MANILA, PHILIPPINES — How can digital marketers survive the upcoming cookie-pocalypse? According to Brave Connective Holdings, Inc. (BCHI), a network of four of the country’s top adtech and data companies under the Globe Group, it all boils down to strengthening the industry’s focus on customer-centric strategies. BCHI brings digital and marketing solutions provider AdSpark, adtech company Deepsea, customer data-driven solutions provider Inquiro, and multi-channel communications service provider m360 under one roof to deliver brands everything they need to future-proof themselves against an ever-changing digital landscape.
The network’s top brass shared their insights on the matter at The New Age of Adtech & Data: Unlocking Customer-Centric Marketing, a seminar organized in partnership with adoboTalks, last November 09 at The Astbury in Poblacion, Makati. The event was hosted by DMAP President and Globe Group Head of Product Design Denise Haak, who also moderated the night’s Q&A session.
In his opening address, BCHI President and Group CEO Nikko Acosta reminded attendees about the ultimate goal of any tech solution: making life better for the customer.
“You still have to realize that we are not selling features, but how we make those features into solutions that will help you and your family,” he said.
Every solution provided by adtech and data companies needs to have a single-minded focus on the end-user. This “customer obsession,” as the Globe Group put it, entails knowing what the customer wants and needs, anticipating their real problems and addressing them, and ultimately, enabling them to pursue their dreams and aspirations.
AdSpark COO JL Erestain emphasized this point in his own talk on the digital transformation of businesses, saying, “This is a very important component of digital transformation: we always start with people.”
He explained how digital transformation necessarily involves people in each of its essential elements. In digitization, the introduction of technology must be backed by human-generated data as well as consumer, employee, and client needs. In the analytics stage, the data must then be used to unlock insights that inform action in a company’s processes, people, and culture. These efforts need to all go towards creating new ways of doing things that both benefit the company’s people as well as deliver results in terms of ROI, impact, and utility.
AdSpark’s suite of adtech solutions, JL shared, was developed to drive a company’s integration into the adtech ecosystem accordingly. With products like Spark Intelligence, Spark Suite, Spark Studio, and Spark Rewards, brands can enjoy an end-to-end marketing service from data gathering to customer participation.
m360 CEO Mon Hirang followed with a fascinating talk on how AI and data can enrich the customer experience in conversational channels. It all boils down to mindset, he said: “We need to go back to the fundamental question: How can we help or empower businesses to connect to their customers on a deeper level?”
According to Mon, personalization is what sets great brand experiences apart from all the others. People are 87% more likely to spend more, 75% more likely to share more personal info, and 86% more likely to switch service providers if they feel that the customer experience was tailored around them.
To this end, m360 has been developing an omnichannel brand communications platform that leverages AI’s ability to quickly receive, analyze, and utilize data in creating a more personalized customer service experience. Customers will be able to receive responses that adapt immediately to their needs and hit key communications touchpoints in terms of their interests. The product, Hummingbird, is currently in its beta phase and is set to launch in the coming months.
Inquiro COO Senthil Kumar doubled down on the necessity for data-driven personalization with his talk. The way brands and marketers use customer data needs to enable flexibility in their campaigns, strategies, and communications.
“[Marketers] no longer can rely on straight or narrow customer journeys to target their audience,” he emphasized.
Data must be used to create individualized experiences for each customer in a way that allows companies to spend smarter, focus on the metrics that actually matter, and optimize performance across all their efforts. Through data-driven personalization, companies can boost both engagement and brand advocacy among customers, while reducing marketing waste.
To this end, Inquiro provides the largest and broadest collection of user data in the Philippines, utilizing information collected across various industries that use Globe and 917Ventures products and services. Its database features more than 94 million unique profiles, including 400+ cohorts and attributes, which covers a staggering 80% of the Philippine population. The company then leverages this massive database to create customized solutions for marketers.
In the last talk of the evening, DeepSea COO Wiwa Cajumban underscored the need for brands to prioritize first-party data to future-proof themselves against a massive change set to take place next year. Third-party cookies, which have traditionally been used by brands as data-collection tools, will be phased out in 2024, turning the digital marketing industry on its head. Companies need to adapt accordingly and quickly; in fact, forward-facing brands already are.
“Nowadays, advertisers or brands are actually leaning towards first-party data or the use of mobile advertising IDs,” he explained.
“First-party data” refers to the data directly collected by a company, such as the information a user provides to create an account. Mobile advertising IDs (MAIDS) are the data phones collect on their owners’ usage patterns. These two types of data combine to provide rich insights about customers and how marketers can efficiently target them, even without third-party cookies. Because these are collected on a more personal level via the customer’s mobile device, the data tends to have a much longer marketing lifespan than cookies.
DeepSea offers platform-agnostic means for brands to reach their customers at all touchpoints using first-party data and MAIDs collected through Globe’s platforms. And with Globe’s 94 million-strong user base, the company has, as Wiwa put it, an “unfair advantage” with the richness of its data. DeepSea is able to provide powerful solutions across DOOH, Connected TV, Video Ads, and Display/Rich Media Ads that are both effective and, more importantly, resistant to the upheavals created by the impending cookie-pocalypse.
As the evening drew to a close, it became clear that BCHI, through AdSpark, m360, Inquiro, and DeepSea, is able to deliver a full menu of options for companies in need of future-fit marketing solutions. With the digital marketing landscape constantly being disrupted by new developments, brands could benefit greatly from having that stable, future-proof base backing their campaigns.
