Julian Highley, EVP, Global Data Science & Product at MarketCast chats about the current state of advertising in this interview with MarTechSeries:

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Tell us the brief highlights of MarketCast’s new Brand Effect Pro? 

Brand Effect Pro is MarketCast’s new advanced advertising intelligence solution that unlocks next day, cross channel, actionable insights for marketers. We built it to directly address the urgent need for speed and clarity in a fragmented, data-rich ecosystem of in-flight advertising creative.

Brand Effect Pro is backed by MarketCast’s natural exposure methodology, collecting over 20,000 daily responses from real audiences.

With Brand Effect Pro, our dynamic Intelligence Hub simplifies reporting and delivers data-driven insights quickly, automatically generating research insights that reveal which creatives resonate on specific media channels, empowering brands to optimize in real-time.

It also benchmarks ad performance against up to five competing or aspirational brands, gaining clear insights into performance against the market.

What about today’s state of advertising in the digital ecosystem would you like to highlight more about?

Marketers are under immense pressure to prove the performance of their campaigns fast. Many “fast” AI solutions sacrifice the depth and nuance of real consumer voice by relying on metrics that are a poor proxy for whether an ad genuinely cut through with consumers.

We believe the key to navigating this is fusing data science with the metrics that matter. AI shouldn’t replace the voice of the consumer; it should amplify it to deliver the necessary speed and scale. Our approach uses AI, trained on next day reactions from real audiences, to deliver human-accurate insights quickly. This blend gives CMOs the confidence to make bold, data-driven decisions that truly breakthrough.

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In what’s often considered a crowded market, how can modern brands optimize their online ad efforts?

Don’t just measure against your own past performance; measure against what is going on around you – particularly your competition. Brands can use Brand Effect Pro’s competitive benchmarking to see if their ad is performing above or below the category norm. If a brand’s ad breakthrough is lagging, marketers can see, for example if it is the creative or channel placement. This type of data-driven competitive intelligence gives marketers the edge they need to break through the clutter and capture audience attention.

Can you share a little about how top end brands are using AI effectively to boost advertising impact?

Top end brands understand that AI can’t be blindly set to run and see the returns rolling in. AI done well drives a shift from simple ad exposures to brand recall and resonance. They are using AI to help make decisions from creative concept to media allocation faster and with greater certainty. Once a campaign is live, AI continuously monitors performance, not for clicks, but for ad resonance and sales. The AI flags underperformance swiftly, providing marketers with recommendations to adjust the creative or media buy in-flight, ensuring that every media dollar is spent against an asset that is truly connecting.

Can you highlight some of the most memorable ads of late from the B2B SaaS arena (what made them memorable) before we sign off?

Last year, Slack had their ad titled, “The Big Meeting,” where they tapped directly into the universal employee pain point of office inefficiencies in a relatable, funny fashion. We have consistently seen that humor is a huge breakthrough mechanism and creates ad resonance instantly. It is hard to pull off but when you succeed, it is such a huge multiplier for breakthrough and resonance. By choosing to be relatable, emotional, and human instead of clinical and technical as many B2B brands can be, it helps Slack to breakthrough with their audience and build a connection.