AME's 2023 Jury members are known for consistently delivering creative and strategic campaigns that move the needle for brands.These globally respected, award-winning executives bring innovation, strategic expertise, and a 360-degree global perspective to the judging panel. Their industry experience provides them with an understanding of the partnership between creativity and effectiveness.

Grand Jury member Venkata Bhonagiri is Sr. Partner, Group Director, Strategy & Analytics at Mindshare in Chicago, a global media agency network with over $35 Billion in total billings. He brings over 13 years of experience in strategy and analytics to the AME Grand Jury panel. Venkata developed, integrated, and scaled core service offerings, including business strategy within Mindshare. In his current role, he spearheads multi-channel data-driven planning, marketing, and implementation of bespoke global media solutions for major brands such as Kimberly Clark, Dyson and Ferrero.

Keep reading to learn more about Venkata as he shares his insights and perspective on future trends and innovations, his thoughts on data loss GDPR) laws and third-party cookie crackdowns, and how media marketing has evolved.

AME Awards: What future forward trends and innovations are brands embracing for 2023?

Venkata Bhonagiri: Top-of-mind is certainly a meaningful metaverse brand strategy. Several brands are already ahead of the curve e.g., the well-known athletic apparel brand NIKE launched NIKELAND, an interactive world where visitors get to play mini-games and indulge in a lifestyle centered on sport and play. Gucci, Coke are Forever21 are some of the brands that have been winning in the Metaverse. Metaverse has absolutely been a platform for innovation, experimentation, and opportunity. Brands are at different stages of maturity when it comes to adoption of metaverse, some of them are still struggling to get started but 2023 is a year for most of them to get a clear idea of what’s already working vs. not.

Second, with the looming extinction of 3PD cookies and restrictions on specific types of targeting, brands are preparing for an evolved ecosystem of customer experience and their engagement with the ad tech stack. Brands are trying to be more responsible than before as they are in their journey of connecting and creating experiences with customers whose information availability is receding. Audience engagement will be a lot more reliant on 1PD and contextual environments.
 

AME Awards: With General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) laws and third-party cookie crackdowns, how will strategic marketers address this data loss?   

Venkata Bhonagiri: There is no single strategic way to address the data loss. Modern privacy has become a very complex data governance problem. Suddenly we now must operate around an individual’s data stored in disparate data sources. For brands and agencies to deal with this need, we need to understand where the individual data sits in the first place. This is very hard, because they are stored in multiples places. Petabytes of personal information get collected, stored, and processed across 100s if not 1000s of data systems. Our data at an individual level sits at multiple places across the tech ecosystem and these tech stacks change daily. Second, these data systems did not ever anticipate that this data will become a special class of information and requires a special level of handling.

Overall, GDPR and 3PD cookie crackdowns have certainly had a significant impact on data collection and usage in marketing. One of the potential approaches is to focus on first-party data, which is information that is collected directly from customers or users of a website or app. This could include data from customer interactions, such as purchase history, website browsing behavior, and email newsletter signups. By collecting and utilizing first-party data, marketers can better target their messaging and offers to specific customer segments, without relying on third-party cookies or other data sources.

Marketers can also explore alternative data sources, such as contextual data, which involves targeting based on the content of the website or app where an ad is displayed, rather than on user data. This could include targeting ads to users who are reading articles on specific topics, or who are using certain keywords in their search queries.

Another way to address this challenge is by enhancing advertiser’s first party data by leveraging data clean rooms. These are places, where walled gardens such as Google, Meta and Amazon share aggregated rather than individual level data with advertisers, while implementing strict controls. So, when first party data gets ingested into a data clean room, it matches up with aggregated data from platforms and from there advertisers can design targeting, run analytics, and push media activation
 

AME Awards:  How has media marketing changed the way brands engage with consumers? Are there standout brands who are excelling at skillfully reaching consumers in their own personal lane of interest? 

Venkata Bhonagiri: Media marketing has evolved, and brands engage with consumers in more ways than we could track and keep a tab on. One of the most significant changes is the shift towards personalized and precision-based targeting, which has been made possible by advances in data analytics and technology. With the rise of social media, mobile devices, and other digital channels, brands can now reach consumers in more personalized and targeted ways than ever before. They can collect data on consumer preferences, behaviors, and interests, and use that data to tailor their marketing messages and offers to specific segments of their audience. This allows brands to deliver more relevant and engaging content to consumers, which can help to build stronger relationships and drive higher levels of engagement and loyalty. I am a big fan of Nike and how it markets. Big brands such as Apple has been drawing inspiration from Nike for over 2 decades.  Nike is a brand that has long been associated with high-performance sports and athletics, and it has leveraged that association to create a powerful connection with its audience. Through targeted marketing campaigns that feature top athletes and influencers, Nike has built a loyal following of consumers who are passionate about fitness and sports. On the other hand, Netflix has revolutionized the entertainment industry with its personalized recommendations and highly targeted content. By analyzing viewer data and preferences, Netflix can recommend new shows and movies to its users that are highly relevant to their interests, leading to a highly engaged and loyal user base.

AME Awards: Why are effectiveness competitions like the AME Awards important?

Venkata Bhonagiri:  Award platforms such as AME, offer an incredible opportunity for recognizing and celebrating marketing campaigns that have demonstrated tangible and significant results. By highlighting campaigns that have achieved real-world outcomes, these competitions help to elevate the status of marketing as a discipline and demonstrate the value that marketing can deliver to businesses and organizations. These annual Awards have been encouraging advertisers to focus on driving real business outcomes, rather than just creating glitzy, attention-grabbing campaigns. They emphasize the importance of metrics such as sales, customer retention, and brand awareness, these competitions help to shift the focus of marketing from creative output to tangible results. Finally, I have seen several marketing, content, creative and media playbooks created coming out of these effectiveness competitions. They provide valuable learning opportunities for advertisers. By analyzing several campaigns, brands and agencies gain insights into effective strategies and tactics that can be applied at scale as there is evidence and a clear line of sight to success.