Media buying information: Meet the People hopes investments in blockchain-based zero-party data pay off

• VSA Partners, a Chicago-based creative shop that handles clients including Google, Harley Davidson and IBM
• Public Label, a retailer and experiential agency working in Denver, New York and Toronto, handling clients including Moet-Hennessy and Ford
• Match Retail, a Canadian pure performance store with clients including Nespresso and LG

“I don’t believe in a unified brand structure,” said Ringel, whose tenure includes stints at traditional holding companies that allowed him to learn how to scale. “Because it kills the fundamental difference of why your client or talent wants to work with an agency.”

But MTP is about to take an interesting left turn with hopes of solving the growing problem of identification depreciation. It is taking an investment in a Swiss technology platform called qiibee (pronounced kee-bee, not to be confused with the defunct Quibi), which is developing a consumer-controlled loyalty rewards program that allows consumers to redeem loyalty points across different marketers — instead of just one if the hallway.

The concept is built on blockchain technology, which safeguards the data from both a consumer and a marketer’s point of view. Currently, qiibee has 27 brands in a row, including Etihad Airways, Coca-Cola and Coinbase, reaching a total of 50 million customers.

The payout? Fully consented zero-party data, which in the age of depreciation is quite valuable.

“What we’re doing is building an infrastructure that every loyalty program can build on, and having one central database of all these rewards stored where we take responsibility for potentially billions of dollars in rewards,” said Gabriele Giancola, co-founder of qiibee. “No one owns the database, so no one can change the data. And you automatically create efficiency for brands because every reward is on the same chain. And they can more easily connect with each other and through that reduce all reconciliation costs.”

The undisclosed investment gives MTP’s agencies access to complete consumer data to guide clients. “If we use a consent-based exchange of information between the consumer and the brand without an intermediary like Google or Facebook – if we can create that for a medium-sized brand, their future is quite bright.”

His reasoning, given the mid-sized clients MTP’s agencies target, is that some of them cannot do this on their own. “Most of the mid-sized companies that do $50, $100, $200 million in media spend don’t have the resources, from analytics specialists to data scientists. Most of them don’t even have a data management platform,” he said.

Not everyone agrees with MTP’s choice to go the European route (Ringel is a German native). “The notion of investing in data capabilities is a strong first step since data intelligence is critical to marketing strategy, development and measurement,” acknowledged Jay Pattisall, vp and senior agency analyst at Forrester. “However, a zero-party data play in the strict GDPR environment in Europe and the looming regulatory situation in the US seems a bit short-term. In the short term, zero-party data may be useful for enabling and bypassing Google’s third-party data processing. But in the longer term, the US and European regulatory environments may challenge this strategy.”

Ringel replied that the very fact that qiibee is European puts MTP one step ahead of privacy legislation. “If I want to bring something unique to my customers, I have to educate them based on the highest standards of privacy in the world. And that’s Germany and Switzerland right now,” he said. “That’s what the future is going to look like.”

Joy Baer, ​​a digital and technology consultant/advisor to media and entertainment companies, said the key to success for MTP’s zero-party data play with qiibee is scale. “They need enough consumers to make the data set rich enough to be valuable to customers,” Baer said. “The strategy is solid and one to watch.”

Color by number

Matterkind, IPG’s data enablement company, plans to release a report today that offers clients a roadmap for prioritizing diversity, equity and inclusion in their marketing efforts, Digiday has learned. Based on insights gathered by research consultancy MTM, here are some of the suggested improvements brands can make:

• The report found that over 50% of people think it is important for advertisers to ensure they reach a diverse audience, rising to 70% for people who are likely to engage with ads.
• Here’s why: 50% of customers agree that they are more likely to recommend a product or service if their ads are diverse and representative.
• 45 percent of customers feel that they are more likely to buy a product or service if the ads are diverse and representative.
• 44 percent of customers say they would not engage with a brand they felt did not take diversity and representation seriously.
• And 36% of customers have boycotted a brand because of these issues.
• In terms of marketing strategy, the report predicts a 23% increase in advertisers adopting strategies to reach underrepresented groups over the next three year compared to the previous one three year.

Takeoff and landing

• Some high-level executives descended on media agency land last week. John Osborn, a longtime Omnicom veteran who was most recently CEO of OMD USAstepped down from the post, which he has held since 2017. Ozzie, as he is affectionately known, is being replaced by Christina “Chrissie” Hansonwho was most recently head of strategy.
• Over at IPG, Daryl Lee was promoted to CEO of McCann Worldgroup, replacing Bill Kolb, who remains chairman of the group. Lee was most recently global CEO of Media Brands, the media arm of IPG, and this campaign is something of a return for him: He had moved up to the Mediabrands job after heading up UM, McCann’s media arm. And in the same tradition, it is to replace Lee at the top of Mediabrands Eileen Kiernancurrently global CEO of UM.
• There was also some account shuffling last week, when underwear brand Hanes put its media up for consideration – it’s been handled by a few agencies, including Publicis’ Spark Foundry and The Kepler group … And Discover Financial Services got its media business at GroupM’s Mind sharerepresenting a loss (again) for Spark Foundry as well as Dentsu, which had handled search through its 360i unit.
• Given the growing use of influencers as a marketing option, it is Association of National Advertisers has issued measurement guidelines as a means of addressing issues of inconsistency and transparency. The metrics introduced address awareness, engagement and conversion.

Direct quote

“We’re seeing clients slow down. Many are waiting for their revenue before deciding whether to move forward with initiatives. Price is always important when trying to stretch marketing dollars. They’re asking us to dig a little deeper. We’ve really been in a hyper growth mode [but] we predict that it will slow down considerably in the second half of the year.”

— Keith Schwartz, CEO of digital agency/consultancy Bounteous, on market conditions in the second half of 2022.

Speed ​​reading

• Just as Bounteous’ Keith Schwartz indicated in the quote above, Digiday’s senior news editor Seb Joseph and senior ad-tech reporter Ronan Shields teamed up to find out just how much softer the ad market will be for the rest of this year—bad enough that even digital will feel the squeeze.
• Digiday Senior Marketing Reporter Marty Swant delved into the political machinations behind the first proposed national privacy legislation to make it out of committee.
• I looked at the possibilities for GroupM to get the rest of the marketing ecosystem to jump on board in creating a measurement framework for media decarbonisation. At first blush it can be tough – but it is very important.