Less BS, More Facts, Some Opinions
Just over a year ago, senior marketing editor Kristina Monllos reported how artificial intelligence and machine learning in media buying had largely failed to “enable machines to tap data about specific audiences so as to create automated campaigns across different digital channels.”
A year later, the industry seems to be settling into a more comfortable place applying AI and machine learning to speed up processing power, enhance data-crunching and minimize repetitive work that would take employees a lot longer to execute — essentially freeing up teams to focus on creative solutions and fresh ideas for clients.
“Talent and technology are the keys to unlocking our future in this industry— finding ways for tech to come in and do a better job than people can in roles people have traditionally done,” said MDC Partners global president Julia Hammond in explaining AI’s value to her holding company. “The challenge with that is it’s completely contradictory to the agency model, which has been built around people, so there’s been a reluctance to build out AI and machine learning. We’re actively pursuing it, in how we resource, how we scale and how we serve clients.”
Progress is being made elsewhere to find a happy middle ground. Last week, GroupM agency Wavemaker went public with its AI-driven media planning tool, Maximize, which the company claims is generating plans faster and more effectively than human planning teams alone. “It’s a question of complexity of the problem solved. AI essentially can solve 4D problems, not just 2D problems,” said Stephan Bruneau, Wavemaker’s global head of product, who expects Maximize will be adopted by other GroupM agencies. “Maximize can get 70 percent of a plan completed, but that last 30 percent is crucial for clients — and that’s where human intervention is critical.”Since early Q4, when Maximize was first trialed, Bruneau estimated it’s been used in work for about 50 clients, although he declined to identify any participants by name (Wavemaker’s clients include Danone, Colgate and L’Oréal) and it’s active in 60 markets. “The system can help us also optimize across different stages of the purchase journey, different touch points and across time,” he said.
Wavemaker’s not alone in deploying AI and machine learning into its workings. Since 2018, Omnicom’s sprawling Omni marketing platform has employed machine learning to manage programmatic and automated buying and planning, channel planning, audience insight planning, lookalike and propensity modeling and visual recognition for creative teams.
“It really is about following people through their marketing journey: from audience insights and creation, to planning and buying against those people, and then optimize our plans in the future to better speak to and reach them the next time,” said Clarissa Season, chief enablement officer at Omnicom’s Annalect. “And AI and machine learning form the basis of all of that.”
Omni even handles natural language processing for Omnicom’s PR agencies. That’s similar to MDC Partners, whose most high-visibility AI-driven effort is its PR product, PRophet, which is designed to help predict media interest, sentiment and spread before a story is pitched, and help journalists, PR pros and clients.
Of course there are limitations to what AI can do, especially when it comes to the nuances of human emotion — notably sarcasm. Jesse Wolfersberger, an AI expert who’s also co-founder of Vrity, a platform that helps agencies and marketers understand the power of “values” in marketing (see Color by Numbers below), said his company relies heavily on AI for its natural language processing power — but he needs humans to “cross check and triangulate” for subtleties such as sarcasm or irony. “With large samples, we’ll get some false positives” that his team will then weed out as they determine brand sentiment.
Credit goes to Publicis Groupe for calling high-level attention to AI when it dropped a bomb on the 2017 Cannes Lions by announcing it would take all its award- and trade-show expenditures and plow them into its AI-driven company-wide platform Marcel.
But Marcel’s role appears to be more internal than client-facing — it was used in 2020 to move talent from decreasing operations to growth areas.
And this year “Marcel will be even more central to filling roles within our organization, creating a fluid ecosystem between working from home and the office. It will also be the hub for all learning and development and career tracking activities,” said Publicis Groupe CEO Arthur Sadoun in a Feb. 3 earnings call to discuss 2020 earnings.
Though it may not be as big a holding company as the Big Six nor as aggressively acquisitive as upstart S4 Capital, MDC Partners has been no less active in growing its reach globally. The holding company last week signed partnerships with a handful of agencies across the globe as it expands its Global Affiliates Program.
