In the several weeks I’ve been working with them, it’s [been about] bringing that fresh perspective. I either push back on something they’re leaning into, or I’m asking questions that they haven’t asked themselves, or I’m offering [information about] how they might organize, or even language they might use that they hadn’t thought about.
There’s this new industry term—I’m sure you’ve seen it—the fractional CMO. Do you see parallels between what you’re doing and the role of the fractional CMO?
Call me a fractional CEO, fractional CPO, fractional CMO. … That’s the thing. I may narrow [my focus] as I go forward. I didn’t want to narrow too much, because I do have the ability to help a number of companies. I would say, [I’m] absolutely acting as a fractional CMO—or at least an adviser to CEOs and CMOs.
I’m working very closely with chief product officers and technology officers … either building a new product, or helping them think about how to market the products that they have in a more simple and easy to digest way.
I know that there have been a lot of conversations about the audience management platforms and those data assets for the past five to seven years. So many of these agencies are trying to productize those offerings or create their own platforms.
There was definitely the first horizon, if you will, of this with the Merkle acquisition, the Acxiom acquisition and the Epsilon acquisition. Now what you’re seeing is the next level of [that strategy] in terms of agency size. … They’re not acquiring, they’re renting.
Have any small or mid-sized agencies asked questions about how to set these things up?
The answer is yes. And the questions range from, ‘What are the requirements that are table stakes for us to compete?’ And then, ‘What are the things that we can uniquely bring to the table?’
And then moving forward into more of the operational and executional, ‘Can you help us draft an RFP? And who are the appropriate partners?’
If you look at the audience management platforms, there’s going to be a point where, regardless of who you are, you’re going to achieve parity. There’s a concern, even amongst those that are either perceived to be ahead or actually are ahead, that [the audience management platforms] will become parity.
The next thing is agencies investing more in AI. AI is going to take these agency platforms from let’s say, version 1.0 to version 2.0 and beyond.
The early 2000s really were about the digitization of media and marketing and the rise of social media. Then you get into the mid 2010s and you start to see the rise of data and the rise of personalization. That led to data platforms. What we’re now seeing, only five or six years later, is a new transformation with AI.
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