Jonathan Flander

ICYMI - IAB Tech Lab has developed comprehensive guidance to help navigate the complexity of ID solutions as we move closer towards cookie independence. Thanks Patti Summerfield and Media in Canada, for covering this important release from IAB Tech Lab - to access the guidance, see comments. #idsolutions #PETs #digitalads #advertising #data

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Acadia is a one-stop shop for the mid-market disruptor. These brands are used to only having two options in terms of agency partners. We're giving them a third. Before we sold Lift361 and ShopFluency to Acadia in 2021, we were a boutique consultancy focused on data and analytics. We saw that mid-market brands had three options: 1. They could piece together a bunch of boutique shops like ours 2. They could go be a small fish in a big pond with a massive agency 3. Or they can work with Acadia, which gives them the best of both worlds Acadia has brought together six boutique shops for them. They can just work with Acadia to get all of their growth, analytics, and media needs in one place. They get the resources of a larger agency with that same boutique feel. More importantly, we get the mid-market. Mid-market brands don't have the budgets to spend broadly like the larger, established players. They have to be scrappy and strategic, targeting their marketing to take share with customer segments where they can win. We know that journey, and now, with Acadia, we can not only use data and analytics to refocus their strategies, we have teams that can go execute against that strategy across multiple different disciplines. The agency world is evolving, and I'm proud to be part of the solution that provides mid-market brands the focused partnership and wide-ranging capabilities they need to thrive.

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Navigating the Fine Line: Sustainability in Business   In the corporate world, transparency in sustainability practices isn't just encouraged; it's expected. Recently, Lululemon has come under scrutiny by Canada's Competition Bureau for potentially making misleading environmental claims. This situation underscores the fine balance companies must strike between marketing and genuine environmental stewardship. As we await the outcomes, it's a crucial reminder for all brands to focus on demonstrable progress rather than perfect representations.   Our benchmarking study reveals Tencent is an example of a company that commits to transparency by openly reporting both their successes and areas needing improvement. This approach fosters authentic engagement with stakeholders, who value a clear understanding of the real challenges faced on sustainability journeys.    Learn more about how Tencent and other global leaders are redefining sustainability in commerce in our latest blog article below. This analysis provides insights into integrating sustainability with business strategies to enhance stakeholder engagement. #sustainability #sustainabilitymarketing The Next Practice https://lnkd.in/eYExmKJh

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Occam's razor says if you have two competing ideas to explain a certain situation, the simplest is likely to be the best. Can this be true in CTV advertising and retail media? Taking a slight leap here to say that sometimes, tactics with less complexity may also be the best approach - or at least, should be part of your overall strategy. Clean room solutions and their use have proliferated the last few years alongside the ability of innovative software to run them, cloud infrastructure hosting them, and retailers willing to share more data. Retail media's promise of showing the sales impact of ad spend has also drawn large CPG clients to clean rooms and accelerated retail media spend, in general. Still there are gaps. CPG clients do get valuable insights, but have to string together results across multiple retailers and clean room environments, normalize that data, and try to compare performance of different audiences and tactics. It's an imperfect science, and is expensive. Just a few large CPG clients can do this work themselves; most rely on partners or the retail media network for the measurement. Purchase data has been around a long time. CPG clients are gravitating back to it because demonstrated behavior of buying a brand or competing brands in a category is an efficient way to target and reach consumers. Messaging receipt-scanning consumers is a great way to stay compliant with rapidly changing privacy and compliance issues, as well as cookie deprecation. As illustrated in the graphic, Purchase data has a couple of advantages over Retail Media bought alongside a clean room. You can impact sales at multiple retailers. A clean room can be used with purchase data but is not required. Most important, the measurement of performance is more likely to be independent from the source of the media. You can also more easily compare it with your other digital tactics. Scanbuy supports activation through the use of CPG purchase data in all the major categories companies like Procter & Gamble, Unilever, The Coca-Cola Company, PepsiCo, Kraft Heinz and Nestlé care about. Just as important, we license the data so it can be used for advanced measurement like MTA and sales lift - even for CTV. Clean rooms are great, they are here to stay, and you can learn a lot from them. Licensing CPG purchase data may result in faster learnings, simpler campaign flow, and better optimization. Your results may vary. Read the labels and use as directed. DM me to learn more. #cpgmarketing #purchasedata #ctvadvertising #measurement #retailmedia

