The advertising ecosystem – Triangulating perspectives

Exhibit 1: Interview word cloud

Source: Edison Investment Research

Some basic questions

In our interviews, we asked all participants broadly the same questions, with some variation in phrasing and emphasis. These interviews were filmed over a relatively long period due to operational constraints, which is one reason why we tried to avoid overtly time-sensitive discussion.

We look at the commonality and variations below and include the interviews themselves. We decided against clipping each interview by question, as the delineations between each answer are not always clear cut and seeing the uninterrupted videos should give a better understanding of each participant’s perspective.

The questions we asked included:

• How important is it that brands use targeting techniques?  

• Where are the ‘pain points’ and will they be or are they being eased by the use of AI?
• We have long talked of mass personalisation at scale. Is it really a) achievable, and b) going to produce the degree of return that some are promising?
• What else needs to improve in the ecosystem to improve returns? Is it all just about the first-party data? Better contextual meta-tagging?
• From your perspective, what would you like to see from brand owners/agencies/publishers to help drive better results?

In the following sections, we look across the answers to try and identify the areas of broadest consensus and those topics where there is greater divergence of views. We intersperse summaries of the key points across the topics with the individual interviews in full.

The participants were selected by the contributing companies as individuals well placed to answer the questions, which were shared in advance. We are very grateful to them all for making the time to talk to us.

They are:

• Eagle Eye Solutions (LSE: EYE): Sarah Jarvis, communications and propositions director
• LBG Media (LSE: LBG): Ben Elshaw, group COO, and Nick Mahaney, head of commercial operations
• M&C Saatchi (LSE: SAA): Zaid al-Qassab, group CEO
• Reach (LSE: RCH): Terry Hornsby, chief product and technology officer
• Verve Group (STO: VRV): Remco Westermann, group CEO
• Global Fashion Group (FSE: GFG): Karthik Subramanian, group CTO

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