Adapt strategy to adopt technology
Sean Healy
Admap
January 2016
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Adapt strategy to adopt technology
Sean Healy
Admap
January 2016
Adapt strategy to adopt technology
Sean Healy
ZenithOptimedia
The rise of technology is heralding a new era of experience and design where brand communication strategists
and technologists will need to work hand in hand to produce frameworks for total consumer experiences, so
bringing communications strategy into a leading role.
New technology
This article is part of a collection of articles on the marketing opportunities in new technology. Read more.
Technology is in the process of turning the world upside down. We are being told this time and time again. As neophytes, all of
us in marketing and communications should surely be welcoming this with open arms. However, the fear is that the march of
technology will result in the automation of much of what is done in agencies today. The eradication of the 'human' by the
relentless logic of the machine.
Well, technology might be changing the human role, but it is not eradicating it. In fact, technology is likely to make smart ideas
that are well executed more important than ever, as for every new algorithm there is an ad-blocker. We are moving into an era
of experience design in which communications strategists and technologists will need to work hand in hand. An era where
strategists and technologists will be the CMO's best friends.
So strategy will have a crucial role to play in our technology-driven future. However, the discipline that is emerging will differ
from what went before. It will focus primarily on designing a total consumer experience rather than being consigned to
separate silos, such as advertising, media, and digital. Crucially, strategy will drive how technology is used by our industry.
Connecting disparate individual experiences will be key to the success of brand communication and will increasingly blur the
lines between technology, data analysis and creativity.
So what are the ways in which technological change will make strategists and strategy even more potent in 2016 and beyond?
First, technology will fuel a new attitude towards what is important for strategists. At ZenithOptimedia we call this 365-day, not
360-degree, thinking. The impact of technology is pushing the centre of strategic gravity from 'surround sound' advertising
bursts to an approach that originates in Owned Assets and always-on thinking. Communications strategists now have a broad
canvas to shape and fill, 365 days a year and 24/7. This is fundamentally changing the shape of the job. It is becoming less
'dip in and out'. Strategy now moves at the cadence of data and popular culture.
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2 In order to deliver '365' thinking and solutions there are a series of practical steps that we can adopt. These steps are not ivory
tower abstractions for remote strategists; they require a collaborative approach that mobilises an entire agency team to deliver
more effective work.
1. Develop strategy from a brand purpose
Technology is making practically anything possible in marketing communications – from super-sophisticated personalisation of
creative work through to the building of branded utility that can help to solve people's financial or health problems. This is a
truly massive blank canvas and while it presents an opportunity, it also leaves us open to recommending stuff because we
can, not because we should. One of the corollaries of the rise in technology has been the rise in the idea of a brand purpose.
This is an active statement of intent and is thankfully superseding the often bland and whimsical brand values of the television
era. Those aforementioned '365' strategies thrive on brand purposes because they demand action, long-term storytelling and
hold ideas to account very clearly.
The delivery of a brand purpose drives more ambitious thinking and often ultimately greater use of marketing technology for
activation. There is plenty of evidence that purposeful branding drives growth. Millward Brown's Marketing 2020 study
suggests that a clear sense of purpose drives greater success on eight key metrics from lead generation to brand advocacy.
For example, after adopting a brand purpose centring on democratising the best of the digital world for ordinary people, we
developed a new content service with UK commercial TV station Channel 4 for O2. This content service, ultimately launched
as part of All 4, the channel's digital platform, allows any O2 4G customer access to top C4 shows 48 hours before their first
linear broadcast. It has taken the long-standing and super-successful Priority programme from gig venues on to the handset
and created a uniquely valuable consumer experience that ultimately provides access to all of Channel 4's video estate in one
click.
2. Understand the consumer journey beyond channel mix
Brand purpose is realised through a more active relationship with people at all stages of a journey and technology plays an
integral role in this. The technological opportunity to understand how each stage of a journey connects to the next is
transforming our role. This takes media strategists closer to the world of UX experts than ad agency account planners. One of
the key steps to success in this area is acquiring the skills to understand the role of content at each stage of the consumer
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3 journey.
This requires you to develop a consumer-centric approach to understand consumer demand for content within the category in
question and match the supply via the competitive set's owned assets at each stage of the journey.
A great way to achieve this is the creation of a systematic 'stack' of tools and an analytical approach to synthesise findings into
a Content Audit. This insight empowers communications planners to make strategic recommendations as to the whole
experience rather than just the required channel profile. Furthermore, adopting a Content Audit approach facilitates a point of
view on the experience around purchasing and customership rather than acquisition alone.
Powering a Content Audit includes the following three types of approach. First, detailed keyword analysis from Google
AdWords on category-level search patterns associated with different stages of the consumer journey. Second, social listening
that evaluates the scale and nature of conversation around identifiable journey stages, behaviours and brands. And third,
Owned Asset evaluation using chosen social media monitoring tool(s) that define the publishing strategies of the competitive
set and best practice in terms of community management: types of image, post tonality and integration with offline activities.
