The Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity has wrapped up for 2023, with the event having brought together those that work in creative communications and advertising from every corner of the planet.
Mediaweek has been on location in the South of France, and spoke to some of the most influential people in both Australian and global media. Today is Nick Seckold, Regional VP of Microsoft Advertising.
Microsoft In Cannes
Down by the water in the South of France, you can find the Microsoft Beach House – where you can take in the views as well as all the ins and outs of the brand’s advertising production. Seckold says that making the trek is an investment, but it’s an investment that is certainly worth it.
“If you’re in the industry and you want to be somebody you’ve got to be there. This is basically saying Microsoft Advertising is a player, we want to be involved in the industry. If you come and chat with us, a lot of information is shared. It’s an opportunity to connect with our customers, agencies directly, advertisers, and partners.
“One of the perceptions over the years has been that Microsoft may not be as serious about advertising – activations like this clearly prove that we are, and have been for a while. Sometimes you just need to remind the industry of where we’re heading, and with so much happening in our business and transformation in our ads ecosystem, that is a great opportunity to share that.”
In reality, that ongoing perception that Microsoft Advertising isn’t a major player in the space couldn’t be further from the truth. Seckold says that this is a stereotype beginning to change, however.
“I think the industry is just very time-poor. You think about agency buyers, they’ve got a lot of partners coming at them all the time, they’re spoiled for choice, and if you’re in a time-poor environment, and you’ve got $100 to spend, you’ve got to make decisions as a buyer on who you’re going to spend time with, and where you’re going to place that money.”
When it comes to what Microsoft Advertising can offer to brands, Seckold says that “the actual opportunity goes way beyond the search engine in Bing.”
“Think about Edge as a browser, Windows is the dominant operating system on PC, Microsoft owns that space. Microsoft is the only advertising platform that has an operating system and browser, a gaming platform, and our ad tech. We do offer a unique proposition.
“I challenge the market to think beyond the old search engine versus search engine, but think about browser and operating system – and then how many people are using those platforms? They are also opportunities for advertisers to capitalise on, because they give scale, but in a different way.”
Back by the beach, Seckold says that there are two significant trends that he’s noticed people talking about while on the ground in Cannes.
“AI is obviously a hot topic for everybody right now, I think most panels that I’ve listened to and most speeches that I’ve heard happening are all about AI in all these different forms.
“The other one would be first-party data. Agencies are thinking about becoming more efficient with what they do – whether you’re buying programmatically, or thinking about cookie delivery, or measurement versus identity. All those sorts of things.”
Looking Ahead
As of right now, Seckold says that Microsoft Advertising is focusing on pushing the uniqueness of their offering, pointing out that “we’ve been on a journey of transformation.”
“We’re bigger than you think. We’re bringing together a lot of assets. We acquired a retail media business called Promote IQ, which gives us an opportunity to talk to retailers in a different way and help them monetise. We’re now the exclusive ads reseller for Netflix’s ad tier, and with the acquisition of Xandr and plugging that into the tools in our ecosystem, that now also gives us access to the open web.
“Combine that with the power of Microsoft across our Windows operating system and Edge browser. That gives us a really unique opportunity to talk to advertisers about our ecosystem. The story that we’re telling is that we’re far bigger than just search.”
Where Microfist fits into the landscape is simple: Seckold says that the team offers choice where there may typically not have been much.
“We offer choice, and I think that the industry has been starved for choice for a while. We’ve got some pretty formidable competitors who have been well-established in the market for quite a while, and I know that many of the contacts that I speak to, whether it be on the agency or advertiser side, they’re crying out for choice – and viable choice that gives them scale and innovation.
“That’s really a big opportunity for us. A lot of people don’t realise that Microsoft Advertising is the third or fourth largest media advertising platform globally.”
Looking ahead, Seckold predicts that AI will play a big part in the progression of the company, growing the list of innovations that it can offer.
“The application of AI is endless. Not only is it going to help make campaigns more efficient, but if you think about it from a consumer lens, it’s going to help consumers get to whatever they want to get to quicker. They get to have a conversation about things and get recommendations and get answers.
“From an advertiser perspective, it will help with making campaigns more efficient. It’ll help with the way that you design campaigns in the back end and with reporting. It’s endless in terms of the opportunities to drive efficiency and accuracy.”
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Top Image: Nick Seckold