By Ken Kraetzer
“Where Science Meets Creativity” is how Ogilvy One Chairman, Brian Fetherstonhaugh descibed the theme of October’s DMA &Then Conference in Los Angeles. The DMA used this conference to not only provide industry leaders with useful information but to re-brand its own organization.
Once known as the Direct Mail Marketing Association, which changed to the Direct Marketing Association in the early 1980s, the DMA will now be known as the Data & Marketing Association.
Ken Kraetzer was representing cbsi duruing the event and reported the following:
- Brian Fetherstonhaugh proudly accepted an International Echo Award on the opening night, commenting on the event, “Only a few award ceremonies honor creativity but also effectiveness.” Brian explained his company is the “Data-driven Marketing part of Ogilvy & Mather with 100 offices around the globe”. About the conference theme, “It is about science meets creativity, and that’s a massive opportunity, for all kinds of clients, and agencies, and consulting people, science and creativity is a huge idea.”
- Jonathan Margulies, of the Winterberry Group based in NYC presented a paper on how organizations can become “Data Centric”, commenting, “One of the themes that comes back regularly, there are more sweeping initiatives that are changing the way companies do business, essentially there is a data driven revolution among many businesses, the middle market businesses as they attempt to become more responsive with more customer data at their disposal. We thought this good time to understand where it is happening, how it is happening. There is in fact a C-change happening in all vertical markets right now as organizations pivot not just their marketing to be more data centric but essentially every facet of their customer facing enterprise.”
- Harvard Business School Professor, John Deighton, highlighted a study he contributed to “Future Trends in Data-Driven Marketing.” He described the goals of the study: “Work out just how big the role of personal data is in the US economy, we found that one-third of all marketing in 2014, one third of all spending on marketing involves personal data, direct marketing has grown up to become a very big force in practice of marketing, what are companies, rather than vendors doing and there doing $60 billion, that means $260 billion of a total marketing investment of about $700 billion is being done with the use of data about people. The third thing we looked at was the future, being speculative based on the foundational trends we have established, and future looks as exciting as the last five years.”
- Trends in Email Marketing was the subject of a study contributed to by Michael Biwer, CEO, and Sean Shoffstall, VP Marketing at Mapp Digital, a firm that is the product of a merger of European based TMA and US based Blue Hornet. About the difference in email practices in Europe vs. America Sean described, “The biggest thing with many of these brands, is they are global brands, and they want to get their message out, whether it be in Germany or US, Russia, or the UK, but they need to make sure that message is relevant, it falls within privacy laws, and they are constantly looking at the cultural differences that each of these regions will have.”
- NBA legend, Kobe Bryant, was the closing ceremonies guest explaining plans for his new investment fund. “Stay away from things you don’t understand, start small, build trust,” adding a thought about achieving success: “Championships are won by blending people together from different backgrounds.”