Digital advertising’s true impact on in-store sales
Digital advertising’s true impact on in-store sales
Why the Pivot to Video Will Prevail
There’s been some negative buzz in recent months around publishers’ shift to distributed content–and particularly, video ad spending on Facebook. Numerous articles, citing anonymous sources and utilizing mysterious methodology, point to monetization woes, shrinking returns and writer layoffs. But is that the full story? Is it a problem with the platforms? Are Google and Facebook…
[Read More …]
Why the Pivot to Video Will Prevail
There’s been some negative buzz in recent months around publishers’ shift to distributed content–and particularly, video ad spending on Facebook. Numerous articles, citing anonymous sources and utilizing mysterious methodology, point to monetization woes, shrinking returns and writer layoffs. But is that the full story? Is it a problem with the platforms? Are Google and Facebook…
[Read More …]
Why the Pivot to Video Will Prevail
There’s been some negative buzz in recent months around publishers’ shift to distributed content–and particularly, video ad spending on Facebook. Numerous articles, citing anonymous sources and utilizing mysterious methodology, point to monetization woes, shrinking returns and writer layoffs. But is that the full story? Is it a problem with the platforms? Are Google and Facebook…
[Read More …]
In 2018, management consultancies will have their sights set on media
For management consultancies trying to be agencies, 2018 is the year they’ll have to prove they can do it.
“Next year is the year we’re focusing strongly on organic growth that is in part seeded by some of the acquisitions we’ve made around the globe,” said Brian Whipple, CEO of Accenture Interactive, which snapped up 14 agencies globally in the past five years.
Management consultants have been creeping in on agency turf for a while now, spending a lot on acquisitions. The biggest player is Accenture Interactive, but others aren’t far behind. Deloitte Digital acquired creative agency Heat in 2016, while IBM’s acquisition of Resource/Ammirati has now resulted in a 36-studio holding agency called IBM iX.
In 2017, consulting firms started a sometimes painful process of integrating those agencies into their existing operations. Next year, the pressure will be on to prove the integrations panned out.
“When we buy a company, their destination is [Accenture Interactive],” Whipple said. “They might keep a brand identity for a transition, but the management team is emotionally and work-wise strategically signed up. If they wanted a founders’ culture, they can go to a holding company. Our mission is never to grow that business as standalone.”
Meanwhile, for agencies like Hill Holliday and Ogilvy, which have moved in on consulting companies’ turf, next year is the time to prove they can fight back.
Now, consultants are adding design, user experience and customer experience projects to their existing offerings. Traditionally, UX or creative projects were the domain of agencies, while consultancies used to do supply-chain management, information technology or tech-related work.
There have been indications that the pitch is working. Deloitte connected its win of LG’s work to its purchase of Heat; Accenture has won duties for Maserati. Deloitte also won pizza brand Papa Murphy’s, which needed to figure out back-end development that Deloitte Digital could handle, while Heat could take care of creative.
The one area consultancies still haven’t cracked is media planning and buying. There have been some moves in this direction. Deloitte does media-mix modeling, planning and budgeting with a group of media-buying agencies that set aside inventory for that company’s use. Accenture and PwC help clients with business-related changes, including bringing programmatic in-house. There is room, especially as traditional media buying companies wrestle with transparency issues.
The big change will come once consulting companies move in on the bread-and-butter of media buying. There are some indications that will happen next year. Joy Bhattacharya, Accenture Interactive’s U.K. and Ireland managing director, said at a breakfast briefing earlier this year that he’s had lots of discussions with clients to help them set up in-house digital media-buying operations. Some of that is fallout from this year’s transparency and fraud issues with media that have clients asking if they can do this buying themselves. At PwC, there is a marked move to try and increase auditing capabilities as a response to the rash of questions being asked about rebates.
However, Whipple said he doesn’t see Accenture moving aggressively into media buying because it’s highly competitive and relatively low margin. More likely, Accenture will get more involved with retail media or commerce that combines experience and advertising. “In that context, if media is going to be part of something, we might be in that,” he said.
