This article was originally posted on Adweek

Once an empty buzzword in the marketing world, extensive advancements in machine learning have made artificial intelligence a necessary and pivotal instrument in a marketer’s toolbox.

It’s no wonder there is so much potential in AI for advertising. It is already being used to find and define audiences, craft incredibly precise audience profiles by identifying and locating prospects, refine creative messaging and develop bidding strategies that optimize for clients’ stated goals.

However, that isn’t to say that machines will ever completely replace marketers. Instead, machine learning is used to augment human capabilities, helping marketers accomplish more with fewer resources. At present, many advertisers don’t properly understand AI enough to take full advantage of its capabilities. Instead, they only deploy it to achieve simple goals when it can do much more than elevate discrete performance metrics. When the many applications of AI are used collectively, they can lead to a significant transformation in one’s digital advertising strategy that drives remarkably improved results for clients.

To accomplish that, advertisers need to shift their perspective and refine and expand their idea of marketing success and approach new campaigns that take into account how AI works. The most powerful and largely unfulfilled potential of AI lies in the bigger picture, in its ability to optimize toward business outcomes rather than simple metrics. Therefore, campaigns need to be built around the unique opportunities and strategies afforded by AI.

To design and execute a successful AI-powered strategy, you need the right talent. Any strategy that applies AI requires not only access to premium marketing opportunities but also the skills to handle premium technologies. This starts with programmatic specialists who have a thorough understanding of the current advertising landscape and can design a plan based on requested parameters and desired business outcomes, implement the plan to generate performance predictions, optimize the model to improve executive of AI and achieve better outcomes and analyze the results to provide insights into its effectiveness.

In addition to marketing expertise, programmatic specialists will need data science and engineering acumen to articulate the steps that lead AI to the best results. Scientists can define the fundamentals of the project, making sure it’s sound. They will devise a proof of concept, test algorithms against those proofs, work with the data and decide on inputs and outputs. They can then choose an algorithm they believe will work for the case, make it better, run experiments and make recommendations for engineers to execute.

Engineers will then put the algorithms into production and use, gather and further refine the data as well as make recommendations for further improvements and for the scientists to test. While many of the best algorithms used in AI are freely available via a community of leading scientists, it takes great expertise to assemble, customize and deploy them intelligently. Moreover, algorithms need to be customized to each business, which is why data scientists and engineers who specialize in AI are so in-demand.

At the end of the day, when we evaluate how AI and machine learning are useful in digital media planning and buying, we need to ask if AI enhances the work that people can perform and if it exceeds what programmatic specialists could do alone within similar timeframes and costs. The answer is that it does. AI can elevate people to the kinds of creative, analytical work that humans do best.

For advertising and marketing companies, repositioning their offering to utilize AI and machine learning would be the most logical decision if they want to stay relevant and add value. AI and machine learning are no longer technologies of the future; they’re here now, and they’re here to stay.

Read the rest of the article on Adweek.

This article was originally posted on Marketing Magazine
With the holidays over, this is the time to reflect and fine-tune strategies for the year ahead. 2018 was a whirlwind of changes, and it continues to be a challenge differentiating your brand and maintaining trust in a world where everyone is vying for attention. The more you can stay ahead of the curve, the better equipped you will be to adapt to those changes as they occur. So what should advertisers and marketers start taking note of?

Ad Technology: Artificial Intelligence

Artificial intelligence (AI) is completely reshaping advertising as we know it, and is now a standard part of an advertising company’s repertoire. So how’s AI going to be different in 2019? For the past couple of years, it has been widely considered a transformative technology on the verge of disrupting every major industry; however, it hasn’t yet been implemented broadly enough to unlock its true value.
That’s all going to change. AI is expected to be widely adopted across the digital ad landscape in 2019, from being the basis for cutting-edge AI-based ad targeting solutions, to building personalized consumer experiences on a daily basis. Advertisers are even using AI in the production process: a recent survey found that almost two-thirds of enterprise marketers expect to use AI in their content marketing strategy this year, mostly to better understand their customers, drive productive and create personalized message

Sound of success

With colourful banner ads and video content competing for eyeballs, it can be easy for advertisers to forget about the power of audio. But as we enter 2019, this programmatic opportunity is becoming harder to ignore. In fact, audio takes up the largest proportion of mobile phone usage, with the average consumer listening for 52 minutes every day. Driven by growing mobile device ownership – and compounded by the rise in streaming radio, podcasts, audiobooks and voice assistants – digital audio is here to stay.
Spotify was an early-mover in offering programmatic audio, and other streaming services are following suit. Growing adoption rates among voice-activated smart home speakers and subscription services lend further momentum to this trend, and as these technologies evolve, so do the opportunities for brands to connect with audiences in new and exciting ways.
This year, digital audio is expected to reach marketplace maturity as an ad medium. If advertisers want to tap into today’s key trends and reach audiences more effectively, they need to consider programmatic audio as part of any well-rounded campaign.

The explosive growth of eCommerce

According to an eMarketer study, the ecommerce sector is estimated to experience double-digit growth until 2021, with sales expected to exceed $4 trillion by 2010. Few industries can boast such an illustrious future, and businesses need to initiate innovative changes to take advantage of the ecommerce boom, or risk falling behind.
In particular, expanding middle class populations, extensive mobile and internet penetration as well as improving logistics and infrastructure in the Asia-Pacific  has led to it becoming the world’s largest retail ecommerce market, with sales expected to reach $2.725 trillion by 2020.
A surge in video content, personalized ads, advanced filtering and immersive digital experiences are just a few of the changes in ecommerce that will affect the advertising industry over the next few years. The potential here is massive, and if implemented correctly, can completely change how users interact with advertisements altogether.

Everything is now on-the-go (OTG)

Less than 50 years ago, mobile phones didn’t exist. But today, it’s near impossible to imagine life without one. In fact, an estimated 84% of people can’t go a single day without their phones! We use them on a daily basis for communicating, navigating and even shopping, dubbed mCommerce.
The Asia Pacific region is leading the drive for mCommerce, with India, Thailand and Indonesia having the highest mobile wallet adoption rates. Mobile payments in China alone dwarfed those in the U.S. by more than 25,000% over a recent 10-month period, with USD 12.8 trillion changing hands in China compared to only USD 49.3 billion in the U.S. The rate of adoption across sectors such as retail, financial and on-demand services –from food delivery to ride sharing – has played a crucial role in this rapid growth.
Before, it was mobile phones that drove more online screen time. But now the human behaviour of doing everything while on the go is driving mobile phones sales.

Less ads, more storytelling

A 2015 report by Nielsen found that respondents trusted recommendations from people they know the most. This was followed by branded websites, editorial content, such as newspaper articles, and consumer opinions posted online. By comparison, obvious advertisements trailed behind in the list of advertising format that people trusted.
Read the rest of the article on Marketing Magazine