“We want to transact on a unified identity, we want to transact [with partners] that will allow us to do things like deduplicated reach and frequency across platforms. It is still taking too long.” - Bryson Gordon


Data has been a buzzword in our industry for a few years now. And for a good reason–data is required to make smart marketing decisions that drive ROI. There was no better time than during the Cannes Lions International Festival for Creativity to acknowledge this: data does not exist in a vacuum, and it is most powerful when it’s applied, informed and infused with creativity. 3C Ventures CEO and Founder Michael Kassan sat down with Carat’s Carrie Drinkwater and Microsoft’s Bryson Gordon to discuss how marketers are using audience data to drive brand value, business outcomes and inform what’s next as they invest in video advertising.

Data has helped advertisers be smarter and more creative, but in the last five to ten years, it has emerged from the backend of the business, where it was accessible and understood only by analysts and data scientists, to be at the fingertips of nearly every single marketer in the organization. From the CMO down to the social media intern, data has changed how decisions are made, making marketers more influential at every level of the business.

The democratization of audience data has made walled garden platforms stand out for their lack of transparency. Giving a budget and a desired outcome and then walking away is no longer sufficient– marketers have (rightfully) come to expect better transparency and more control over the data-driven advertising decisions being made across all platforms. 

“At the end of the day, you have a business, we have a business, our partners have a business, and the best outcome we can have is if we all succeed. How do I get there [in a way] that benefits everybody? That is lost.” - Carrie Drinkwater

Collaboration and transparency are the missing ingredients that allow media buyers and sellers to win together. TV has realized this, and it’s why it's outpacing the rest of the advertising industry on collaboration. But there is still work to do. For CTV, while the channel has come a long way in terms of delivering quality and brand-safe content, there is still a frequency problem. For marketers who are leaning into a converged TV buying strategy, there are still unmet needs for better audience data unification and simple measurement metrics, like deduplicated reach and frequency across platforms. 

But the innovations that have come out of the last few years are promising, particularly as marketers work harder to tie top-, middle- and bottom-funnel tactics in concert to get a full look at attribution along the marketing funnel.

“There tends to be a 300% lift in performance [when optimizing along the full marketing funnel]. The clean room and the ability to do that kind of measurement and optimization is what is fundamentally changing [video advertising], because you can [optimize] not on women 18-49, but on highly precise audiences that you’re deriving from first party data.” - Bryson Gordon