What you need to know:

• M&C Saatchi is to KPI its staff – including senior leaders – on data education.
• The aim is to beat the sector-wide skills crunch and feed its new data analytics division, Precision.
• Precision aims to quantify the impact of creativity across the marketing funnel and help inform CX and engagement strategies. 

Smarts approach

Led by Chief Data officer James Collier, the new Precision unit aims to provide marketers with the ability to predict, model and measure the impact of creativity on attention, engagement – and brands’ top and bottom lines.

The group needs more of its people to understand and articulate those factors – hence the skills push.

"We'll be bringing in KPIs for data education, not only the departments but leaders across the whole business,” said CEO Justin Graham, with client-facing staff prioritised.

"This means key executives and senior leaders will be monitored on their progress and it will make up part of their yearly reviews. Ultimately, it’s going to provide our clients with the certainty that the people they are engaging with daily are being trained in those areas."

The approach is intended to also future-proof the agency and provide the new Precision unit, headed up by Chief Data Officer James Collier, a pipeline of talent to fuel its planned expansion. The aim is to grow Precision from an initial five full time staff to around 50, or roughly 10 per cent of M&C’s workforce.

"We have pretty aggressive growth plans for Precision, but that’s reliant on having the staff to facilitate both client demands and internal expansion," Graham said.

"Internally we've already got people chomping at the bit to be involved, which I think says a lot for what is currently going on from a talent perspective [across the economy], as well as what clients are demanding from us."

Creativity, data, CX

When it comes to the client-facing side of Precision, Collier told Mi3 the new divisions is a direct response to the increased need for creativity and data to be "intertwined" as CMOs seek to quantify every facet of their marketing approach.

Precision will focus on providing marketers with the ability to predict, model and measure the impact of creativity on growth and profit. But he underlined that the focus is on understanding the bigger picture, not proving the performance of an ad.

"We have to model impact based on each customer-facing [element], which on average is roughly 24 channels – from CRM right through to brand retention strategies. Each with a unique creative message," said Collier.

As such, Precision will create data and analytics models based on "tangible impact measures" beyond obvious metrics such as awareness and consideration.

"In one piece of early work that's currently underway, the client is looking to find how brand is impacting the customer experience, broader cultural trends and employee engagement and sentiment," Collier said. "These are the sorts of business solutions clients seek.”

Precision will also work with clients to manage how they utilise and collect data.

"We have clients that are coming to us around Apple and the deprecation of third party cookies, worried that the first party data asset that they've invested so heavily in might not actually be viable longer term," Collier said. "We'll also use Precision to inform their CX and customer engagement platforms."