Ahead of our Dragon’s Den-style Innovation Sessions event, where innovative tech companies will have the chance to pitch their solutions to agencies and brands, we talk to the judges to discover their views on innovation in our industry.
We spoke to Celine Saturnino , Chief Commercial Officer at Total Media about she was hoping to see at the event which takes place online on 9th June.
What are you most hoping to see from the pitches at the NDA Innovation Sessions event?
I’m most hoping to see three key things.
- Technology that allows us to better understand customer behavior
- Technology that enhances the customer experience in some way
- Technology that allows brands to innovate on top of the juggernauts in our industry!
What are the biggest challenges for agencies and brands in finding and deploying the best technical innovations?
The most common challenges are having enough capacity and the right skillsets to research and identify the best technical innovations. Once identified it is ensuring that any new tech can work with existing platforms and infrastructures as well as the capability to implement. Depending on the size of organisation there can be huge and complex structures to navigate through in order to implement new technology which really slows the pace of innovation..
What tech innovation have you been most excited about so far this year?
There are two that come to mind straight away. The first is Nozzle, a platform using AI to drive greater effectiveness in Amazon. The second is the emergence of UDP platforms such as Infosum, providing brands with the opportunity to profile and activate their data in a much more controlled and streamlined way.
What hyped tech innovation have you been most disappointed in over the last year?
Speaking generally I think a lot of technology is marketed before it is fully available and the over promise , under delivery is disappointing (I won’t name names but it’s sadly common).
What impact has the pandemic had on innovation in our industry?
I think we are yet to see the impact but we should probably expect the rate of technical innovation to slow as a result of reduced budgets and likely reduced teams as businesses globally look to save cost. Smaller businesses may also find it harder to survive with the economic pressure and, in my experience, some of the best innovation comes from the smallest businesses. On the positive side I suspect we will see new businesses and innovations form from the shifts in customer behavior so this could well be a very exciting time for new and interesting opportunities to emerge.
