Dentsu Aegis Network introduces people-based marketing platform M1 in Australia

• CEO of Dentsu Aegis Network ANZ Simon Ryan to Mediaweek: Australian ad spend forecast + what M1 initiative means

Dentsu Aegis Network has announced it is the first communications group in Australia to develop a true people-based digital advertising solution with the announcement that M1 will soon launch locally.

M1 is Dentsu Aegis Network’s people-based planning and activation platform – a central global resource that will serve all of the network’s agency brands. Australia is the second global market behind the US to introduce M1.

Simon Ryan, CEO of Dentsu Aegis Network in ANZ, said: “Designed to help our clients reach real people at scale, M1 enables us to leverage what we know about a person and their passion points to tailor their ad or content experience, while optimising digital activations for effectiveness, efficiency and brand safety.”

Speaking to Mediaweek on Sky News Business on Thursday, Ryan explained: “People-based marketing is working with datasets to drive one-on-one communication with customers. It is a very exciting initiative and we are telling clients about it today. We see it as an opportunity to target real people in real time as opposed to [using] cookie data. We can target a large number of consumers very efficiently which increases the opportunity to get a better return on investment.

“M1 is the first phase of realising our vision for media planning and activation to be people-based, underpinned by deterministic information related to real people. Dentsu Aegis Network is the leader in data and programmatic, and will continue to offer an integrated planning and buying service across all media touchpoints. M1 further bolsters our accountability and effectiveness in delivering business results for our clients.”

Watch Simon Ryan on Mediaweek on Sky News Business here

Dentsu Aegis says M1 campaigns in the US have resulted in 20% improvement in performance, 25% improvement in unique audience reach, with the added benefit that 100% of the spend is reaching the intended audience (real people vs. proxies) helping to address industry issues with ad fraud.

Ryan also told Mediaweek it now forecasts ad spend in Australia should grow by 2.8% in 2018, with the main drivers of growth being the retail, finance and gambling sectors.

The Dentsu Aegis Network released its latest global ad spend estimates this week, noting global advertising spend should grow by 3.9% in 2018 as FIFA World Cup stimulates growth.

Forecast global growth was revised up to 3.9% from 3.6% in January 2018.

• Sporting and political events play a key role in driving ad spend
• Digital to overtake TV for the first time, to reach 38.4% of global share (TV 35.5%). In 21 out of the 59 markets tracked, digital will be the leading advertising channel in 2018
• One quarter (25.2%) of global ad spend will be delivered through mobile devices for the first time
• China’s advertising market is predicted to grow 6.5%, up from the previous forecast of 5.4%, to reach RMB 630 billion – 16.2% of global ad investment. Ecommerce platforms Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent (BAT) are forecast to contribute around 80% of this growth
• US advertising spend to show continued growth in 2018, increasing by 3.4% to reach US$217.3 billion, reflecting the stronger US economy

Mobile impact

The mobile device is steadily becoming the primary point of access to all digital services and content, said Dentsu Aegis.

In 2018, 52.2% of all worldwide online traffic was generated through mobile phones, up from 50.3% in the previous year, according to Statista. People now spend an unprecedented amount of time on their smartphones – more than five hours a day, according to some estimates. This growth in usage is largely driven by the widespread availability of high-quality digital video. Mobile video consumption is exploding among all age groups and content categories. Nine in 10 social media users opt for mobile browsing, with mobile apps accounting for 70% of time spent on social media.

Top photo: Simon Ryan (right) on Mediaweek TV on Sky News Business

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