TRENDSETTER: Group M's CEO Irwin Gotlieb considers the Future of Audience Targeting
In a live interview with CNN Anchor Richard Quest at the IAA-New York Global Marketing Summit, Irwin Gotlieb candidly shared his views on critical industry issues ranging from the progress of the advertising economy to the future of the tech revolution. However, his discussion of audience targeting may represent the biggest shift in how we think about the role of marketing and the use of media in the coming years.
Quest asked, "Is there something that advertisers need to do differently?" Gotlieb immediately answered, "We need to define new ways of targeting audiences."
He outlined how we are three to four years away from a level of granularity that may help marketers pinpoint when a consumer is planning a major purchase. For example, automakers may be able to better manage existing data on a consumer’s current make and model, along with the end date of a current lease or loan agreement, to offer specific messages in the 45 day period before that consumer plans to buy another car.
Yet Irwin Gotlieb was insistent that targeting is not exclusionary. "It is inclusive."
Referring to the famous John Wanamaker quote, “I know that half of my advertising is wasted, I just don’t know which half,” Gotlieb commented that “No advertising is wasted.” Building awareness is still critical.
In fact, he believes that future marketing budgets will be bifurcated to just two disciplines. The first allocation will go to general awareness, or what marketers often refer to as “the top of the funnel” in today’s description of how messaging affects purchase influence. The second allocation will go to specifically targeted messages that take advantage of the coming granularity aimed at the middle and bottom of the purchase funnel.
There is no question that Group M’s CEO sees a marketing world ahead that embraces both targeting and broad awareness—even if we need to do so with a new set of tools, with greater responsibility, and with "rules of engagement" that still need to be clarified.
