In today’s world, marketers and advertisers are not suffering from a lack of data. On the contrary, we are often buried under mountains of it. In fact, it’s easy to test yourself into the ground trying to make sense of it all. What we are suffering from is too much analytics, too many insights, and too manypossible actions to take in response.
Perhaps that’s why some marketers still rely on gut instinct in choosing a course of action. But content producers and creative folks should want information that helps validate they are producing and designing content that resonates.
That was the case for Dr Pepper Snapple Group as it was planning advertisements in support of promoting its new energizing tea. Assuming it was targeting millennials, the company’s team of marketers had aimed its advertisements to date at this audience. By partnering with Oracle Data Cloud, it gleaned insights that redirected the company to the true target audience: busy moms on the go who need energizing drinks to get through the day.
Considering that 75% of ad impact is determined by creative (per Ipsos), Dr Pepper Snapple’s marketers knew how critical it was to modify its creative based on these insights. With this data, the marketing team was able to convince its executive team of the new direction and develop impactful creative in partnership with its advertising agency (BBDO) and its publisher (AOL Advertising).
All the parties involved – the brand (Dr. Pepper Snapple), the advertising agency (BBDO), the publisher (AOL Advertising) and the company delivering insights (Oracle) – shared what they learned during a panel at Advertising Week.
Create a culture of testing and optimization
- Create an environment where optimization is part and parcel of the way you work.
- Dedicate budget to testing and learning.
- Test new things. Don’t ask the same question over and over and expect different results.
- Build a team comfortable pivoting as a result of testing, even if that means killing a launch.
Leverage data for great creative
- Commit that you will take action whether you like the results or not. In other words, don’t keep testing to get the answer you think you want.
- Partner with publishers and ad technology vendors who can provide the right insights in real time in order to test creative at speed.
Be nimble
- Break down silos and collaborate to become more quick, nimble and flexible at finding meaning in the data.
- Unite analytics, content partners, media, agencies, and creative to investigate the data.
- Engage your partners – creative, agencies, and ad technology vendors – in conversations around data and collaborate on identifying the story the data is revealing.