A great example of this type of approach in action comes from the Electrolux account. Faced with the challenge of helping our
client to 'own' steam cooking, our strategists built a deep understanding of the required consumer experience using Content
Auditing techniques. These included: understanding how food trends build online via search analysis of recent crazes;
evaluating the quality and relevance of Electrolux's Owned Assets by matching 'content supply' to specific keywords; and
understanding what kinds of offline food experiences drive positive conversation among influencers.
Key principles that we derived from this analysis were that (a) we had to overcome scepticism as to the taste benefits of
steam, and (b) a brand can't drive a food trend with any credibility. The resulting regional activation saw Electrolux Steam
Cooking Vans in key taste-making cities supported by major content pushes around steam in partnership with influential media
brands such as TV show Hell's Kitchen.
3. From syndicated to behavioural data
Technology is flooding the marketing world with data but very little of it is being used to great effect. For most communications
strategists it is simply too difficult to get meaningful data outputs into one place which allows them to manipulate and visualise
it and, ultimately, extract actionable insights. This is not to say that there are not multiple new opportunities to learn from data
and make a positive impact on strategic planning. The trick is not to be stymied by the intractability of Big Data; 'small data'
can also be massively useful.
One of the key areas in which communications need to be proactive is in targeting. We are in a world in which the traditional
'TGI-style' desktop data sources are being superseded by the numbers that we can obtain from first- or third-party sources in a
data management platform (DMP). We are able to plan from the data that digital traders or a programmatic platform ultimately
buy against. What is interesting to note is the differences that two sources – one based on claims about historical behaviour
'TGI' and the other in real-time based upon individual behaviours – throw up on occasion.
To give you an example, in building a picture of a 'family champion' segment of mums for a major US retail client, all the data
from Simmons (the pre-eminent US desktop source) suggested that this target group massively over-indexed against children's
television channels. These selfless parents tuned in with their kids and then maybe after 8pm were doing needlework or on
their laptops back in the grip of their employers. However, when analysing the same group via Oracle's BlueKai DMP, we saw
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4 a very different picture emerge. Mums in this group could be seen massively over-indexing on popular entertainment and
sports channels such as Fox. Having sat through many focus groups during which people claim to watch documentaries and
not much else, in complete contradiction of all the evidence from the ratings, I'm inclined to believe Oracle BlueKai on this
occasion.
4. Beyond the big idea
It is a massive challenge for communications strategists to ensure that the target audience that is being bought, by technologyempowered programmatic teams, actually relates back to the original intent. Programmatic teams are sitting on a wealth of
audience data that rarely makes it into the hands of communications strategists. In almost all agency groups, this team sits
outside the main agency and optimises its performance to KPIs that may not relate to the overall strategy. As a result, the
audience segments that they buy and monitor could be much smaller and much further down a purchase journey than the
strategist intended. Establishing a very clear audience brief for executional teams early in the process has never been more
important than now when segments of mindboggling levels of complexity can be built and bought.
Furthermore, today's communications/ media strategist should be taking an active role in understanding the choice of 'stack'
that his or her client is employing: DBM vs. Atlas vs. Adobe makes a big difference. The choices that a client makes in this
area have a massive impact on consumer insight, creative agility and the ability to optimise campaigns in real-time. The
abilities to see and connect the consumer journey are compromised by the wrong ad tech choices. These technology
decisions will have a profound impact on the ability of the narrative that has been lovingly crafted to be sequenced correctly
and the collection of data to inform future strategy.
An example of the power of the stack is ZenithOptimedia's work with Toyota, BCG and Google. The exercise of optimising the
'DoubleClick stack' through smart use of data powering relevant retargeting drove the reduction of the cost per site visit (the
key metric) by 58%.
So what does all of the '365' good stuff add up to? I see the future role of the communications/media strategist as part
orchestrator and part originator. Our responsibility is going to become partly focused on creating a framework in which a brand
story is curated and partly writing a brief for assets that contribute. We need to be – in the words of Stanley Pollitt – the
modern 'voice of the consumer'. We should understand where friction exists on the consumer journey, understand how to
make the story native to the platforms that deliver it, ensure that everyone gets who the consumer really is and make sure that
use of data enhances the experience, not causes death by retargeting.
It remains to be seen whether technology will ultimately automate some of our industry out of existence, but its impact will
transform communications strategy from support into lead actor status.
About the author
Sean Healy is cultural planning lead, EMEA for ZenithOptimedia Worldwide. He is the architect of new communication
strategies across the network, including Owned First, Zenith Optimedia's approach to paid, owned and earned media.
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