Seven West Media (SWM) director of audience intelligence Andrew Brain took part in a discussion at the ADMA Global Forum last month alongside TikTok general manager Brett Armstrong, Optus vice president marketing CMO Melissa Hopkins and Optimizely VP of sales Simon McDonald.
Together with Suncorp CMO Mim Haysom as moderator, they discussed mastering the new world and their strategies and plans for delivering growth and customer engagement.
Following the insightful panel, Brain spoke to Mediaweek about Seven’s readiness for Google’s cookieless era, the key to effective audience intelligence and the growth of 7REDiQ in the year ahead.
Left to right: Brett Armstrong, Melissa Hopkins, Andrew Brain, Simon McDonald and Mim Haysom
Building a first-party data strategy
Brain said he hoped attendees of the panel discussion noted the importance of building out a first-party data strategy, much like 7REDiQ audience intelligence platform and the Seven West Media ID or SWM ID.
The director of audience intelligence explained that when a user signs up to 7Plus, they become an SWM ID which is how different data points are attached.
“The ID is so important, that’s part of what built the 7REDiQ platform, and how we match that against lots of other data providers we want to work with from a Ticketek, Flybuys, Equifax, or Weatherzone, that helps build out an understanding of that audience, more than just their TV consumption,” he added.
Currently, there are approximately 12 million IDs in 7REDiQ, but Brain noted that not all the content on the 7Plus platform suits every audience member. He said they are building ways for audiences to come to the platform when they might not necessarily be interested in watching the content.
The 7Shop and the 7Rewards, which is targeted to more than 60,000 consumers, are ways in which to see if those consumers are interested in shopping for items on their screen or rewards on offer. From there, additional consented information they provide that can used to build out and protect their ID strategy.
Pictured: Hopkins, Brain and McDonald
Effective audience intelligence
Brain noted that the key to effective audience intelligence is a trial and error process. He said: “It’s constantly learning, constantly trialling, and knowing you are going to have failures along the way or that things may change.
“So, we are actively building out a progressive way of understanding audiences where an identifier might change. If one falls out, we can make sure we still have a profile with an audience.”
Brain said 7REDiQ recently launched two new products, helping increase audience intelligence. Data as a service builds a data strategy for activation for brands or businesses that do not have their data across 7Plus, multi-channel or Seven News.
Brain also noted the insights as a service business. He explained that many retailers selling products in the big supermarkets don’t understand who their audiences are besides the primary scan data.
With the 7REDiQ’s connection to Flybuys, Brain said that based on what is in the shopper’s shopping basket, a profile of the shopper’s age, gender, life stage, and location gives that brand a “deeper understanding of whom their customer base based off the back of a Flybuys data point.”
Preparing for Google’s cookieless era
Brain noted that Seven West Media and 7REDiQ are ready for Google’s impending cookieless era, set for next year.
“We’re ready, and that’s why we’ve been so aggressive in the last two years to build it. We looked at what we had, and we knew that the Google Armageddon was coming,” he said.
“We had a few holes in the first-party data strategy, so that’s where we sort of really kicked off a partnership with Ovation to build out REDiQ,” he added.
Pictured: Hopkins, Brain and McDonald
Brain noted that the challenges ahead come from a regulation perspective with the ACCC, particularly around privacy, tracking, and what brands do with the data. There is also a hefty tax in addition to Google and Apple making privacy “a bit of a battleground” with campaigns they run around not letting brands or media organisations track your data.
“That’s going to be a challenge for brands that do not have a first-party data strategy right now,” he said.
Brain also noted that the third-party deprecation is a good thing to happen to the industry.
He said: “That was the messy world where you were tracked anonymously. If somebody wants to track you now, they must ask you for your implicit consent. You would know that when you’re going to a website or downloading something or if you want to give any personal information,” he said.
Growth for the year ahead
Looking to the year ahead for Seven West Media and 7REDiQ, Brain said it was all about growth. “New data partners will come in. We’re actively exploring property market data, not Domain, not REA, but another vendor.
“We’ve just partnered with Equifax around credit history, and again, we don’t want to know that it’s your credit history, but we want to know, as a cohort audience,” he added.
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Top image left to right: Melissa Hopkins, Andrew Brain and Simon McDonald