Yesterday I had the privilege to speak at the Insight Innovation eXchange or IIeX North America 2016 discussing our approach to getting data driven creative via Machine Learning and artificial intelligence.
This presentation was a joint effort between my Epsilon team and one of our strategic partners Oculus360. I work closely with Raju Kattumenu, the founder of Oculus360 and we have engaged on numerous initiatives over the past year.
This has allowed us to leverage the power and reach across public domains leveraging their technology combined with our proprietary data assets to validate consumer truths or find new connections based on occasions, attributes, perception & demand signals.
The technology is a combination of natural language processing, an artificial intelligence neural network and machine learning systems that combine to unlock various themes & trends associated with demand signals created by consumers.
The key to this approach is that instead of starting macro across all facets of the web or social conversation, this approach looks at specific domains and can go incredibly deep down to the product sku level.
We then take the results from this approach and combine it with our connection planning process and data assets to unlock consumer truths that will define our approach to creative and strategic territories. It truly is an approach where data fuels creativity.
This approach of combining machine learning + AI with Epsilon’s data assets allows us to truly identify contextual moments to create personalized experiences.
Context is key as this informs whether we should use storytelling vs. storymaking moments. We then align moments with personalized elements of the story based on our data findings and use cross device identity to create personalized story delivery at scale.
I also discussed how we have realigned our approach to planning with data science to inform creative territories & strategic themes as well as how this approach supports innovation initiatives by informing and validating consumer readiness when it comes to emerging storytelling mediums.
We then showed an example based on the mini-van category. Traditionally mini-van advertising has stayed very close to the “family” approach to connecting.
We wanted to either validate the approach or find new consumer truths based on all the factors outlined above. What we found was very interesting as key attributes and occasions began to surface that outlined new demand signals that could be used to shift perception.
This also allows us to take a look across brands and see which brands align with specific occasions which can lead to differentiation among competitors.
We can also look at specific features associated with each of the brands to identify new territories or areas to focus on driving awareness, engagement or advocacy.
In order to maximize contextual connections with consumers it is important to not only have qualitative data tied to consumer insights. It is also critical to leverage the power of machine learning and artificial intelligence combined with strong data assets to unlock demand signals that can fuel the creative process.
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Follow Raju Kattumenu @RajuKattumenu
