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A lot of investment by marketers is sunk into advertising agencies and multiple data sources in the hopes they will be the answer to reaching consumers directly. However, the question that always remains unanswered is whether the content does really reach the right consumers.

This puzzle has been the reason behind Dentsu Kenya’s recent launch of the centralised consumer study M1, an identity and data platform that analyses how consumers behave, what they need and their attitude to various kind of advertisements. Dentsu Kenya is a creative agency that helps brands predict and plan for disruptive future opportunities and create new paths to growth in the sustainable economy.

The agency’s CEO, Christopher Madison, says the M1 will allow clients to market more effectively targeting the right audience at the right time with the right content in the right channels. While starting Denstu, Madison adds, their main aim was to make it the number one advertising agency.

Deep into data

“Our dream was to create a strong and creative agency, having the most talented staff then digging deeper on data and how it affects the advertising space. We understood that our clients really needed the data. So, we have brought the M1 that will make this work,” he starts.

Madison, who is a marketing expert with a Degree in Psychology from New York University and a Master’s in Business Administration from the University of Pennsylvania, says his passion for marketing began while he was still young, and so he has always thought of revolutionising the marketing space. He adds that the Dentsu platform has already done wonders as he narrates how the platform increased YouTube ad recall by 188 per cent with Google DV360 Application Programming Interfaces (APIs).

“One of Dentsu’s clients wanted to generate better awareness and attention of its YouTube campaigns and drive contextual relevance with key audiences. However, the team was finding it challenging to reach these channels using regular settings and the vast amount of YouTube content available made manually targeting them time-consuming and impractical. Using Display & Video 360’s API, Dentsu created an internal database of relevant YouTube inventory and qualified the most relevant channels by keywords, language, channel name, and performance metrics,” he says.

He adds, “This allowed their clients to focus on the right audiences with far greater precision than previous campaigns. The team then used an experimental approach and Brand Lift study to test their regular audience targeting against the new Quality View approach. Our new approach generated a 188 per cent increase in relative ad recall, giving media buyers one central tool to quickly create and adjust inclusion lists for each campaign. It also delivered an average time saving of 88 per cent for each new inclusion list created.”

While developing the M1 software, Madison recounts the various challenges they came across with the main one being collecting data.

“Since this is a global platform that serves people across the continents, we’ve had a huge challenge of collecting data globally. We never want some clients to feel like they are left out. We had to ensure that we invest massively on data collection, but now we know everything they want,” he says, pointing out that the shortage of people with skills inspired Dentsu to train university students on tech skills and then certify them.

The new currency

Dentsu digital, creative and customer experience head Joel Rao says their aim in launching M1 in the country is to look at how they could connect with their clients, stating that data is increasingly becoming the new currency for the advanced television and digital video industry.

“This platform was aimed at solving problems in the long-term. Dentsu, which is originally from Japan, is known by hosting major events such as the Fifa World Cup and the Olympics as we look for big consumer experiences. Here in Kenya, we have already attracted big brands in the market. We offer the psychographics for free to our clients,” he says.

He adds, “Whenever we find issues raised by our clients, we always look at the demographics of the consumers. What we always want to achieve is making sure we are the ultimate matchmakers because we might be in the same demographic profile, but we think differently. So, all these can be achieved through data.”

Rao, who has a background in Bachelor in Business and Information Technology from Strathmore University and a 12-year experience in the field, adds that their group boasts being the biggest agency in the space currently, despite being the youngest one, and that it’s going big on data collection to empower its clients.