Procter & Gamble is Genius in Digital Marketing Practices

On Procter's use of digital marketing practices.

Procter & Gamble is a Genius   By Jack Neff. in AdAge

Procter & Gamble Co. was one of the first big marketers to jump into automated digital media buying, developing its own proprietary system eight years ago, well before "programmatic" became an industry buzzword. Now P&G is moving away from programmatic and plowing more money into e-commerce platforms run by the likes of Amazon and Walmart, according to a report from consultancy L2.

The strategy appears to be working, according to L2, which gave P&G its highest, or "genius," rating in the home-care space for its digital marketing practices, followed closely by Clorox Co. .... " 

Locating People in the Wild

Located beacons can detect people's mobile IDs in store and even on the street.  A powerful move to establish consumer journey.  I had heard of related methods some time ago, by testing and ID'ing people just walking into a store.

Programmatic Advertisers Get Even More Precise Consumer Location Data With New Pact   By  Kate Kay  In Adage.

Nielsen and Programmatic Advertising

Interesting collaboration of players in advertising, retail, measurement and loyalty systems.

Nielsen Partners with I2C on Porgrammatic Venture
UK — Nielsen is collaborating with Sainsbury's and Nectar card owner Aimia's partnership i2c on a venture to demonstrate the impact of digital ads on shopping behaviour.  ... " 

A comment on Faulty Measurement : Ads that no one Sees

I recall being told about this odd fact.  That measurement of online viewing of Adverts has by its nature been very wrong, and this creates some unexpected results in measurement and thus programmatic and AI Ad placement.   Other implications?   In Adage:

NBC Programmatic Selling

I am following the widening thread here here.  Recall my mention of our work in this area, see the tag below.  Don't know exactly what analytics are being done here, but can guess.  Opportunities for true optimization here.  Where are the auctions?  In Adage:   " .... NBC Universal Takes First Steps To Sell TV Programmatically ...  Linear Inventory Will Be Available In Private Exchanges ... " 

L'Oreal and Programmatic Digital Advertising

We did early work in this area.  By analytically matching advertising to predicted outcomes based on costs.   Essentially a big data optimization problem.   This worked for about a decade, but eventually the idea was outsourced.   We are now in different times, especially with regard to the amount of data we have.   In Adage:

L'Oreal USA Looks to Bring Programmatic Trading In-House
Beauty Giant Would Follow P&G and Others Amid Industry Concerns

L'Oreal USA looks to be the latest big marketer set to bring programmatic digital trading in house, soon after concluding its North American media review.

The company has posted a job listing for an assistant VP of Precision Advertising Information Technology with experience overseeing data management platforms and demand-side platforms used to build in-house trading desks. The person is to work with the company's chief marketing officer team and brand media leaders to identify "which platforms will be trialed and then scaled for broad use to achieve precision buying and tracking of media buys." .... ' 

See the programmatic ad buying tag below for much more.

Tesco and Big Data Loyalty Plays

Using personalization with loyalty data to better engage the consumer. Tesco and Big Data for Loyalty  Similarities to P&G's 1 Consumer Place?  Relationship to programmatic Ads?

" ... The deal, carried out by Tesco subsidiary Dunnhumby, will see Sociomantic combine its data on 700 million online shoppers with Dunnhumby’s insights into 400 million customers to create an “unprecedented” database of more than a billion people. Sociomantic runs a programmatic digital advertising service, buying and selling online ads via an automated process. Details of the deal have not been disclosed.

Simon Hay, Dunnhumby’s chief executive, says the acquisition will allow Tesco to improve its online marketing to offer a better experience for consumers and advertisers. ... " 

Programmatic Buying and Creativity

Does programmatic buying decrease creativity?  This was brought up in a number of analytic realms very early on, because they tended to use only a single measure, like cost or profit to optimize with.   But such methods can usually be devised to include multiple human choices that are creative.  Directly including creativity measures is also possible, but more difficult.  More here I have written on the topic of programmatic (automated) buying.

MediaCrossing and Advanced Programmatic Ad Buying

Happened on former collaborator William Lederer and MediaCrossing.   They have created a short animated infographic that does an excellent job of demonstrating both the power, value and speed of the idea. That further integrates the general process of media buying.  While we experimented with aspects of this idea, we never took it this far. Very instructive and Highly recommended! Connect with them for a further demonstration.

" ... MediaCrossing presents 200MS: The Life of a Programmatic Ad Impression, an educational video accompanied by an infographic that shows you exactly how ads are bought and sold in real-time. The two shine light on a complex world of auctions, bidders, advertisers and publishers that are all vying for the right to serve you an ad.

Programmatic advertising is on track to be a 12 billion dollar industry this year – a number estimated to triple within the next 3 years. Watch and learn how ads are being traded faster than you can blink or snap your fingers. .... " 

Programmatic Buying at P&G

Programmatic Ad Buying.  A means of digitizing a key aspect of CPG enterprise operations.  As I have mentioned before we did this kind of thing as early as the 1980s, to great success.  Because then it was aided by analytical methods that sought to optimize the return and minimize the overall cost.  This is called Prescriptive Analytics.  Is that still being done?  Sounds like an opportunity.

Programmatic Ad Buying Needs to be Revisited

Prompted by an AdAge article. 'Have begun .. ', the article says?  We were early pioneers of programmatic advertising.  Starting in the 1970s, using optimization analytics.

  " ... The term covers a wide range of technologies that have begun automating the buying, placement and optimization of advertising, replacing human-based methods like phone calls, faxes and, yes, three-martini lunches. Through programmatic technologies, advertisers can buy ads the way they pick up something on Amazon or bid on eBay. ... "  

The topic seems rarely covered in analytical writing these days, but is deserving a closer look. At the time we did this there were many millions saved by optimizing placement of ads.  Well before big data and newer analytical methods. Ultimately most of this work went out to services, that went back to mostly human powered approaches.  This deserves an analytical revisit.  Lots of money is still involved.