At IBM iX, global leader for strategy and design Robert Schwartz said programmatic will be a big driver for 2018. While he doesn’t want to get into traditional media buying, IBM iX has clients asking about help with media — and he wants to put in tech like blockchain next year to help them, especially with problems like fraud and transparency.
“How do you connect media buying with technology?” is the question Louise Clements, who heads ICF Olson, a consultancy-agency hybrid with more than eight acquisitions under its belt in 2017, is trying to answer. “I don’t see that happening yet,” she said. “That is a big opportunity to connect opportunities for the market so you can do that and do it cost-effectively.”
Image courtesy of Accenture Interactive
In 2018, management consultancies will have their sights set on media
For management consultancies trying to be agencies, 2018 is the year they’ll have to prove they can do it.
“Next year is the year we’re focusing strongly on organic growth that is in part seeded by some of the acquisitions we’ve made around the globe,” said Brian Whipple, CEO of Accenture Interactive, which snapped up 14 agencies globally in the past five years.
Management consultants have been creeping in on agency turf for a while now, spending a lot on acquisitions. The biggest player is Accenture Interactive, but others aren’t far behind. Deloitte Digital acquired creative agency Heat in 2016, while IBM’s acquisition of Resource/Ammirati has now resulted in a 36-studio holding agency called IBM iX.
In 2017, consulting firms started a sometimes painful process of integrating those agencies into their existing operations. Next year, the pressure will be on to prove the integrations panned out.
“When we buy a company, their destination is [Accenture Interactive],” Whipple said. “They might keep a brand identity for a transition, but the management team is emotionally and work-wise strategically signed up. If they wanted a founders’ culture, they can go to a holding company. Our mission is never to grow that business as standalone.”
Meanwhile, for agencies like Hill Holliday and Ogilvy, which have moved in on consulting companies’ turf, next year is the time to prove they can fight back.
Now, consultants are adding design, user experience and customer experience projects to their existing offerings. Traditionally, UX or creative projects were the domain of agencies, while consultancies used to do supply-chain management, information technology or tech-related work.
There have been indications that the pitch is working. Deloitte connected its win of LG’s work to its purchase of Heat; Accenture has won duties for Maserati. Deloitte also won pizza brand Papa Murphy’s, which needed to figure out back-end development that Deloitte Digital could handle, while Heat could take care of creative.
The one area consultancies still haven’t cracked is media planning and buying. There have been some moves in this direction. Deloitte does media-mix modeling, planning and budgeting with a group of media-buying agencies that set aside inventory for that company’s use. Accenture and PwC help clients with business-related changes, including bringing programmatic in-house. There is room, especially as traditional media buying companies wrestle with transparency issues.
The big change will come once consulting companies move in on the bread-and-butter of media buying. There are some indications that will happen next year. Joy Bhattacharya, Accenture Interactive’s U.K. and Ireland managing director, said at a breakfast briefing earlier this year that he’s had lots of discussions with clients to help them set up in-house digital media-buying operations. Some of that is fallout from this year’s transparency and fraud issues with media that have clients asking if they can do this buying themselves. At PwC, there is a marked move to try and increase auditing capabilities as a response to the rash of questions being asked about rebates.
However, Whipple said he doesn’t see Accenture moving aggressively into media buying because it’s highly competitive and relatively low margin. More likely, Accenture will get more involved with retail media or commerce that combines experience and advertising. “In that context, if media is going to be part of something, we might be in that,” he said.
At IBM iX, global leader for strategy and design Robert Schwartz said programmatic will be a big driver for 2018. While he doesn’t want to get into traditional media buying, IBM iX has clients asking about help with media — and he wants to put in tech like blockchain next year to help them, especially with problems like fraud and transparency.
“How do you connect media buying with technology?” is the question Louise Clements, who heads ICF Olson, a consultancy-agency hybrid with more than eight acquisitions under its belt in 2017, is trying to answer. “I don’t see that happening yet,” she said. “That is a big opportunity to connect opportunities for the market so you can do that and do it cost-effectively.”