MDC Global president Julia Hammond explained that the choice to sign affiliate partners in growth markets allows the company to effectively have a “dry run” at working with the agencies before possibly buying them. “This isn’t about just putting dots on the map, or scale for the sake of scale,” said Hammond. “We aren’t ruling out acquisitions, but we want partnerships. We make sure the CEOs we’re working with are there for the long haul and not just looking to cash out from a sale.”
Specific to these partnership are a desire to de-bifurcate brand advertising and performance marketing, added Hammond: “There’s this tendency to bifurcate brand and performance advertising, which we believe need to work more hand in hand.” That helps to explain the partnerships, which include Brand New Galaxy, an end-to-end commerce partner that works across Eastern Europe and Middle East/North Africa; Beyond Global Media, which specializes in performance marketing and content development in East Asia and North America; and OKC.Media, a creative, e-commerce and user experience agency operating in Eastern Europe.
Vrity, a new platform focused on the emerging “values economy” launched by former GroupM executives Jesse Wolfersberger and Chris Copeland, has measured the impact of “values-based” messaging for three brands that ran “socially responsible” ads in Super Bowl LV.
It scoured online surveys, social media and professional news and blog sites to measure the impact of General Motors, Chipotle and Anheuser-Busch’s environmentally themed spots, scoring them against 20 values-based categories, such as sustainability, affordability, and unity — calibrated against purchase propensity to determine a VRI (values return index). The scores compared a week before the Super Bowl to the week right after. Here’s what it found:
— Publicis Groupe had a good week last week. First off, it secured AOR duties and an estimated $600 million in media with Inspire Brands, owner of Dunkin’, Arby’s and several other QSR brand names. Inspire had launched a review with an eye toward consolidation in August 2020. Publicis shops will handle national media for Arby’s, Baskin-Robbins, Buffalo Wild Wings, Dunkin’, Jimmy John’s, and Sonic Drive-In, and local media for Dunkin’, Sonic and Jimmy John’s. Mindshare had handled media for BWW and Haworth lost Jimmy John’s.
Secondly, Publicis’ data acquisition Epsilon picked up a data AOR commitment from brewing giant AB-InBev.
Finally, Publicis-owned Digitas promoted four female executives to new roles, including Megan Jones who was named head of media for North America, up from svp, group media director.
— OMD has walked away with Dr. Scholl’s U.S. media business, estimated at north of $50 million, winning it from McGarrybowen. Duties include connected TV, online video and linear media.
“I think [Clubhouse] could be a thing. Right now, a lot of it is skewed toward what I call hustle porn. ‘Get your hustle on! Hustle harder! Get your grind on!’ It’s a lot of that — and I just don’t really like [that] that much. But it’s also a place to hear these great conversations. Last night I was listening to Sean Lennon and a studio musician, and these rock ‘n’ roll guys just talking. People were coming in and out of the room talking about rock ‘n’ roll, and it just was this cool conversation … There’s absolutely a possibility for brands to get involved. I don’t think it’ll be the biggest brands in the world — Coke or American Express — it’ll be more brands that [want to] out-innovate rather than out-spend.”
— Noble People CEO Greg March, talking about his experiences on Clubhouse, the hottest social platform right now.
— Senior news editor Seb Joseph delivers a telling Confessions interview with an agency executive who illustrates the cost among employees working in digital advertising, including woeful understaffing, and super-strict margins and revenue targets that lead to too much for too few people who don’t get paid enough.
— Modern Retail’s Amazon reporter Michael Waters reports that marketing agencies are popping up with promises to shepherd brands into the gaming ecosystem. Driven by the forthcoming direct listing of Roblox, plus the juggernaut success of Animal Crossing and Fortnite, marketing services are setting their sights on gaming — a new and arguably belated recognition of the power that gaming communities can hold for brands of all stripes.
