Hi, we are Dept - an international digital agency with over 1000 experienced thinkers & makers. One agency uniting creativity, technology, and data. Helping reinvent & accelerate your digital reality by creating experiences that people want and businesses need. www.deptagency.com
Appeared in Martech Series
Marketers now have more TLAs (three letter acronyms) than you can shake a stick at. CRM, DMP, DSP, CMS and the relatively new one on the block, CDP. For those that don’t know, CDP stands for Customer Data Platform. If this is a new TLA for you, you’ll certainly be hearing more about them in the coming months; they’re on the up in 2019 and definitely deserve a spot on your MarTech consideration list.
Customer Data Platforms have been broadly...
Appeared in Martech Series
Marketers now have more TLAs (three letter acronyms) than you can shake a stick at. CRM, DMP, DSP, CMS and the relatively new one on the block, CDP. For those that don’t know, CDP stands for Customer Data Platform. If this is a new TLA for you, you’ll certainly be hearing more about them in the coming months; they’re on the up in 2019 and definitely deserve a spot on your MarTech consideration list.
Customer Data Platforms have been broadly established as an industry-wide technology since 2013, when David Raab founded the CDP Institute. Yes, CDPs existed before this, but Raab helped build traction, interest, and provided an understanding which helped to define and clarify the CDP proposition.
In recent years, marketing has started to shift closer to technology and IT teams (uncomfortably close for some organizations). Marketing Technology now consumes about 23% of marketing budgets. This fine line is only going to get finer as marketers look to leverage data and technology to improve performance. Warc estimates that MarTech budgets will increase another 25% across North America and the UK in 2019 too.
What does this growth have to do with CDPs? Over the last few years, much of the investment from marketers has been across four common areas:
INTEGRATION
iPaaS and Integration platforms have helped marketers and technologists to move, transform, load, query and connect data at speed using the power of APIs and the cloud. This is allowing businesses to build tech platforms with tools of their choosing, rather than opting for the tools which natively work well together. Ultimately, we can act on data faster and create cleaner and more consistent collection processes. This allows us to create functionality, platforms and campaigns which provide both commercial and customer benefit if done correctly. It’s a market estimated to be worth $2 billion in 2023 (Reuters, 2018), with players like Salesforce, Oracle, IBM and Dell making strides to dominate the top spot.
BI & ANALYTICS
Tableau, Qlik, PowerBI, Datorama, to name but a few. If you’re reading this, there’s a very good chance your business is using one of these. If you’re an agency or consultant, your clients are most likely using one or more. These tools are helping businesses to query and integrate data to provide more intricate, visual and faster reporting from multiple sources and large data sources. It’s a market that was worth $15 Billion in 2016, estimated to grow to $29 Billion by 2022 (Reuters, 2017).
CUSTOMER IDENTITY
The elusive and ever-evolving single customer view. Understanding customers across channels, platforms and devices has been on marketers’ minds since the concept of a single customer view came around. What started off with simple tokenization tactics and methods has now turned into a complex process of combining and merging customer keys and identifiers based on data passed from platforms tags. Two years ago, SAP snapped up Customer Identify leader Gigya for $350 million. At the time of the acquisition, Gigya managed 1.3 Billion customer ‘identities’ on its platform.
DATA TECHNOLOGIES
Data technologies (like cloud databases and data streaming tools) and the infrastructure they provide help underpin many of the other key areas above, such as BI & Analytics and Integration. Moving to more agile and scalable cloud databases has been a high priority on the agenda for a while now. These technologies have helped businesses be more agile when it comes to data and tech development, data access and analytics. Not to mention that it also allows businesses to work easily with most of the Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning platforms that are sitting on some of the major cloud vendor stacks. According to Reuters, the Cloud Database Market will be worth an estimated $21 Billion in 2023.
WHAT DOES THIS HAVE TO DO WITH A CUSTOMER DATA PLATFORM?