Image courtesy of Accenture Interactive
Isobar’s Jean Lin on marketing in China: ‘The speed of evolution is tremendous’
Jean Lin, global CEO of digital marketing shop Isobar, manages more than 5,500 people across over 45 markets. While many holding group agency CEOs are based in advertising hotbeds of New York and London, Lin has run Isobar from its Shanghai office.
Lin spoke with Digiday about the Chinese advertising landscape, the role of consultancies and how her team works with Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent (known as the BAT). Our conversation has been edited for clarity and length.
Why manage Isobar from Shanghai?
I come from the region, but I also see a lot of evolution from [the] Asia-Pacific [region] in general. A chart from the World Economic Forum listed the top 15 global cities that would contribute to global GDP [gross domestic product] by 2030. Nine are from China, along with Tokyo and Jakarta [in Indonesia], which says a lot. It’s clear that lots of dynamics are taking place in APAC, especially with the digital economy. I want to stay close to the market, and I think the world needs a more balanced view.
What examples of evolution do you see?
The speed of evolution in APAC is tremendous and amazing. A few months ago we partnered with Alibaba to improve KFC’s dining and checkout experiences with cashless payments. In China, I never bring my wallet because the only thing I need is my mobile phone and my WeChat. Most stores are WeChat-enabled or Alipay-enabled. That evolution has changed people’s lives and has an impact on retail and financial services.
What are hot topics for advertisers in China?
Everyone talks about “O2O,” which means online to offline, or “OMO,” which means online merges with offline. That requires the understanding of a complex infrastructure in China in terms of different industry sectors, how the trade middlemen work, and how to enhance brands’ logistics and design brand experiences.
The key is the convenience of mobile apps and how people are used to calling in services on mobile. For instance, delivery services in China are happening at an amazing speed. My colleague was trying to arrange a grocery delivery to her home yesterday, and the company would make the delivery in 15 minutes. In China, brands think about how they can speed up the delivery of their services, from brand inspiration to transactions.
Is marketing easier in China than the U.S. because of the BAT?
Not at all. A lot of traditional channels are still working, and they are really important, so there is more than the BAT. Meanwhile, there are lots of new offerings in automotive and financial services segments. You can’t just work with the BAT to reach over 1.3 billion people in China, although the BAT is very important. We look at the BAT’s respective strengths and form a different partnership with each company.
How so?
One clear strength of Baidu is its artificial intelligence development, which is understandable because Baidu has been big in search. We have also worked with Baidu on a lot of voice recognition projects. There are more than 30 different dialects in China, so if a brand is trying to make its customer feel at home, the brand needs to talk to them in their home tongue. We co-designed a robotic ordering device with Baidu for KFC called Dumi that can recognize over 30 accents from all provinces in China.
How about Alibaba and Tencent?
We work with Alibaba on connecting online and offline. We’ve helped clients improve in-store experiences and online promotions around Singles Day, for instance. Alibaba also gets more involved in the physical space, so we’ve also tested many technologies with Alibaba for offline stores.
We have partnerships with Tencent that help us do better targeting. In last year’s campaign for [culinary provider] Unilever Food Solutions around Chinese New Year, we only targeted chefs, as they [had to work at restaurants during the holidays] and thus couldn’t go back home during Spring Festival for a family reunion. Tencent’s data allowed us to do that.
You started Wwwins Consulting in 1999, which became Isobar’s China office. Is there tension between agencies and consultancies in China?
There’s more face-to-face encountering between consultancies and agencies, which actually gives clients more options on how to make things happen. The current gap with consultancies lies in creative and design areas. That is why they go out and acquire companies. One challenge for consultancies is to integrate creative culture into a strong consulting culture. They are still figuring it out, while agencies can do better in understanding insights, consumer behavior, emotional attachment that people have with a brand and how that impacts the brand’s overall experience. It’s a race between consultancies and agencies that are both expanding to have better integrated offerings, which is good for clients.