— Senior marketing editor Kristina Monllos canvases media buyers to uncover how and why TikTok is growing from an experimental/fun buy for brands to a staple of social advertising.
— Deadline offers the latest developments around the upcoming Upfront Week (May 17-21), which is likely going to be virtual again this year.
The post Media Buying Briefing: Why AI is steadily finding its place in agency land appeared first on Digiday.
As recruitment has shifted almost entirely online during the pandemic, more companies are incorporating artificial intelligence to assist with screening and hiring.
According to a recent study from The Sage Group, 24% of businesses have started using AI for acquiring talent, with 56% of managers planning to adopt automated technology over the next year. GlobalData forecasts that the market for AI platforms in general will reach $52 billion by 2024, up from $29 billion in 2019.
But that doesn’t mean we’ll be interviewing with robots anytime soon.
Benjy Gillman, co-founder and CEO of the Tel Aviv-based virtual hiring platform myInterview, said the AI aspects of recruitment are simply a way to make the hiring process more efficient for the HR professional. The goal of AI is not to replace the HR professional, but streamline their process and allow them to dedicate their time to more creative and abstract tasks.
“Government, retail, banking and finance. What everyone’s got in common is, they’re doing inbound recruitment, there’s a lot of volume coming through, so instead of headhunting, software is coming into play,” said Gillman, who does business with companies ranging from Salesforce to McDonald’s. “This is an investment in the majority of your days.”
Here’s how the myInterview service works: its software enables employers to ask candidates questions, then displays videos of those candidates alongside additional biographical information. It uses algorithms to match the right candidate with the right employer using principles like search, keywords, and best results. Videos can then be shared internally.
Sykes Enterprises is another company using technology in HR processes. The Tampa, Florida-based business-process outsourcing firm Sykes Enterprises, services companies across sectors including media, finance and healthcare with teams, systems and technology.
Ian Barkin, chief marketing and strategy officer at Sykes and co-author of the book “Intelligent Automation: Welcome to the World of Hyperautomation,” said AI has transformed identifying and onboarding talent. “Our job is to find talent across the planet and evaluate that talent for skills that match what our clients need and train, nurture and maintain it,” he said. His company is using technology to perform HR functions like assessing the language capabilities of prospective employees and determining whether a prospect’s demeanor is the right fit for a client.
Technology merely streamlines what used to be analog functions of the hiring process, Barkin added. “Automation has always been a tool that’s enabled us to be more, whether it was the wheel and the steam engine or computing technology and algorithms,” he said.
Eko Studio, a New York and Tel Aviv-based firm that creates interactive experiences for brands like Walmart and Coca-Cola and agencies including Ogilvy and Havas, is one of the many companies that instituted virtual onboarding videos during the pandemic. Natalia Harris, VP of people operations, called them “an indispensable tool” for growing its team even with everyone working remotely.
The technology helped employees learn about Eko, its leadership and teams, mission and values in a way that felt comfortable and personalized, without meeting anyone in person. It also made the ramp-up period for new employees significantly quicker and more efficient, added Harris. Since implementing the videos, its 30-day post-hire survey results showed an 80% increase in understanding about the company and what it does. Managers have reported increased engagement and productivity and that onboarding time has halved.
The pandemic has merely amped up a process that HR departments had already begun to embrace. A study by Oracle and Future Workplace from 2019 revealed that half of 8,000 HR professionals interviewed said they used some aspect of AI in their work, an increase of 32% from the previous year.
“That’s the beauty of innovation — it’s often birthed and tested during unexpected times,” Harris said. “It’s important to us that our people feel included and prepared with the resources they need to succeed, but how do you do that over Zoom? Covid has forced us to be creative.”
Barry Lowenthal, CEO of media planning and buying agency The Media Kitchen in New York, whose clients include Vanguard and Lane Bryant, said his firm has had to onboard several new “chefs” since instituting a work-from-home policy due to the pandemic, noting that such collaboration technologies as Zoom and Google Hangouts have been instrumental in that process.
