Kuala Lumpur: Dentsu Aegis Network has bagged two awards, taking home the AI Business Services Award and the Digital Advertising Award at the recently concluded Malaysia Technology Excellence Awards, presented recently by Singapore Business Review in Kuala Lumpur.
The inaugural awards event honoured enterprises that take risks and lead the charge in developing ground-breaking projects, digital services, reimagined strategies, and technological initiatives. Winners were judged on the basis of uniqueness and innovation, effectiveness and impact, and dynamism.
Building the tool from scratch, the Dentsu Aegis Network data team created an AI-powered digital marketing intelligence tool, named ‘Pronto’, that visualises and predicts sales, business and 360° marketing information in real time. The network said that companies must navigate an increasingly diverse range of platforms and channels given the unprecedented exponential growth of the digital ecosystem.
“Marketing campaigns are increasingly sophisticated, weaving online and offline narratives and experiences borne from strategic Customer Relationship Management design-led approaches. It is paramount that resulting data threads are captured cleanly and analysed intelligently to ensure ad investment bears fruit,” said Siti Raflise, Chief Data Officer at Dentsu Aegis Network Malaysia.
Amongst the list of satisfied clients was a global pharmaceutical company who had a marketing plan and an omnichannel digital presence but didn’t have any method to link those efforts to sales, leaving strategic and budgeting decisions in silos.
The network said Pronto displays offline and online marketing data for this client, with 24 traditional and digital key performance indicators, across nine data sources together with real-time lead generation outcomes.
The data sources and platforms used include Facebook, Digimind, Google Ads, Google Cloud, DoubleClick Bid Manager, SEO Monitor and programmatic platforms, giving the client complete visibility on the share of voice of their brands across various market segments.
This allowed the client to view and analyse the performance of each channel and adapt the appropriate strategy to optimise campaigns. Pronto also enabled the client to view the telesales conversion data at a highly detailed level, providing an insight into cross-sales, conversion rates by channel and lead quality. By measuring the key performance indicators against the targets, Pronto can help to guide the organisation’s future marketing and lead conversion strategies.
In addition to specific business metrics, the digital marketing intelligence tool impacts business functions such as staff productivity, marketing budget allocation, marketing planning, sales planning and 360° strategic traditional and digital marketing execution.
Pronto was developed using open-source technology which means that it can adapt and evolve in response to advancements and business changes in areas like big data, AI, machine learning, digital transformation, social commerce and omnichannel.
Siti also said that the main reason for developing Pronto is because there was no other tool out there in the market that can display every single marketing KPI from every channel. Recognising that every client presents a unique data capture blueprint, the team designed Pronto to flex organically to fit every user’s need.
“Pronto is the one and only tool in the market in Asia that has this capability. Where it is also customisable to the client’s needs. Every company has multiple strategies for each product and multiple strategies for their sales and marketing channels. There is no one place where all these KPIs come together and that’s why Pronto is unique,” she added.
Nicky Lim, CEO of Dentsu Aegis Network Malaysia hailed the wins as reflecting a powerful step change for the advertising industry in Malaysia, saying:
“I am exceedingly proud of our team of talented data scientists. These awards fundamentally move us towards realising Dentsu’s vision of becoming a 100% digital economy business. Seamlessly merging data, creativity and technology is the future of the industry.” He said.
“This AI business analytics tool was created to meet client need and reflects the reality that we are increasingly asked to help our partners tackle wider business challenges.” He continued.
“Our one P&L model allows us to bring together the brightest and the best from across our 12 brands to deliver unique teams that develop propositions tailored to every brand. We are a dynamic, innovative network that combines the power of people and intelligence and we intend to be a force to be reckoned with.” He concluded.