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We (Stephen Brown and I) had a nice chat with Campaign Canada on pitching new business and some of the pain points. It was a fun time to share some "war stories" (see link below 👇). https://lnkd.in/gy5CfqMb We've (at FUSE Create) had a successful run of new business this year, but that's come from a lot of learning from good pitches, bad pitches, lost pitches, terribly pitched pitches, and spending the time to figure out what we want as an agency. I share my grievances in the article, but some learnings from those grievances are: 1. We know our our non-negotiables as an agency, and stick to them (i.e. spec creative for us) 2. We make sure it leans into our strengths - do we have the right case studies? do we know the category? do we care about the product? does it match our strategic growth objectives? 3. We always do a vibe check. A discovery call / meeting with the clients we're pitching is now essential to our process. It's a two way partnership, we want to make sure it works for both of us. We know there are lots of convo's on the "power dynamics" of pitching. That said, as we've built our brand we've aligned our new business strategy to our values and tried very hard to limit our investment to the stuff we a) really care about and b) think we can win. Finally, the best part of running an indie... it's ok to sometimes (or in our case quite often) say no if it doesn't feel like it's a fit. Our current client roster always comes first. #newbusiness #pitching #advertising #rfps #marketing

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For the "go woke, go broke" crowd that permeates through many brands across North America and beyond... ...I'm happy to say that you're wrong. A whopping *75%* of consumers globally say that "diversity and inclusion – or a lack thereof – influence their purchase decisions." This comes from Kantar’s 2024 Brand Inclusion Index - a survey of more than 23,000 people in 18 countries. Valeria Piaggio, Global Head of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion at Kantar, expands on this: "It’s a myth that inclusion marketing is about marketing to minorities. Inclusion marketing is expansive marketing. One of the fundamental ways to grow your brand is to predispose more people to it. Yet when brands exclude consumers – whether that’s because people don’t feel welcomed when shopping in store or their advertising doesn’t reflect diverse communities – it’s an easy miss. Millennials and Gen Z prioritise diversity and inclusion even more than other groups, and as these populations grow in size and buying power these issues will carry more weight. Brands will be rewarded if they stand by their values – especially in the face of vocal communities which stoke the culture wars by pitting minority groups against one another.” So in the wake of so many brands cutting back on their #DEI staff and spend, treating inclusion like a checkbox that can be layered in whenever convenient, or just deprioritizing #DEI to pre-2020-like conditions, this is your wake-up call. It's time to get back on track. Your customers want it. Many are even demanding it. What are you waiting for? #JEDI #EDI #DEI #DEIA #InclusiveMarketing #InclusiveCommunications #InclusiveBranding #InclusiveAdvertising #InclusiveResearch #InclusionMatters #InclusiveWorkplace #InclusiveCulture

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Everyone is talking about #AI, but do you really understand how it can help you and your business? Discover how Eloqua and our newest AI features are helping our customers ! Join us by registering today !

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🎧 Driving growth through data democratization is a hot topic for marketers. I had the pleasure of hosting Scott Megginson, President of Kantar on our Canadian Marketing Association podcast to discuss how businesses can unlock growth in the face of change. 🔍 Listen to learn: 👉 How marketers can navigate seismic shifts in consumer behaviour and the research industry to drive meaningful growth. 👉 What do frustrated Canadians really want - and how can marketers step up to inspire them? 👉 The surprising factor that sets high-performing companies apart. 👉 Why Kantar is giving away its most valuable asset to marketers for free. 👉 Will you thrive or be left behind? The AI revolution in research and insights is here. Kantar is also offering free access to their BrandZ study, which provides robust global and Canadian research on a vast selection of brands. It's a powerful resource for marketers. Tune in now for actionable tips to future-proof your marketing strategy: https://lnkd.in/g2FmSmhY #Marketing #Insights #CX #Innovation #Podcast #MarketingPodcast #AI

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Why is video the future of #B2B marketing? 📈 Merkle's Sonya Hand and other execs reveal how video is helping brands break through the noise and connect with decision-makers in new ways. Explore the full discussion in The Drum: https://bit.ly/3XdzgPf

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The latest browser market share in Canada is 48% Chrome. A majority of the web is already cookieless. There is no time to waste. Advertisers need to push ahead even faster to futureproof digital strategies for a cookieless world. Push ahead as if the deadline hasn't changed and use this new window to test & learn different approaches. Refine and tweak your audience and measurement strategies as new learnings are uncovered. Waiting around for Privacy Sandbox to be perfect is a losing proposition.

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"Reflecting on an insightful week in Toronto! 🇨🇦 Started at CMDC Media Day where Brigitte Dagnault's insights and VIA's compelling case study emphasized the performance-driven impact of investing in Canadian Media. Yesterday's IAB Canada Enterprise day underscored the importance of sustainability, highlighting areas where Canada can improve. Despite challenges, opportunities abound, especially in light of EMARKETER' Canada Digital Ad Spending Report revealing that investments in the TRIOPOLY (Google/Meta/Amazon) is 14pts or 22% higher in Canada than in the US. But how do we shift this narrative? CMOs, it's time to assess your media spend positioning. Have you endorsed the Canadian Manifesto? Consider allocating 25% of your media budget to Canadian publishers and capping investments in the Triopoly at 60%. Let's get creative with the remaining 15%. Canadian publishers face hurdles too. Simplifying the buying process for all clients and agencies is crucial. Collaboration is key to securing a larger market share for everyone. Let's innovate, collaborate, and propel Canadian media to new heights together! #CanadianMedia #Advertising #Collaboration".

