Mindshare Launches New Integration Platform
- by Steve McClellan @mp_mcclellan, June 19, 2012
Mindshare has launched a new strategic planning and integration platform designed to help clients worldwide make quicker, more effective decisions from a
growing array of media channels and consumer touchpoints.
The GroupM media shop, a unit of WPP, has teamed with a group of outside vendors to create an open-source “always on” platform that crunches media, pricing, consumer behavioral and client data, such as sales, supply chain and CRM stats, enabling on-the-fly decisions by marketers about how to reach consumers.
The agency likens the platform to those used by financial traders making constant split-second decisions about buying and selling shares, albeit with different sets of data.
Nick Emery, CEO, Mindshare Worldwide, said the agency has invested heavily in the new platform, dubbed Core, “because we believe it is the future of marketing. We are bringing together state of-the-art technology providers to truly deliver real-time business and media data.”
Antony Young, CEO Mindshare North America, said most clients are increasingly concerned with making the right media choices in the most efficient manner. "We think [the new platform] is going to provide a competitive advantage for us and our clients.”
The platform, unveiled Tuesday at the Cannes ad festival, is designed as “single source” marketing intelligence platform,” per the agency. Contributing vendors include Acxiom, the consumer intelligence data giant; ratings company Nielsen; MySupermarket, the retail data firm; online behavioral expert Exponential; Adobe, the end-user interface and data mining and modeling specialist, and online and social media metrics firm Visible Measures.
The platform also utilizes Mindshare sister firm 24/7 Real Media for cookie and synching technology and Ab Initio for data integration and other functions.
This looks brilliant but I will just call out the law of unintended consequences. Marketers are starting to ask me this question: "If my agency convinces me that the best way to place advertising is to run everything through the machine, what is the purpose of the agency?"
There are many "machines" today that offer algorithmic targeting, real time bidding and attribution modeling. Some marketers still cling to the idea that the ad agency creates value with thoughtful human beings.
If "Core" can show a studio the best way to launch a new movie, what is all of the staffing at the agency for?
If you don't know it's broken how can you fix it? The purpose of 'Core' is to provide agencies and clients greater insight in order to deliver on targets. In fact quiet the opposite is true of 'Core', in that agencies will have to work harder, plan in more detail and adapt faster as we will be far more accountable on performance. The 'machines' are simply tool designed to help us be more efficient, effective and accountable and this by no means makes our life any easier.