As its most basic state, pluralism is the state of being plural – it typically represents a diversity of views and/or methods to achieving a goal. Nowhere would that seem to fit better than the digital advertising space, and the title of digital pluralist also seems fitting for Andrew Walmsley, who cofounded UK digital media agency i-level back in 1999.
At OPS London on May 15 (SOON!), Andrew will pontificate on dynamic creative, a topic he’s knowledgable on as an advisory board member for dynamic creative specialist Cognitive Match. We’ve profiled the company before and it recently added two new products to its dynamic creative arsenal: CreativeMaker, an Adobe Creative Suite plugin for assisting with building dynamic creative; and MatchMaker, a dynamic creative management system that features both tried-and-true layouts and the ability to upload creative built with CreativeMaker.
But before his OPS London presentation, we caught up with Andrew to understand his thoughts on what being a digital pluralist means and hear about the coolest aspects of dynamic creative.
There are a plethora of interpretations of pluralism, including cultural, scientific and political. So what does it mean to be a digital pluralist?
Back in 1994 when I first got involved with the web, it was already clear that the impact of digital would range across business, society, culture and government, reaching into every aspect of our lives. In 2012, it’s becoming apparent we’ve only just scratched the surface; so Digital because it is the agent for changing everything, and Pluralist because there’s so much to do!
As a digital agency pioneer, when did you first get interested in the possibilities behind dynamic creative and optimization? What was that “oh wow” moment?
We’ve always seen the potential of digital channels to enable a personalised experience for consumers – good for them, and it works for us. But rules-based approaches using decision trees were cumbersome, insufficiently granular and hard to keep relevant as competition changed; there had to be a better way.
Applying machine learning was the answer – it is ideal for picking out subtle patterns in the huge data sets we generate online, and using these to decide what content works best in that moment. When Cognitive Match CEO Alex Kelleher brought the idea to me back in 2010, it was an instant hit.
What have been the biggest obstacles to wider adoption of dynamic creative? How will the technology grow in the next six months to a year?
It’s typically taken a long time to even get a campaign live with dynamic creative. Now that that’s been fixed (Cognitive Match has it down from four to six weeks to under a day) we should see huge growth in this area. In addition to the time-to-live, traditionally the process has been disjointed, and a key group of individuals in any marketing campaign – the creatives – have not had the flexibility and luxury of coming up with strong, segmented messages. Dynamic creative enables marketers to focus on what they are great at: coming up with ways to communicate benefits to the key segments of their target audience.
Cognitive Match, the dynamic creative firm you’re an advisor to, has just teamed up with massive data market BlueKai. How will this influx of data enhance the company’s offering?
The intersection between data and creative is what Cognitive Match has always been about for me. This additional layer of data from BlueKai should be rocket fuel for customer ROI, as we’re now able to use every data point to its fullest potential. In addition, the technology can quickly determine what is important, and what’s not – meaning that thousands of data points can be boiled down to a simple, effective decision.
Big Data is a great buzzword, but unless people are actually finding ways to make money out of it, in a real, tactical sense – it risks just remaining that future promise. I’m excited for BlueKai and for Cognitive Match that the industry will finally start delivering in a big way on that promise. Of course BlueKai are also joining a really strong team of companies that work with Cognitive Match that already includes Yahoo!, Adnetik and the Tradesdesk.
What are some of the more interesting applications you’ve seen or imagined in terms of data streams used to inform dynamic creative in real-time?
Of course the smartest marketing brains are focused on the fact their consumers are influenced by all sorts of things – the stock market, the weather, TV ads they’ve seen, or that their favorite sports team just got a new sponsor. At a more granular level, the billboard I saw today, the ad I glanced at in the back of a cab, the product my friend just tweeted me about…
We are all wading through a river of information that’s only flowing ever faster. Bring me something that is relevant, though, and I’ll listen. So whether that’s an ad that saves me time or money, a mobile message that helps me locate a product, or a billboard that reacts to the markets – all of those will be driven by dynamic creative in some way.