Tom Beeby, Executive Creative Officer and Principal at Beeby, Clark + Meyler, imagines a world where creatives crowd into conferences dedicated to data-driven advertising (like MediaPost’s RTB Insider Summit); a world where they’re encouraged to live and breath data, and show off their creativity by using data in new and inventive ways; a world where CLIO awards are given to creatives for driving data-driven innovations. Until then, the industry will continue to miss out on data’s full potential, Beeby told Summit attendees, on Thursday. Speaking for many in attendance, Christian Bonilla, Activation Director and Partner at MEC, admitted: “There is room for improvement.”
Tom, as usual, is ahead of the curve on this stuff. The use of data in programmatic is tactical at best right now when it comes to creative. Versioning and sequencing are not creative. The main reason is that the people executing lack creative chops. The separation of media and creative and the entry of technology driven entities, versus creative ones, has resulted in unimaginative and undifferentiated uses of the data. You need an integrated creative+media+tech partner if you want to elevate your game.