A customer data platform, as defined by the CDP Institute is: “A packaged software that creates a persistent, unified customer database that is accessible to other systems.” This brief summary alone includes three of the four technologies mentioned above:
Persistent, unified customer = Customer Identity.
Customer database = Data Technologies.
Accessible to other systems = Integration.
Among vendors, consultants and specialists, there’s an argument to say that, based on the above, Analytics & BI doesn’t directly fall into the CDP; however, there’s no doubt that those three elements are key to creating mature analytics and BI platforms. If you’re striving to create a system that meets best-in-class criteria, then integration of Analytics & BI is a no-brainer for software and SaaS providers, and it’s something that Marketers are likely to opt for too. Of course, businesses always have the option to use their own because it’s built to integrate with other platforms.
A CDP combines many of the popular (but commonly siloed) tools that are built for marketers to help take control of their customer data in a more agile fashion. It’s a marketer-owned data warehouse that tries to avoid IT complexity. It gives ownership of data and insight so it can be used for campaigns, personalization and customer experience across customer touchpoints.
Without a doubt, a CDP could be a valuable asset for some businesses that are looking for streamlined and updated technology stacks, but there will also be a number of businesses out there who are ahead of the CDP game. They will have used a modern infrastructure, platforms and tools to build a custom solution more appropriate for their needs. However, this approach isn’t always appropriate for companies that want the efficiencies and internal operating model that SaaS platforms allow.
Pure-play digital giants such as Amazon, Google, Netflix, Uber, and Deliveroo all have powerful CDPs that fuel the functionality and personalized customer experiences that so many businesses covet. Companies that are considered best in class when it comes to data-driven marketing account for just 2% of the market. It’s been found that these companies are making on average 20% more in revenue and reducing costs by 30%. Do not underestimate the importance and potential benefits a good data infrastructure can have for your business.
The CDP market grew 65% in 2018, and this year, Salesforce and Adobe both announced that they’ll be releasing market-leading CDP products this year. With two of MarTech’s biggest names releasing products, it’s bound to provide attention and focus and encourage discussion more than ever. Expect to see CDP making its way into a lot more RFPs than previous years.
Appeared in Street Fight
TikTok is currently unavoidable, in particular when it comes to targeting Generation Z. At the moment there seems to be no way for advertisers and marketers to bypass this platform. But what is it exactly and what advertising opportunities does it offer brands and agencies?
TikTok was founded in 2017 after its parent company, Bytedance, took over the $800 million online karaoke platform Musical.ly and merged it with its predecessor, Douyin. It currently has over 680 million monthly users globally and is the fourth most downloaded app globally as of 2018, surpassing Instagram and Snapchat. The app itself allows users to film videos of themselves lip-synching or acting out comedy sketches up to fifteen seconds. Next, the user can choose from a database of songs and visual effects, which include Augmented Reality (AR) filters to further customize their video before publishing it. Thanks to the playful and creative approach of the platform, it’s most popular among young adults aged 16 to 24. Because of the large numbers of users who can otherwise be difficult to reach, brands and agencies should not ignore TikTok when it comes to advertising strategies.
What are the options for TikTok advertising?
Currently, TikTok’s commercial platform is only available in beta mode for select brands. However, the self-serve ads will be accessible to all shortly. When this happens, brands will have six options to choose from:
Hashtag Challenge
As a user, you can launch a ‘hashtag challenge’; you do so by creating a video, choosing a song to accompany that video, and then challenging users to add their own individual touch to the most popular hashtag challenges by recording themselves dancing to popular songs and editing their videos, often to hilarious effect. Brands can also offer their own hashtag challenges, but if they choose to offer an organic one, they run the risk of it not going viral. Thus, the app offers brands the option to sponsor their challenges. This means that the brand’s challenge is placed on the discovery page for six days, providing the opportunity for maximum reach and engagement.
