Page 26 - BrandZ Top 100 Most Valuable Global Brands 2014

Section 02 | Thought Leadership

DELIVERING
The Rise of Fragmentation
– Nest notes the time and temperature when the the
thermostat is turned up or down, notes when you

Marketing has seen an explosion of channel are home or away, and simply does the work to
fragmentation in the last few years. Desktop deliver a more comfortable home and a lower
SEAMLESS utility bill.
advertising, the main digital channel just a few
years ago, has splintered into tablet, mobile, – Netlix notes the type and format of content you
smart TV, app, video, social, data, programmatic,
native and more.
watch, how you rate it, who you share it with, when
you start and stop it, and delivers from that data a
CONSUMER set of personalized program recommendations to
And the trend continues to keep you best entertained.
accelerate.
Both of these companies are successful primarily

Social media is creating a ire-hose of real-time because they can process different sets of
EXPERIENCE
consumer sentiment data, mobile is adding discrete data intelligently to deliver a seamless
consumer experience.
geo-location data, beacons offer intra-store
hyper-location data, activity-tracking wrist bands are Delivering a Seamless
quantifying every personal movement, connected
cars are beaming telemetry data, and the Internet of Experience through Data
IN AN AGE OF things will soon add data from your toothbrush and

coffee pot to your marketing data set.
So how then do we apply the learnings from these
data-luent companies and products to the
It’s too late to slow this shift down enough for us
marketers to catch our breath. Pandora’s Box has marketing needs of our client brands?
FRAGMENTATION
been opened. People love Candy Crush, ShopKick,
We have found the best way to consistently navigate
Nike Fuelbands, Google Maps, Jambox, and Nest the chaos of available data and multitude of
thermostats too much. The pace and consistency
channels successfully is to focus obsessively on
of digital media’s growth is strong enough that it will delivering increased relevance and value for our
surpass television as the number one media channel
by 2018, but it’s possible consumer consumption consumers. By making our consumer’s interest our
patterns have never been so far ahead of
North Star, we can much more easily separate signal
from noise, ignore great swaths of low value data,
a marketer’s ability to productively address them.
and focus on enhancing and optimizing the
application of high-value data into positive
So how does marketing solve
consumer experiences.
this challenge?
In this world, media channels and platforms don’t
make sense as the focus of your planning. Instead,
Finding a Common Currency
the consumer’s best interests and the data’s

Scott Symonds
suggested ‘next best engagement opportunity’
At AKQA, we believe that inding the solution to this win the moment.
Managing Director of Media fragmentation starts with inding a common
AKQA currency across all the existing and new channels.
The Way Forward
Scott.symonds@akqa.com

We believe that currency is data.
It’s understandable to be bewildered by the
fragmentation and choice within marketing that has
Data, when distilled into usable information about been caused by the explosion of consumer digital

our consumer and their interactions with their device usage today. It’s likely to expand yet more
devices and environments, is the thread we can pull tomorrow with the growth of Internet of things.
through our marketing strategies and across our
consumer’s devices to create consistent and relevant Legacy channel-centric marketing approaches won’t
experiences for them.
survive the transition from ive to 5,000,000

channels. In an era when they’re bombarded with
Some of the best evidence of this practice in action choice and empowered with control, consumers
is built into successful newer businesses and must be given increased relevancy and value.
products like Google Now, Amazon, Netlix, and Marketers, in turn, must use the data at their disposal
Nest. All of these companies and/or products use to determine the best means and places to spend

data, working in the background and processed their money and create consumer engagement.
across channels with intelligent algorithms, to
deliver simple, seamless consumer experiences. Data, reduced to its most fundamental elements and
For example:
organized effectively, will be the primary currency of
future marketing strategy and will be deployed to
create seamless brand experiences that function

luidly across all delivery channels.

AKQA is an ideas and innovation company. We
collaborate with our clients to create the future.
To learn more visit www.akqa.com

50 BrandZM Top 100 Most Valuable Global Brands 2014
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