Adobe Invests Over Half a Million Dollars in University Research

Industry and academia can often times feel like different worlds. But here at Adobe, we work to build bridges that connect these fields of work together.

But how did this collaboration even begin, and why?

To get to the bottom of this question we went straight to the source—Anil Kamath, Fellow & VP of Technology. “What the biggest problem facing data science in marketing today?” we asked him.

He laughed. I mean, where do we start?

“There’s just so much data—last year alone we tracked over one hundred trillion data points. So it’s all about getting good data and then finding out how we can make it useable in the right way to solve the key problems our customers have.”

As for the best way to do this, we need to partner with the best minds in algorithms, statistics, marketing, machine learning and artificial intelligence. Thus, industry and academia joined forces and the Data Science Symposium and Adobe Research Awards were born—all with the goal of finding new ways to solve some of the riveting challenges that plague today’s marketers.

This year we’ve made even greater strides in this collaboration. Adobe awarded a record total of $750,000 to 15 Universities across North America! We spoke with Anil and some of the winners to further gain insight on the Research Awards and what advice they have for other Universities looking to submit their own proposal.

Data is King, Collaboration is the Castle

When we asked Anil why the partnership between industry and academia was so important, the answer was easy. “Academia is usually in the cutting-edge of research. They can explore new challenges, but they oftentimes don’t have all the resources they need. That’s where Adobe comes in. We have so much data and can offer lots of insights into the market.”

One of this year’s winners, Edward McFowland III, Assistant Professor at the University of Minnesota, couldn’t agree more, “I value the partnership very much. We write a lot of theorems and algorithms but we typically create our own theoretical problems to test. With my partnership with Adobe, I’m allowed to develop tools that actually have immediate impact and work on problems that real organizations are facing.” Professor McFowland’s winning proposal explores anomalous pattern detection, and tries to make sense of them from a marketer’s point-of-view.

“There’s no denying that there’s a gap between academia and industry. Adobe is really concerned with what industry and academia can collectively offer and we value that tremendously,” said Wreeto Kar, Assistant Professor at Purdue University. Professor Kar, along with his colleague and mentor, Professor Mohammad Rahman, developed a proposal that will look at recommendation engines and explore video consumption patterns.

Finding a Way in

So, what kind of advice do these talented group of winners have for those looking to submit in the future? When we pried a bit, there was a common theme. Find a way in.

“Be very persistent and begin to engage with researchers at Adobe. They can give you valuable feedback into the business and the real problems industry is facing. I had the opportunity to go the Data Science Symposium and that was a great way to connect and network with the employees,” said Professor McFowland.

Alternatively, Natalie Mizik, Professor at the University of Washington, said that another good way to gather feedback is through previous Research Award winners. Professor Mizik was originally informed about the Research Award from one of last year’s winners, “I depended on her word of mouth and she really encouraged me to submit.”

And in the case of Professor Kar and Professor Tianshu Sun, Assistant Professor at the University of Southern California, both were previous interns. Through their internship, they grew close to the business and were able to learn about the problems that Adobe was facing. And they wanted to help.

“Winning the award feels like coming back home!” said Professor Sun when asked how it felt to go from intern to Research Award Winner. “This award gives me a very good opportunity to work with Adobe again after 5 years, and I have a lot of thoughts and ideas that I can’t wait to discuss with different teams at Adobe,” he said.

“I still can’t believe it. It feels phenomenal. It’s hard to believe because when you’re an intern or at the Data Science Symposium, you’re in awe of the faculties that have won the award,” said Professor Kar. “As for my piece of advice. Adobe values original proposals. If you have a good idea, reach out to a researcher at Adobe and see what they think.”

Research Never Stops

As for what’s next for these winners. The possibilities are endless.

“I already have regular meetings planned with an Adobe researcher who’s going to help develop my work,” said Georgia Perakis, Professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management. “And I would like to have some of my PhD students have the opportunity to intern at Adobe. This partnership is great and continuing it will likely lead to new and interesting questions, and hopefully solutions!” she added. Professor Perakis and her PhD student, Lennart Baardman, developed a proposal that would help advertisers manage their portfolio through uncertainty.