Brand Takeover
A brand takeover is a full-screen ad which is displayed when the user first opens TikTok. It’s either a three-second image or a three to five second GIF. The ad can be linked to a brand’s landing page or a Hashtag Challenge within TikTok. These takeovers are exclusive to different categories each day – so only one specific brand can take over a category each day. By using full-screen mode, the brand draws the user’s attention. So this format is perfect for maximum exposure and reach.
In-feed Native Video
Much like Instagram, users can browse through content on the platform and see what other people are posting. In-feed video advertising consists of native videos which appear while users explore posted content. This type of video is up to fifteen seconds long, full screen, and can also have a musical background. This type of advertising is ideal to gain exposure and call users to action since there is a CTA section you can use to redirect people towards a specific website or hashtag challenge.
Top View
Top view is a brand new video-based ad format that presents the brand when the app opens, thereby reaching a wider audience. Top view has the same effect as a Brand Takeover, with the difference that videos such as in-feed video can be used as advertising material. First global tests yield better results and could significantly increase video views and engagement.
Branded Lenses/Effect
From creative face filters to animated objects, users can radically change their environment with their smartphones. TikTok offers the possibility to create and use 2D, 3D and Augmented Reality (AR) on the platform.
With Branded Lenses, users can interact with the brand and play with it by using their filter. The lenses promote the consideration to buy and allow users to test products. By integrating Branded Lenses into a hashtag challenge, a stronger bond to your brand and products can be forged.
Custom Influencer
Similar to Instagram, there are also TikTok influencers with a huge number of followers. These influencers create content in their own personal style to inspire their fans. Thus, much like Instagram, there’s an opportunity for brands to partner with an influencer to gain exposure. The trick is choosing the right influencer to reach the target demographic that matches your brand. However, in select locations, you need to organize influencer partnerships via the app itself.
Why should brands use TikTok?
TikTok is a great application to reach Gen Z. The ad formats are similar to other social media platforms. Therefore, marketers are not delving into uncharted territory. No one mentioned technique is better than another; instead, a combination of multiple will give you the most results. From creating a challenge to partnering with influencers, the platform has multiple opportunities for brands looking to connect with the next generation.
Appeared in Martech Series
The old way of online retail is obsolete. Bold statement, but it’s true.
Yet these are the very platforms many digital marketing agencies are spending so much time and energy building, that have been putting bread and butter on our clients’ tables, and that everyone thought would reconnect brands with their audiences and help them grow.
Turns out, those platforms are not the key when heading into a digitally oriented future. We need to change our mindset, the way we envision and build e-commerce. It sounds harsh, but really, it’s a good thing. The new possibilities this shift unlocks means more creative opportunities and positive experiences for agencies, brands, and customers.
THE RETURN OF CONNECTION
Let’s dive deeper into how we got to this moment. Some forty years ago, when people walked into their neighborhood stores, they had an entirely different customer experience than the one they would receive today. With a limited number of retail and transportation options, they would frequent stores that were in close proximity to them. The clerk probably knew them quite well and made their shopping experience personal – starting with the greeting and going all the way to tailor-made products or services.
Over the past few years, however, these personal points of contact have been reduced to next to nothing, as businesses became increasingly focused on making their supply chains and processes more efficient and cutting costs. Without the connection between clerk and customer, and without the proper technology, individualization was simply unthinkable, way too expensive and impossible to implement.
Today, digitalization has evolved to replace the store clerk of forty years ago. Algorithms can collect, combine, and process data and learn about customers and their individual needs. Based on these insights, bots can engage in in-depth conversations that can often help customers feel they are talking to another person. The old connection between retail point of contact and customer can now be reclaimed thanks to the latest technological developments, most notably AI and recommendation engines.
DOWN WITH THE DIGITAL FORTRESS
The traditional visual interfaces you find when you visit many online shops, sites, and apps have been dubbed “digital fortresses,” and it’s time to tear down the walls.
