A watershed time for data management: Wednesday’s Daily Brief

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Good morning, Marketers, it seems like a watershed moment for data management and CDPs especially.

It’s likely that the pandemic accelerated developments in the CDP space, just as it did nearly every other aspect of marketing and technology. Just over two years ago, I distinctly remember the industry asking high-level questions, like how do we define CDPs? Some were still even calling them customer data platforms, as I recall.

A crucial point to pull from the analysis by Real Story Group’s Tony Byrne, featured below, is that there hasn’t been consolidation in CDPs. This means more pressure on marketers to make a big decision about their data with so many choices on the table.

And at MarTech, our editors, researchers and conference panelists are digging in so that we provide the coverage you need to make that decision. Now, if we can only decide which streaming apps to download for our weekend binge watching.

Chris Wood,

Editor

The rise of CDPs  

In his latest contribution to MarTech, Tony Byrne of the Real Story Group points out some illuminating parallels between the growth of web content management solutions in the early aughts and the more recent rise of CDPs. There was little consolidation in the space, with independent start-ups outperforming the bigger vendors, and almost two dozen of them dominate the market today.

Similarly, independent CDPs generally have a multi-year lead over the big vendors — Adobe, Oracle, Salesforce and SAP — all of which have been playing catch-up. Consolidation in the category is unlikely, as there’s a challenge and not much value in integrating independent CDPs. The independents are likely to continue to be more sophisticated and more agile than CDP offerings built into larger martech suites.

“As with the early stages of the WCM market,” says Byrne, who is presenting a workshop on buying marketing technology at MarTech in the fall.  “CDP vendors appear to be differentiating primarily on scope, and secondarily on cost/complexity. Over time, I’d expect the latter dimension to become more important as enterprise capabilities shake out and the market elongates as it matures.” 

Read more here.

Innovid partners with NBC’s Olympics Ad Manager for CTV ads  

Have you noticed a better ad experience when streaming the Olympics this year? CTV ad company Innovid is serving as the official ad management partner for NBC’s streaming coverage of the Tokyo Summer Olympics. Through the Olympics Ad Manager, powered by Innovid, third-party ads are being managed across NBC’s CTV apps.

What this means is that behind the scenes, advertisers have been experiencing a more streamlined and up-to-date adtech process that was previously unavailable for advertisers of Olympics programming on the web.

The effects of this partnership are subtler for the viewer, but likely result in more current, relevant ads over CTV because those advertisers didn’t have to finalize their creative as far in advance of showtime. The biggest change, though, is felt through the CTV ad supply chain for sponsors.

“The Olympics, even as, historically, a user experience above everything else, didn’t allow dynamic ad serving, which is a core capability in digital media to do measurement, creative rotation and things like that,” said Tal Chalozin, CTO and Co-founder of Innovid.

For big-ticket live events like the Olympics and the Super Bowl, digital advertisers (or their agencies) previously had to manage those placements separately from the rest of their CTV spend. Adtech capabilities for serving up dynamic creative had sped up in the rest of the ecosphere causing a notable difference in user experience for ad partners.

“A big part of the story is that live TV is extremely hard to accomplish at scale, and that makes sports a unique entity,” Chalozin said. “The nature of live is that the vast majority of viewers pressure test the system by watching at the same time.”

Read more here.

Maggie Lower moves from Cision to Hootsuite  

After just over a year as Global CMO at worldwide comms and PR firm Cision, Maggie Lower is joining Hootsuite as CMO. In the role, she will be responsible for global brand strategy, demand gen, communications and events.

Lower has held a series of senior marketing positions at financial services, staffing and technology brands. She faces the challenge of maintaining Hootsuite’s high brand recognition while delivering on the company’s promise of accelerated growth.

Why we care. For a number of years, Penny Wilson was the familiar face of Hootsuite’s marketing organization. With the brand building its offering as a for-business social media management solution, they will be looking to Lower to take growth to the next level.

Quote of the day

“Sure, streaming subscriptions are just as expensive as cable, but you also get to remember 18 different passwords.” Conan O’Brien, comedian