And as for Anil on the future of Adobe’s collaboration with Universities. “We have another deadline coming up in February for new proposals. Go on our website and start exploring the types of proposals we’re looking for and reach out to the team to float ideas and work with us to see how your idea can be tailored to the problems we’re looking at. Then submit your proposal! You could be the next grant awardee.”

Couldn’t have said it better myself.

Find out more about the Research Award program on our University site and submit your proposal by February 16, 2018!

 

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from Digital Marketing Blog by Adobe https://blogs.adobe.com/digitalmarketing/analytics/adobe-invests-half-million-dollars-university-research/

Did You See the New Trailer for Star Wars?

Did you see the new trailer for Star Wars? That is no doubt the phrase around the water cooler this week. The trailer was definitely hard to miss, as it was promoted during a highly televised Monday Night Football game. The game may have looked more like a baseball score at halftime (3-2 lead for the Vikings), but nobody much cared after the trailer aired. Within 15 minutes, the trailer had 80 thousand social engagements on its Twitter handle and 280 thousand views on YouTube. Lost amongst the fanfare was the true brilliance of Disney’s marketing scheme to maximize profit and insights into activities others can do that profit in the digital and social world we live in.

Steady drum beat of content.

Disney has been masterful with the established Star Wars brand which it purchased for $4 billion in 2012. They have consistently put out content around the movies through posters, trailers, the movies themselves, digital banners, and a video game — and they even have Star Wars day. In 2013, it made $225 million from Hasbro just for the rights to produce Star Wars toys. All of these pieces help produce a consistent lure every few months to keep our minds not far from the force within us.

The value of consistent content from branded channels both shows the ability to be a thought leader and the chance to continually have your brand on the top of your customers’ mind. New research, points of view, video content, and blog posts can all be a part of your consistent content strategy developed around your specific audience.

Stars active on social.

When you have Luke Skywalker on your side, it’s hard to go wrong. I have seen countless people screenshotting and posting images of a simple engagement they had on Twitter with Mark Hamill (@hamillhimself). This has the ability to produce up to 500 percent more mentions compared to shows where a star is not actively promoting.

Having an active employee, influencer, and customer base talking positively about your brand can provide an added boost to your drum beat of content. Variety said that 8 out of 10 teens name social stars over celebrities as their influencers. Having all of these people engaging with other customers can provide a powerful social reach.

Cross promotion.

The ultimate double dipping happened when Disney showed multiple trailers during Monday Night Football on ESPN (a property that Disney also owns). This is brilliant because sports is the most watched “live” event, so they can charge extra ad dollars for the increased audience waiting to see the trailer.

If you are part of an enterprise business with multiple products and services, the cross promotion opportunities can open your business up to new audiences without spending extra money for advertising. Look for ways to engage in cross promotion through blog posts, social sharing, or television in similar ways that Disney does.

The ability of your brand to create a steady drum beat of content, to be active on social from various non-brand sources, and to look for cross promotion opportunities can lead to a maximization of the profits you are searching for. Count me as one of the many millions excited to see the new Star Wars movie The Last Jedi. While most are keeping their eye on Kylo Ren and Luke, I’ll be the one glorying in and learning from a excellent playbook from Disney, one equipped for a primetime ESPN game.

 

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from Digital Marketing Blog by Adobe https://blogs.adobe.com/digitalmarketing/customer-experience/see-new-trailer-star-wars/

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Solving for the Data Scientist Talent Gap: The Adobe Analytics Challenge

Just ten years ago, the notion of a data scientist wasn’t on the recruiting radar for any business. Few individuals understood the value of expertise that combines analytics, computer science, engineering, business insights, and so much more.

Fast forward to the present day — a data scientist is arguably seen as one of the most sought-after employees of this decade. McKinsey projects that by next year, the demand for data scientists may be as much as 60 percent greater than supply.They predict the U.S. economy could be short up to 250,000 data scientists by 2027.