In building these ecommerce citadelles, organizations tend to gather all the information they think is relevant in one place and make it accessible to their audiences--but on the company’s terms. From the users’ point of view, these fortresses are impenetrable. Access to the desired information is commonly restricted, and visual interfaces are one-way communication channels. Cluttered information architecture, unclear menus and content elements, and the failure to adapt to screen sizes and devices are just a few examples of how web designers struggle (and often fail) to offer a desirable experience on these platforms.
This leaves customers feeling frustrated. They abandon attempts to storm the fortress, and organizations miss out on crucial revenue.
When we consider this frustration, it’s tempting to lean towards standardization of information architecture, as well as a baseline for tech, to help channel customer expectations and encourage certain consumer behaviors. Standards and templates have indeed been the first line of changes many in e-commerce have attempted.
For example, Shanying Leung, Design Director for Alipay and Ant-Financial, has explained in talks about how Alibaba is currently standardizing digital and non-digital design templates and supplying them to small business owners in China. They automated this process to such an extent that all elements of these templates are created via AI. Based on a few parameters and some uploaded material, the algorithm defines colors, fonts, design elements, even copies and creative claims. This process works so well that the customers are not able to tell that these experiences were created by a machine. This is obviously only the latest step in a development that describes the standardization of user interfaces through, among other things, Twitter Bootstrap, overflowing template libraries, smart CMS interfaces, and so on.
This just puts a new layer of boring on the same old problem. The question remains: if one-way-communication channels with visual interfaces are an inconvenient way for users to find and interact with an organization’s content, and if brands are having an increasingly hard time standing out of an ocean of standardized web-shops, sites and apps, what good do these efforts do?
Why, with all the changing expectations and clear consumer frustration and feedback, do the majority of designers and brands still think in platforms?
THINK HUMANS, NOT TECH
This is when it gets really interesting, if you’re working with or for a digital marketing agency.
Many agencies approach e-commerce and platform projects with a focus on features and technological possibilities. People will debate interface elements and teasers and the position of menus and which payment methods to integrate. They focus too much on building and shipping the tools, when they could be imagining and enabling meaningful interactions between brands and their customers. The ideal is conversational interactions, not one-way channels.
It makes a lot more sense to envision the frame hanging on the wall, and afterwards getting the tools needed to get it there, than starting by tweaking the design of the hammer and the nail. It makes a lot more sense to talk about how a customer can feel informed and satisfied by their purchases, instead of ruminating about dropdowns.
This sounds daunting: the dots are scattered and diverse. But there’s no need to be afraid of complexity! Instead, gather as much information as you possibly can about the topic at hand, as well as its adjacent fields--look beyond what narrowly applies to your business--and derive fundamental, big-picture-insights.
In the end, making conversational information architecture and commerce a reality is not really about technology. It is about changing the mindset that digital agencies approach projects with. It is imperative to dig into the dialogue brands currently have going with consumers and how they want to alter that, before getting too deep into how to integrate new platforms and technologies. The human question needs an answer first; the technology will follow.
Dutch-based agency’s three-year run of striking growth recognized by leading publication
Independent international digital agency Dept is proud to announce that it has been named in the inaugural Adweek 100: Fastest Growing Agencies list, 2019 for its 149% growth this past year. This honor is presented to a wide range of successful agencies that cover 21 different disciplines. From full-service to performance, creative consultancies to experiential, Adweek awards agencies based on their drive and dedication to the industry and recognizes those that they see as having “a very bright future.” Along with the overall list Adweek gave Dept the #8 spot on the Top 10 Large Agencies and Top 10 Global Agencies lists.
Dept is a creativity, technology and data agency delivering end-to-end experiences for brands and businesses worldwide. Founded in Amsterdam in 2015, Dept has speedily grown across the globe. In the last three and a half years, the Dept team has grown from 150 people in The Netherlands to more than 1300 people in thirteen countries across Europe and the US. In this period, Dept’s revenue has grown by 500% thanks to its work with brands such as Samsung, Triumph Motorcycles, Tesla, Philips, Birkenstock, and Sony Playstation.
