Data driven creative - when marketing is indistinguishable from magic

Roan Mackintosh

The argument for a data-driven creative strategy is clear when it comes to the power of personalisation. Post-pandemic research shows that 71% of consumers expect companies to deliver personalised interactions with 76% saying they were frustrated if their content wasn’t personalised. What’s more, the same research found that organisations that excel at personalisation generate 40% more revenue from those activities than average players.

Data driven tactics to drive conversations

Kashmira Wagh, Google Germany’s business development lead and first speaker at the recent Incubeta webinar, Creative Solutions for Peak Performance, pointed out that EMEA can expect to see a 44% increase in the demand for creative production in 2024, highlighting the importance of data-driven creative.

Drawing on the case study of Cadbury (India) who very successfully used AI-powered voice technology and the Google Marketing Platform (GMP), to serve hyper-localised, data-driven ads that helped push traffic to local stores, Wagh pointed out that with a properly designed creative campaign, brands can drive massive engagement.

Moderator and MD-Africa for Incubeta, Roan Mackintosh looked for the real world experience of DDC, asking the audience how often they updated their creative based on data insights.

A significant 45% of the online poll participants replied that they updated their creative monthly, 29% said quarterly, a healthy 17% said they updated their creative weekly based on data insights, with 7% admitting to only switching up their creative twice a year or less.

Mackintosh acknowledged it was encouraging to see how proactive marketers had become with DDC, but pointed out that by harnessing the power of AI and automation, brands could make their lives significantly easier.

Incubeta’s creative commercial director (EMEA), Veronica Brits kicked off her session reminding everyone that brands have just eight seconds to grab the online user’s attention, decreasing to just 1.3 seconds when dealing with Gen Z consumers. Given the pressures of younger generations, Brits said it was hardly surprising then, that big brands are turning to neuroscience to help with their marketing strategies, making the point that data insights are now vital for brands hoping to remain relevant to an increasingly demanding customer.

Multichoice turns to data driven marketing to create hyper localised experiences

The Incubeta team showcased the real-world use case of using automation in data-driven creative and how effective it can be.

Working with its client, Multichoice, the Incubeta team designed a FIFA World Cup 2022 campaign aimed at boosting awareness and gaining new subscribers through data driven creative for DV360.

Using real-time game fixtures and geolocation of football fans, Incubeta, along with media activation partners, Dentsu, developed data driven creatives to dynamically populate the HTML5 Rich Media Banners.

This mechanism enabled copy and imagery message elements to be personalised according to the identified audience across nine African countries. Communication conveying information about the relevant upcoming match, in the local language and timezone was served to the target audience through the integrations of the GMP stack.

The Audience Framework, meanwhile, was split into two data segments, leveraging Multichoice’s 1st party data to re-engage returning users and develop lookalike audiences, that were used alongside Third-Party data segments to prospect for new users.

Working across two Multichoice brands, DStv and GOtv, meant Incubeta had to deal with an increased level of brand complexity, while also ensuring end users received communication in their own language, based on the game that was playing live at the time, and personalised to the appropriate product. The complexities were overcome through close collaboration with all agencies involved, understanding the media briefs and the specific brand requirements.

The result was that the Incubeta team, working with Google SSA, successfully achieved a 94% conversions post click and a 9:1 return-on-ad-spend (ROAS) for Multichoice.

Bea Strauss, head of digital marketing at Multichoice, validated the success of the execution of the World Cup campaign and acknowledged the growing importance of a data-driven brand strategy to her company. She also shared that the company was sending team members on behavioural science courses to better understand the thinking of customers to assist with future campaigns.

A key consensus of the panel discussion and an overarching outtake of the webinar was that creative is the single strongest force multiplier and that when brands improve their creative elements they will see transformative gains in their marketing campaigns.