Isobar’s Jean Lin on marketing in China: ‘The speed of evolution is tremendous’
Jean Lin, global CEO of digital marketing shop Isobar, manages more than 5,500 people across over 45 markets. While many holding group agency CEOs are based in advertising hotbeds of New York and London, Lin has run Isobar from its Shanghai office.
Lin spoke with Digiday about the Chinese advertising landscape, the role of consultancies and how her team works with Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent (known as the BAT). Our conversation has been edited for clarity and length.
Why manage Isobar from Shanghai?
I come from the region, but I also see a lot of evolution from [the] Asia-Pacific [region] in general. A chart from the World Economic Forum listed the top 15 global cities that would contribute to global GDP [gross domestic product] by 2030. Nine are from China, along with Tokyo and Jakarta [in Indonesia], which says a lot. It’s clear that lots of dynamics are taking place in APAC, especially with the digital economy. I want to stay close to the market, and I think the world needs a more balanced view.
What examples of evolution do you see?
The speed of evolution in APAC is tremendous and amazing. A few months ago we partnered with Alibaba to improve KFC’s dining and checkout experiences with cashless payments. In China, I never bring my wallet because the only thing I need is my mobile phone and my WeChat. Most stores are WeChat-enabled or Alipay-enabled. That evolution has changed people’s lives and has an impact on retail and financial services.
What are hot topics for advertisers in China?
Everyone talks about “O2O,” which means online to offline, or “OMO,” which means online merges with offline. That requires the understanding of a complex infrastructure in China in terms of different industry sectors, how the trade middlemen work, and how to enhance brands’ logistics and design brand experiences.
The key is the convenience of mobile apps and how people are used to calling in services on mobile. For instance, delivery services in China are happening at an amazing speed. My colleague was trying to arrange a grocery delivery to her home yesterday, and the company would make the delivery in 15 minutes. In China, brands think about how they can speed up the delivery of their services, from brand inspiration to transactions.
Is marketing easier in China than the U.S. because of the BAT?
Not at all. A lot of traditional channels are still working, and they are really important, so there is more than the BAT. Meanwhile, there are lots of new offerings in automotive and financial services segments. You can’t just work with the BAT to reach over 1.3 billion people in China, although the BAT is very important. We look at the BAT’s respective strengths and form a different partnership with each company.
How so?
One clear strength of Baidu is its artificial intelligence development, which is understandable because Baidu has been big in search. We have also worked with Baidu on a lot of voice recognition projects. There are more than 30 different dialects in China, so if a brand is trying to make its customer feel at home, the brand needs to talk to them in their home tongue. We co-designed a robotic ordering device with Baidu for KFC called Dumi that can recognize over 30 accents from all provinces in China.
How about Alibaba and Tencent?
We work with Alibaba on connecting online and offline. We’ve helped clients improve in-store experiences and online promotions around Singles Day, for instance. Alibaba also gets more involved in the physical space, so we’ve also tested many technologies with Alibaba for offline stores.
We have partnerships with Tencent that help us do better targeting. In last year’s campaign for [culinary provider] Unilever Food Solutions around Chinese New Year, we only targeted chefs, as they [had to work at restaurants during the holidays] and thus couldn’t go back home during Spring Festival for a family reunion. Tencent’s data allowed us to do that.
You started Wwwins Consulting in 1999, which became Isobar’s China office. Is there tension between agencies and consultancies in China?
There’s more face-to-face encountering between consultancies and agencies, which actually gives clients more options on how to make things happen. The current gap with consultancies lies in creative and design areas. That is why they go out and acquire companies. One challenge for consultancies is to integrate creative culture into a strong consulting culture. They are still figuring it out, while agencies can do better in understanding insights, consumer behavior, emotional attachment that people have with a brand and how that impacts the brand’s overall experience. It’s a race between consultancies and agencies that are both expanding to have better integrated offerings, which is good for clients.