Naturally, there are some downsides to virtual hiring. “The biggest challenge is getting to know candidates when we aren’t meeting in person,” said Lowenthal.
Some factors of the interview process have definitely been shaped by the technology — like whether you have a palm tree over your shoulder.
Lowenthal has encouraged his associates not to judge job candidates by their virtual backgrounds, but suggests such things can be telling. “It’s important that candidates think about their virtual presentation,” he said, adding “how we view them is how clients will view them too, and what clients think matters, even while working from home.”
How did your role change at the onset of Covid-19?
We needed to invest more resources in news gathering so I was reassigned from my usual department — arts — to cover general news, an area I don’t have a lot of experience in.
Was it stressful being reassigned to an unfamiliar area?
If I had been given more notice, and time to prepare for that change it may not have been. But I was told the night before that I was being reassigned the next morning and so I had no preparation. I was thrown into a senior position in a totally different area and I wasn’t ready for it. That’s affected me generally as a result, that’s a frustration.
How has it affected you?
The processes are very different in arts, culture news and general news, and the level of scrutiny is different. You have to be familiar with the subject. I was given no forewarning but told the day before what I’d be doing and that I’d be reporting to a different editor-in-chief. When I turned up I wasn’t shown what to do, so I kind of stumbled along, and the result was I made mistakes in front of everyone. We had a skeleton staff still going to the office for news meetings and the rest would attend via Zoom. The fact I wasn’t prepared or experienced in the area annoyed the editor and things kind of unravelled from there, and it’s therefore affected my job.
Are you back in your usual department now?
Yes, but because of how that experience went I’m no longer being considered in the development path I was previously on. So the opportunity that was previously set out for me, has now been blocked. No explanation has been given for why.
Sounds like bad people management.
I’d just call it plain terrible management. It happened because of the arrival of Covid because I was needed in other areas, but it’s more a reflection of how cut-throat newsroom culture is. My boss needed to protect himself, and whereas some bosses will go out on a limb for you, others won’t. It’s hugely frustrating.
This newsletter briefing is edited by Jessica Davies, managing editor of Digiday Future of Work.
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The esports companies of tomorrow will look something like the entertainment businesses of today.
It took a global pandemic, but these esports players are finally starting to make the pivot to media they’ve coveted for years — and it’s all being done with a greater sense of urgency given the emerging opportunities.
In the last seven weeks alone, there have been partnerships between esports teams and global lifestyle brands, gaming stars signed to the biggest talent agencies and merchandise deals that wouldn’t look out of place in the NFL — proof that gaming is the furthest it’s ever been into mainstream culture. Naturally, these companies want a share of the spoils.
“Gaming teams are very similar to digital media companies at the end of the day in the sense that the content generated by one of our professional gamers or influencers isn’t dissimilar to how Vice or Bustle work,” said Rohit Gupta, general manager of esports organization Andbox. “We’re all content businesses. We’re looking at what those companies do to innovate when it comes to customer acquisition as well as retention.”
Of course, esports are important to these organizations. But increasingly, they’re part of a wider corporate plan to make money from influencers on Twitch, ads on YouTube and selling shows to ESPN. It’s no surprise, then, to see organizations like Faze Clan double down on parts of the media business they can own.
Cue a tussle for talent — something esports teams often have complete control over unlike content and distribution. Yes, these businesses have always been in the talent game, but their commercial models fully never reflected that. Now, times are changing.
“There are a lot more commercial deals driven around content,” said Walter Wang, operations vp at Team SoloMid. “Brands want specific content creators and streamers now rather than just the esports team,” said Wang.
It’s why the organization signed its first professional chess player, U.S. grandmaster and five-time champion Hikaru Nakamura, last year. Chess has become a streaming obsession in recent years, with Nakamura followed by more than 274,000 people on Twitter as well as owning his own Twitch channel. SoloMid’s bet is to be followed by people who love all games, whether it’s League of Legends or Chequers.
