few) was essential to today’s marketing analytics professionals.  However, the old days of needing to study machine learning and engineering are behind us and the job title “Chief Data Scientist” will be replaced by “Chief Intelligence Officer” and “Chief Decision Officer” – making it imperative that all the data has a context and that marketers can weave a story around the data to drive the business decisions.   The overall discussion was highly thoughtful with loads of advice to the student body.

Jackson Jeyanayagam, CMO Boxed

The final keynote speaker was CMO of Boxed, Jackson Jeyanayagam.   He wove a fabulous tapestry of how Boxed determined the target persona for their online play of bulk consumer goods.  They used data to figure out exactly where they would fit and what part of the $250B market they could access to grab. Once they understood the demographic and psychographics of their customer, the key application of data has been personalization or in his words, “Ridiculous CX” (customer experience).  In the warehouse, the employees even include personal notes!  Mind you, these are very happy employees who enjoy such benefits as the company paying up to $20K for their wedding!  Most frequently asked question, what if I get married and divorced and married again while working here?

Despite the relentless use of big data in all the organizations that presented, there was a common theme –To be a truly effective marketing data analyst, one must put a stake in the ground with a hypothesis and use the data like a good detective! Share on X   In the words of the first speaker (and considering that eMarketer is a company steeped in data) Geoff believes that data can only give you half of the story!

On a personal note, I so enjoyed being part of the campus and it was great to see the transition of the MBA focus to embrace all things marketing!  Also great to see that we are in synch with the industry luminaries in this timely Forbes article that hits on many of the same issues ahead for CMO’s.