“When Dept was founded three and a half years ago, the agency’s goal was to grow from a local, specialized agency into an international agency of significant scale (1000 people or more),” explains Dept CEO Dimi Albers. “Dept has achieved this by building longstanding partnerships with clients and by looking for like-minded, specialist agencies that supplement our strategy, either from a capability or a geography perspective. As of today, 17 agencies have joined Dept on their journey to build one integrated agency and it is on its way to becoming a global top player.“
While uniting these widely skilled teams, Dept remains one agency, with one brand, one P&L, and one ownership structure. This model allows the agency to unite its skills within single, integrated teams for its clients; ensuring that all staff are running toward the same goal, to make the best work possible for their clients. Dept utilizes technology and data as much as possible to make smarter, faster and more cost-effective work.
“We have been able to grow swiftly because we’ve grown smartly. We’ve figured out how to maximize local expertise while scaling via effective use of creativity, data, and technology,” says Albers. “We’ve harnessed the experience, flexibility, and the scale to help clients build their teams and provide them with the external accelerators they need.”
About Dept
Hi, we are Dept - an international digital agency with over 1,300 experienced thinkers & makers in 13 countries across Europe and the Americas. One agency uniting creativity, technology, and data. Helping our clients reinvent & accelerate their digital reality by creating experiences that people want and businesses need. www.deptagency.com
In advertising and marketing, it’s easy to get deep in the tactical weeds or mesmerized by shiny new tech, forgetting the overarching values and ideas that should inform strategy. Dept, Europe’s fastest growing digital agency, is offering a fresh perspective on the big picture, exploring how (and if) branded tech can enhance our humanity, at an upcoming Advertising Week keynote.
Presented by Head of Strategy at Dept, Rens Verweij, this keynote will unpack the question, “Can Technology Make People More Human?” on Monday, September 23, 2019 at 10:30 AM. The keynote will be held at the NewGen Stage (AMC Lincoln Square, 1998 Broadway) as part of New York Advertising Week (September 23-6). Full details here.
“We grapple with this question in many forms all the time,” reflects Verweij, “yet we rarely get a chance to ask it directly and mull it over together. My presentation will give us an opportunity to do just that, using several examples that run from branded apps to virtual influencers.”
Verweij and Dept are well positioned to dig deep into these larger issues while remaining grounded in ad and marketing teams’ realities. Founded in Amsterdam with offices across Europe and the US, Dept has grown from a single digital agency to a global creative powerhouse with 1,400 experts in everything from ecommerce to ads to apps.
The agency recently expanded its North America operations, with teams in New York and Boston. While gaining a foothold in the large American market, the agency is keeping its inquiring, discerning, no-nonsense perspective on the industries it serves. Dept has embraced the challenge of companies’ shifting, broad needs, while retaining a sharp focus on the core elements of brand-customer relationships. It has worked with clients like Samsung, Panasonic, Adidas, Microsoft, Radisson, KLM, Phillips and Unilever.
This keynote reflects the thoughtful yet practical approaches the agency is bringing to its North American clients. “Looking closely at how people use branded tech is an important step in making it relevant to both brands and customers,” says Josh Porter at Dept/Rocket Insights. “Without the big questions, the whole purpose and value are lost.”
About Rens Verweij
The Head of Strategy at Dept digital agency, Rens has been fortunate enough to team up with the world’s biggest brands and the industry's smartest people - and make friends along the way. Life is complex enough, so Rens is a firm advocate for brands being nothing more than they truly are, and he's on a constant quest to make things as simple as possible. Rens likes to talk about reciprocity between brands and human beings, and challenge conventions in this ever-changing world.
About Dept
Hi, we are Dept, an international digital agency of 1,400 experienced thinkers & makers. One agency uniting creativity, technology and data. Helping reinvent & accelerate your digital reality by creating experiences that people want and businesses need. www.deptagency.com