“The biggest current question esports teams need to answer is ‘how do we make significant revenue?’. Franchise teams get a small share of league earnings in addition to prize money, whereas non-franchised teams only get the latter”, said Malph Minns, managing director of agency Strive Sponsorship. “Sponsorship presently provides the majority of a team’s income, but not to a level that makes a sustainable business. Teams need to diversify their revenue streams.”
Faze Clan recently hired NFL executive Bill McCullough, as its executive vp of content to oversee a slate of original content, for example. A steady, consistent stream of carefully-crafted content greatly increases the odds of a breakout hit. And that in turn keeps people coming back to Faze Clan’s channels to watch more. That engagement drives pricing power for these organizations, from throttling acquisition costs to boosting average revenue per customer. In other words, the value isn’t just in the brand, it’s in frequency and quality of content too.
“We’re still experimenting with what’s going to get traction with our audiences, but the goal for us to invest in IP creation via our own content on our own channels,” said Faze Clan CEO Lee Trink. “We want to create a library of IP formats that we can potentially take around the world and sell multiple times.”
In theory, it makes perfect sense. In a time of immense popularity of gaming, esports organizations are scrambling for ways to profit from all the attention. In reality, it’s much messier. There’s clearly value in esports, but it’s nowhere near the value that’s getting hyped these days.
In fact, these organizations often find themselves in a vicious cycle of sky-high valuations, stunted revenue and losses that make it hard to fund growth. And yet it’s hard to break from this bind when so many paths to growth are blocked by developers who effectively control the leagues based on their games. Sure, esports teams help raise the profile of a publisher’s output but they don’t impact their bottom line in the same way so there’s no incentive for them to flip the status quo.
“There’s been an over-investment in the space to the point where the only real opportunity is an integrated model that goes beyond the earnings from competing to the monetization of community,” said Doug Scott, chief managing director at gaming entertainment holding company Subnation.
And getting to that point isn’t cheap. All the factors behind content, from IP to experience, are as variable as they are interconnected. Then there’s the fact that not all esports organizations are created equal. Faze Clan sees its esports team as part of a wider gamer lifestyle brand, whereas at Fnatic, the team is key to building a media business around performance. So understanding all those nuances isn’t straightforward. Like the most dynamic games, there’s more than one way to level up.
Faze Clan will go through a restructure later this year to accelerate its transformation into an entertainment company. Fnatic is on a recruitment drive. Of the 33 vacancies advertised at Fnatic more than half (18) are for execs who can grow the organization as an entertainment property, from the head of production, who will lead its internal studio for creative briefs, through to the buying and production managers needed for apparel sales.
The trick is striking a balance. On the one hand, esports organizations can’t be heavy-handed. Doing so, could alienate fans who made it big in the first place. On the other hand, esports teams must find the revenue streams they can control to be less reliant on the ones they don’t like media rights and brand partnerships.
Fnatic has established a High Performance Unit, for example. It will support the competitive side of the organization as well as broker commercial deals with the aim to deliver content to a broad audience via products like gaming hardware and esports equipment. This business model is less about trying to sell content, but rather works to scale content and viewership so that it can be monetized through products and partnerships.
“It’s more of a Nike meets GymShark via Peloton approach to esports than it is a Vice meets MTV approach,” said a spokesperson for Fnatic. “When you’re in a very heavily competitive space, then margins could get thinner and you don’t stand for anything other than entertainment, and the danger of that is that entertainment companies often come and go.”
It’s not that esports teams are well on their way to becoming Disney doppelgangers. That’s not the point. Rather, they’re trying to create more rounded business models.
“Over time you’ll see the G2 brand take on more of an entertainment proposition and the professional players we sign are more inclined to be part of podcasts and other forms of content away from the competitive side of the gaming because ultimately, we are about the eyeballs,” said Carlos Rodriguez, CEO of G2 Esports, at a press conference last month.
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