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A compelling argument for the importance of experiments and the use of Bayesian modeling. The objection/notion of isolated, walled garden experiments is slowly becoming obsolete. As advertisers increasingly leverage open-source or proprietary geo/user-based experimentation on their own internal metrics, the need for incrementality testing as the gold standard for establishing media causality becomes undeniable. Incorporating experimental data into a Bayesian framework should enable more accurate and actionable insights in this regard.

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🔍 New Article Alert: Setting Priors in Bayesian Marketing Mix Modeling (MMM) Bayesian MMM leverages prior distributions to embed domain knowledge, enhancing model robustness amidst noisy or uncertain data. In my latest Medium article, I delve into the importance of setting the right priors to expedite model convergence and yield actionable insights. 📌 What You'll Learn: - The role of priors in reflecting pre-existing beliefs about channel effectiveness, price elasticity, and more. - Practical steps to set priors for better budget optimization and stakeholder alignment. - How to choose between informative and uninformative priors based on available data. - Common distributions used in Bayesian modeling and their applications. Read the full article here to explore how integrating expert judgment through priors can transform your marketing analytics. #Bayesian #MarketingMixModeling #MMM #DataScience #Analytics #MarketingStrategy

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Unlock the Power of Customer Data & Outcompete We specialize in helping small to mid sized businesses use the potential of data and analytics to stay ahead. From creating customer lifetime value to streamlining customer data processes our tailored use case approach sets the plan for creating new outcomes with data. Getting to value is critical and with our programs we accelerate it. Localink: Brings analytics and leading demographic & behavioural data together with digital & print activation to connect you to consumers like never before. LTV IQ: Create a lifetime value projection and value creation plan for your customers. Data Unity+ : Brings customer centric cross-platform data together to see customers in new ways. It's time to dive in. Visit our website for a free workbook that will help you create your first use cases. Let's chat about how we can grow your business with data. #SmallBusiness #DataAnalytics #BusinessGrowth #DataDriven #SMEs #CustomerLifetimeValue #DataStrategy www.alliedeffect.ca

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Are you running search campaigns across the globe? #GenAI can help with optimization and localization. Learn more in this blog post from Merkle: https://bit.ly/3Y1YYXl

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Media industry leaders came together at the IAB Canada State of the Nation Toronto Summit yesterday, to share thoughts on future of Media👇 🚀 Advertising revenue is projected to reach $𝟏𝟖.𝟏𝐁 in 2024 (from $15.9B in 2023). This growth is fueled by direct channels, the rising traction of RM+, and the continued momentum towards Connected TV. 📊 We finally might have a 𝐜𝐫𝐨𝐬𝐬 𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐦 𝐦𝐞𝐚𝐬𝐮𝐫𝐞𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐟𝐫𝐚𝐦𝐞𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐤 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐧𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐓𝐕. Can you believe that? 🔥(called the Ad Creative ID framework) 💡 During the economic downturn, making strategic reductions, rather than slashing budgets indiscriminately, by 𝐚𝐩𝐩𝐥𝐲𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐂𝐅𝐎 𝐥𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐥 𝐫𝐢𝐠𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐭𝐨 𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐤𝐞𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐝𝐚𝐭𝐚.🎯 🤖 You are already behind if you aren't using AI to achieve greater efficiency thereby optimizing resources. 💪Its time to take control of the situation and do our bit Looking forward to embracing these strategies at Involved Media Canada #Media2024 #MarketingStrategy #Innovation #EconomicInsights #DigitalTransformation

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In the piece “About the Current State of Digital Advertising,” with Eric Seufert and Ben Thompson they reference Meta's anti-fragile ads business. This comes from Meta’s shift from a deterministic (click-based) to a probabilistic (statistical relationship-based) measurement and activation approach. “At the end of the day, anyone could build an IDFA-matching business; Facebook had it larger, better, and more powerful than anybody else, but anyone could do it. ATT, by killing direct attribution, caused massive damage to Facebook—it was very, very painful for them—but it wiped out everyone else. At this point, having inputs and outputs just doesn’t matter; it’s all about your ability to process, wrangle, and perform probabilistic matching. Without the weights for probabilistic matching, inputs and outputs alone are no longer sufficient.” In short, pixel collected first party data is useful but not sufficient. Especially with continuously decreasing coverage influenced by privacy restrictions. The middle layer of statistical based machine-learning measurement and activation tooling is becoming the significant competitive advantage. Despite this shift many marketers still make a majority of their decisions based on click-based measurement. This is also in spite of the rise of scalable impression-based channels, like TV, DSPs, and influencers that intuitively will generate halo effects that can’t be measured by clicks. The reality is existing marketing workflows are hard to break. However if Meta’s willing to stake its multi-billion dollar ads business on probabilistic over deterministic attribution brands should also consider a similar measurement methodology in their own stacks. Link to full article below in the comments

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