New Omni technology paves the way for AI-enhanced campaigns
Artificial intelligence (AI) is already influencing media planning and buying. Here at Hearts & Science, we have front-row seats to the expansion and deployment of AI and machine learning (ML) in media.
We work with clients, partners, and marketing decision-makers to incorporate this (and any!) new technology. Many of our largest strategic partners, including Google, Meta, Bing, and OpenAI, are themselves leading the charge in developing new AI technology.
Use AI to augment your human expertise
What have we learned so far from our work with these partners on new products and solutions in alphas and betas? What does our team of talented strategists, planners, and buyers say about their experience bringing AI into the media planning and buying process?
AI will not replace the talent, experience, and creativity of our greatest asset—our people.
Rather, AI is a technological advancement that will accelerate discovery, democratize data and insights, and improve planning and optimizations in the marketplace. In other words, it’s another tool to make our teams—and client outcomes—even stronger. As Omnicom CEO John Wren recently said,
“We’re embracing generative AI as quickly as possible to enhance the capabilities of our best and brightest people, and deliver better outcomes for our clients.”
This is how we’re embracing AI in media planning and buying at Hearts & Science:
1. Stay engaged to stay ahead
AI and ML have been around for a while in various forms within the media ecosystem. If you are a marketer, it has likely already played a role behind the scenes. Perhaps it has influenced an investment decision, a particular creative, or another media outcome in one of your campaigns.
This is especially true for Hearts’ teams that manage large search and social investments on behalf of their clients. Products like Meta’s Advantage+ shopping campaigns (ASC), Google’s Performance Max (PMax) search campaigns, dynamic product carousels, and dynamic creative optimization with multiple variants, all leverage AI to help improve outcomes.
With the launch of ChatGPT in 2022 and its rapid adoption by consumers and businesses, “in-platform” tools listed above are the proverbial tip of the iceberg. Thanks to generative AI, we are seeing a rapidly accelerating landscape for AI applications in media planning and buying.
These new solutions aim to create workflow efficiencies, drive incremental performance and client outcomes, and mitigate poor consumer experiences. At Hearts, we are at the forefront of testing and developing these next-gen tools—actively working with Meta AI Sandbox, Google Vertex AI platform, Adobe, Microsoft Azure OpenAI Service, and Bing/ChatGPT.
2. Continue to focus on client outcomes
Hearts & Science, backed by Omnicom Media Group (OMG), remains committed to client-specific solutions that put business outcomes at the center. By leveraging the scale of OMG, coupled with our bespoke approach, we can ensure AI meets each client’s specific media planning requirements.
We understand that every client has unique risk tolerances, timelines, and preferences when it comes to integrating AI. To address this, we offer a breadth of solutions that can be customized to meet individual needs. We use advanced data science techniques and strategic data partnerships to mitigate risk and maximize success for each client.
3. Accelerate data strategy and consumer insights
Effective marketing is—and will continue to be—driven by meaningful and actionable consumer insights. Data shapes our strategy, investment approach, and partner selection. AI is already giving us faster insights by helping us navigate data providers and mine thousands of consumer signals. Our limits now lie in the bandwidth of data scientists, marketing science experts, and strategists—and with the assistance of AI, these experts will become more productive in the future.
OMG is the first media holding company with enterprise access to the latest OpenAI GPT models. This first-mover partnership will reduce discovery from days to minutes and enhance communications across agency and client teams.
By utilizing Omni Assist, you can achieve a competitive edge by accelerating the timeline from ideation to outcome for your brand, new product, or promotion. As Annalect CEO Slavi Samardzija said recently,
“With Omni 3.0—powered by Omni Assist—we are going beyond the democratization of data, to the democratization of insights.”
4. Connect insights to actions via Omni open operating system
When it comes to connecting consumer insights to media and inventory allocations, we’re already seeing the positive impact of our investments in AI, ML, and language learning models (LLMs). This includes enriching category data on consumer behavior, media performance, and the marketplace.
Using predictive models based on client and category curves can inform future investment decisions, including new channels and partners. This allows paid investments to grow and evolve faster with data-based decision-making.
But what good is the AI if the data is bad? OMG already has exclusive data partnerships in place; it’s the backbone of what we do. Pairing our rich and diverse data relationships with the power of Microsoft Azure sets Omni apart from other media planning and buying technology.
Our clients continue to reap the benefits as we expand these data partnerships, further enriching data at the client, customer, and category levels. AI will advance performance intelligence that summarizes key trends and identifies drivers based on client data, inventory supply, and real-time performance data.
For example, we have developed a tool that engages with consumers’ browsing activity and actively builds unique rule sets, feeding that data directly into The Trade Desk. Not only has this solution boosted CPA and conversion rates across the board, but it is future-proof since it doesn’t rely on the cookie. It provides a dynamic, signal-based segment informed by real-time consumer intent.
5. Accelerate client outcomes
We measure our success by our clients’ successes. Was the strategy differentiated and the go-to-market approach successful? Did our partners and placements meet the consumers’ needs and the client’s ambition? Our focus on outcomes is true across the funnel. These outcomes may include time spent or other engagement metrics, consideration, or actions such as adding to cart, signing up for a newsletter, or completing a purchase.
AI’s potential to improve optimizations is one of the areas we are most bullish about. Today, your teams have their hands on keyboards, adjusting investments, creative rotations, and bid strategies based on performance signals. These optimizations are manual, time consuming, and iterative.
Inventory AI and similar tools offer the ability to speed up optimizations. More importantly, they offer the ability to unlock additional insight on performance drivers. By analyzing multiple indicators, it becomes easier to understand what is driving performance. There simply aren’t enough hours in the day for a human to accomplish this.
Amplifying client successes with AI
Our teams at Hearts & Science have unparalleled access and experience working with AI on behalf of our clients. Our strategic partnerships provide early-mover access and opportunities across the full continuum of media planning and buying. Our approach is grounded in strong and diverse data, an incredible team focused on innovative solutions, and a relentless focus on customer outcomes.
We are energized by how AI can accelerate insights—increasing speed to market and driving business outcomes more quickly for our clients. We expect to expand into test-and-learn environments faster and with a more data-driven approach. By doing so, we hope to increase relevance on a larger scale among consumers. ++
We are excited to use AI and all available technologies to work with our clients. Our goal is to help them reach new customers, launch new products, uncover new channels, and strengthen their business messages.
