Year in Review 2022: Christophe Spencer

Each year, StopPress asks a group of talented professionals in the local industry for their reflections on the year that was. Brought to you by NZME, this year we speak to individuals who made their mark on 2022 and brought us truely impactful work.

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Along with the general ups and downs of 2022, Christophe Spencer took on a new role as Chief Digital Officer at GroupM New Zealand after 13 years at PHD. Here he looks back on 2022 and shares some of the trends he expects to take off in 2023.

2022 summed up in three words…

It’s hard to go past the Collins word of the year ‘Permacrisis’ but on a more positive note I’d add “reconnecting” and “flexibility”.

A personal achievement I’m most proud of in 2022…

Taking the leap to start a new role as Chief Digital Officer at GroupM after 13 years at PHD.

A campaign that utilised its media well in 2022 was…

The work Tourism NZ have done to help reinvigorate our local tourism industry has been phenomenal.  It was a privilege to support this programme and explore the role of signals to identify existing travellers as they moved through New Zealand, and measure media’s ability to drive them to see local tourism experiences

How did 2022’s events change the way you approach your work?

Like many other agencies our approach to flexible working evolved in 2022. This involved team members using our Reconnect programme to return (and work from) their home country for a period of two months. At the start, there was some nervousness around remote working, combined with differences in time zones – but it proved to be an energising experience for team members who hadn’t been able to travel and visit family overseas since the pandemic, and there was minimal disruption.

Alongside this, a greater focus on better using the time we are together in the office has emerged – celebrating small wins, more attention on learning and development and fostering creativity.

How will the media landscape change in 2023?

So much oxygen has been given to the third-party cookie over the last three years.  It will be refreshing to move into an era that looks beyond this.

Four key trends we are looking forward to are as follows…

1. Programmatic as an omnichannel solution

2023 will see greater scale and easier accessibility of NZ inventory available to purchase programmatically across AVOD, Audio, OOH, Gaming, Display and E-commerce. The ability to orchestrate campaigns more easily across channels and enable richer and more interactive ad units across screens represents a strong opportunity (especially if at some stage ths is accompanied by opportunities across Disney and Netflix.

• Role of retail media

In New Zealand we have already seen the emergence of Cartology and Foodstuffs Precision Media to provide advertisers with the opportunity to target consumers at the digital shelf. As we move into 2023 we see these opportunities evolving and acting as a scalable extension to advertiser SEM and performance media programmes – alongside the increasing availability of e-commerce media solutions

• Maturing approaches to brand safety

Historically, brand safety has focused on the content of a webpage or video and blocking ads from running against sensitive editorial.  As we move into 2023, we see this maturing as brands begin to place more focus on the values of the media owner. Do they permit hate speech? Are they guilty of fake news? Do they support DE&I. At GroupM we are increasingly working with clients to build inclusion lists focused on categories such as “Responsible Journalism” – as an evolution of keyword focused inclusion lists.

• Emergence of Quality Path Optimisation

Supply path optimisation has been an increasing area of focus for our industry, as we have sought to decrease the costs incurred in the digital supply chain from our advertising campaigns. We see this evolving further to take into account new metrics such as carbon emissions. A greener and lower cost supply chain is a strong focus for GroupM – and something we are focused on across all campaigns.

Key Digital Trends

4 key digital trends we are mindful of are as follows:

• Rise of the clean room

Over the last two years we’ve spoken at length of the growing importance of first party data – however this has been accompanied by challenges associated with ‘user privacy’. The increasing availability of clean rooms (or clean room ‘like’ solutions) provided by partners such as Liveramp, Yahoo, Google PAIR and Trade Desk’s Galileo will help us overcome a number of these challenges. Specialist consulting capability in this space will be a key focus for us throughout 2023.

• Emergence of Seller Defined Audiences

Seller defined audiences provide the opportunity for a group of media owners to use a common taxonomy, and set of targeting rules, to bring together audience segments in a way that is not reliant on cookie based approaches. We see this as an interesting evolution to the role KPEX once played in our market.

• Return of tried and tested approaches to targeting and measurement

In response to a recent client conversation about the phasing out of third-party cookies a client mentioned ‘it feels as though we have to go back to being marketers again’. There is definitely some truth to that. In saying that it is also interesting to see how tried and tested marketing approaches are evolving. As an example Automation is making Market Mix Modelling more accessible and Natural Language processing is making contextual targeting more effective

• Role of ‘Low Code/No-Code’ technology

It was often challenging to implement BI solutions, Dynamic creative and landing page optimisation initiatives without the help of specialist developer resource. The growth of low code/no code technology solutions has helped make these solutions more available to generalist agency/client teams 

What were the biggest lessons brands learned in 2022?

1. The importance of a long-term plan – Media agencies and advertisers have often worked on annual planning cycles, with an increasing focus on short term outcomes, fuelled by the pandemic response.  One of the benefits of Google announcing a two year (extending to four year) deprecation of cookies in chrome is that it opened up the conversation of where do we want our marketing to be by this date.
2. The value of simplicity – with brands having to navigate a number of unknowns, the value of clear and focused marketing strategies, which all stakeholders are aligned to and don’t slow them down has been key 
3. The role of good creative – the increasing focus on ‘attention metrics’ has shown brands the value that creative has (alongside media and data) at driving results

Best innovation/invention/launch of 2022…

The ‘Wireless Charging’ innovation shared at CES last year was an eye opener – the mobile phone you never have to plug in to charge would definitely be a winner  if it became mainstream.

Biggest mistake brands will make in terms of strategy in 2023…

In a changing media environment it becomes vital to collaborate with different skillsets, disciplines and specialist agency partners throughout the strategy setting process. The biggest potential mistake is not involving all the right partners. 

Most exciting thing GroupM NZ has in store for 2023?

There’s a number of really exciting initiatives the group is rolling out across 2023 – the one I am closest to is the evolution of our digital creative services offering – This involves bringing together ‘Inca’ (our network of 1k+ content creators and influencers), ‘Express’ our creative management platform to develop and serve ads across all digital screens and ‘Measure’ our approach to the use of attention metrics to assess campaign effectiveness.  

A person who inspired me the most in 2022 was…

We had the privilege of working with Donna-Barlow Rolleston in 2022, a consultant to help build our Group’s understanding of Te Ao Māori and Te Tiriti O Waitangi. She did an incredible job of showing how this carries through into day to day of our business.

Quick fire 10

Most memorable local campaign: NZTA and seatbelts – a highly memorable creative execution.

Favourite international campaign: Sony Bravia for breaking category conventions .

Campaign I wish I worked on:  Steinlager Altblacks – a beacon award winner delivered by Lion and the amazing MediaCom team before I started at GroupM.

Best news of 2022: BlackFerns victory.

Biggest flop of 2022: Google Stadia.

Top artist on Spotify Wrapped: Nick Cave.

Best part of being back in the office: Celebrating the small wins with your team.

A 2022 trend I’m looking forward to leaving behind: Trying to get your children to do a RAT test.

Furthest place travelled in 2022: Sandfly Bay on the Otago Peninsula.

Best book I read in 2022: I would have to call out the book ‘Operation Erebus’ by the very talented Alex Walken – a nice bit of escapism from the world of digital marketing .

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