From signal loss to identity, streaming & more: 4 defining trends from Cannes

Now is the time for all players on the buy-side, sell-side and in between to focus on finding ways to future-proof their audience strategies. This puts the emphasis on data in the full ecosystem and having a solid identity source throughout the entire lifecycle of a campaign.

Experts say that it’s a good thing that the sky is falling as it presents an opportunity to trailblaze new paths where brands, media agencies, publishers and consumers win.

Balancing deterministic & probabilistic data

Kicking off the data conversation, Truthset president Chip Russo chaired a discussion with speakers from Captify, Audigent, Newsweek, PubMatic and Experian to explore how ongoing signal loss has led marketers, agencies, and platforms to tap directly into sell-side channels for access to top-tier audience and context – and the importance of collaboration between all parties.

Cookies were never built for the long run and now we have a much better way of driving targeting and attribution including alternative identifiers and signals for incremental value.

“All of these data sets we have today are incredible for modelling,” said Jeremy Hlavacek, chief commercial officer at Experian Marketing. “And when we think about the probabilistic and predictive audience data of the future, our belief is that it’ll be more performance and have more efficacy for media campaigns than the deterministic data today.”

The future is going to require a balance of deterministic and probabilistic data, the panelists agree. They also spoke of the possibilities for AI as a tool to protect data privacy and move away from some of the old anchors that were weighing marketers down.

The future of identity

From signal loss to identity, a discussion led by the IAB’s chief executive, David Cohen, brought together panelists from Experian, MiQ, Cint, Digital Direct Holding and Tatari to explore critical issues facing the data-driven advertising industry in 2023 and beyond.

From the latest developments in privacy-centric solutions to data privacy regulations and consumers’ changing attitudes toward the use o their personal data to the role of machine learning in data-advertising, programmatic ad buying has become ‘confusing’, ‘complex’ and ‘chaotic’.

As programmatic ad buying continues to mature, there’s still work to be done from a foundational identity standpoint, to ensure that it becomes more normalized in the workflow to make programmatic work end to end. But that will require both sides to lean in a bit more.

With new solutions coming into the picture, many will have to figure out a new currency to transact as the industry continues to adapt to changes – but this could take anywhere between six to nine months, or even years, to figure out and get to a steady state.

As for where the identity space is headed, the panelists noted that there will be a major leap forward as it relates to workflow and automation around identity. There are lots of manual steps in the process today, but automation and AI will help to make great strides.

Streaming takes center stage

Streaming was another theme that stole the show, thanks to a series of shifts, obstacles, and prospects reshaping advertisers’ outlook. Delving into the future of streaming, Experian’s senior vice-president of sales and partnerships, Chris Feo, moderated a discussion with AMC Networks, OMG, Disney, Paramount, and Roku that explored the vast array of possibilities that lie ahead in this dynamic, evolving industry.

TV is becoming a real performance channel, matching the best of digital (data and identity) with the full screen experience. And while experts agree that we’re moving in the direction of it being a full funnel media, more education for advertisers and agencies is needed to unlock performance dollars to shift away from a social and search first approach and ensure that connected TV meets those paradigms. That means more work has to be done on attribution, incrementality and identity to ensure the industry is optimizing for the KPIs that the performance marketer wants.

The opportunity ahead is taking what we’ve learned in digital and applying those targeting capabilities to linear. To do this, will require figuring out how to use targeting capabilities like linear addressable to reach audiences spread across multiple areas. The easiest way to buy unified audiences is programmatically, said the experts, but to ensure data interoperability to make it as easy as possible to buy one audience across all screens.

That will require the industry to make the unpredictable [way people watch TV today] as predictable as possible for advertisers, by creating products that uncomplicate things and remove the fragmentation.

Stacking the marketer’s toolbox for success

With ongoing signal loss accelerating a new emphasis on first-party data, it’s clear that behavioral and digital identity will remain fundamental assets in every marketer’s toolbox.

A mix of signals and combined assets is key to unlocking deeper, richer, and more scalable insights to inject creativity into the overall customer experience, and influence ad inventory and delivery within a brand’s ecosystem to spur business growth, experts from Instacart, FreeWheel, and Tubi agree.

The advice was to create more of a connection than a transaction with the consumer, by looking at targeted groups as not just vague data pools of humans but overlaying other data and listening techniques to build empathy for better connected communications versus blindly hitting them along the journey.

And, as Experian’s Hlavacek sums up: “This is the moment to have a discussion among your C-suite about what you’re doing with first-party data. This is a critical issue and time to form smart partnerships with the best companies in the world that can help. It’s really a time to come together, focus on this issue, and make smart choices.”

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