As the volume of data availability at an organization’s fingertips continues to explode, it’s clear that many successful organizations understand the value of a data scientist. And while many universities now have courses and programs that map to these careers, a talent deficiency remains and needs to be addressed.

Recognizing that university coursework is only half the battle in closing the gap and cultivating the next generation of data science talent, Adobe is committed to sharing the responsibility with the announcement of the 2017 Adobe Analytics Challenge. Now in its 12th year, the Adobe Analytics Challenge puts real world data and analytics tools into the hands of students in the form of a cutthroat competition. With $60,000 on the line, the Challenge brings together students from across the nation to showcase their data-driven skills. In partnership with MGM, students will have access to real-world data from the world’s leading hospitality and entertainment company.

Born in 2005 as a tool for Adobe to help uncover the brightest minds and most passionate talent in analytics, the competition now enables Adobe to invest in students who are breaking into the world of data and advanced analytics. Last year, more than 1,500 students entered the competition from 70 different schools, with the winners hailing from the University of Utah, David Eccles School of Business.

This year’s competition promises to put students’ skills to the test. Working with Adobe customer, MGM, students this year will be presented with a cross-channel customer analytics data set.They will be utilizing Adobe Analytics to find opportunities for MGM to develop even more compelling customer experiences. Students will be trained on how to use Adobe Analytics, including machine learning and artificial intelligence capabilities that will help them surface new, actionable insights for MGM. With more than 48,000 rooms and suites, 18,000 conventions and meetings per year, and 28,000 slot machines — MGM quite literally sits on a treasure trove of data. By leveraging this data, groups of up to three students will present to a panel of judges on insights in relation to where the opportunities are to increase future conversions, how to personalize to each guest that walks thru the door, how consumers are making their travel choices, the impact of entertainment and sports on dining and rooms, as well as mobile app opportunities.

This competition is more than just bragging rights —  throughout the years it has brought together students from across the nation, acting as a career springboard for many aspiring data scientists and analysts. Visit here for more details on the challenge.

 

 

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from Digital Marketing Blog by Adobe https://blogs.adobe.com/digitalmarketing/digital-marketing/solving-data-scientist-talent-gap-adobe-analytics-challenge/

The Leadership Quadrant: Four things Adobe Does Better than Anyone

For the third year in a row, Adobe Analytics was named a leader in Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for Digital Marketing Analytics research report. Of the 12 vendors evaluated, Adobe outright won the vertical dimension of the classic industry report — completeness of vision — and was a close second-place finisher in the “ability to execute” dimension. So why does Adobe continue to fare well in this evaluation? We believe the role Adobe Analytics plays in the larger Adobe strategy has everything to do with it.

Think about the experiences your customers have with your brand in digital, mobile apps, email, social, connected cars, and even voice assistants. Are they experiences that your customers and prospective customers enjoy? Do they make your customers love you more, or wish they didn’t have to deal with you? Do your digital experiences accomplish the goals you’ve established for them?

We’re now in the era of experiences. Experiences are considered the difference between what makes a brand a leader and a laggard in any industry. In fact, using customer experience data to evaluate both transactional and subscription businesses, Harvard Business Review found that customer experience is a major driver of future revenue growth. As consumers, this finding shouldn’t surprise any of us. As digital marketers, we’re all trying to figure out — how do I create digital experiences that my customers will love?

In my experience working with customers of all industries and sizes, one thing stands out — customers who are truly insight-driven are outperforming their competition. They create compelling digital experiences based on customer insights. They use the best-in-class analytics tools to measure their customers’ journey across devices and channels and then translate that data into behavioral insights. The customer experience leaders are moving beyond standard reporting to customer analytics including advanced segmentation and prediction. Of all the vendors in this report, Adobe facilitates this the best because we have in-depth behavioral pathing and powerful segmentation, and we deliver it within a user-friendly user experience, Analysis Workspace.

With different objectives, purchase cycles, and marketing strategies, most marketers and analytics teams are still struggling to move beyond standard reporting. In fact, according to Econsultancy, most cite that improving data analysis is a top factor for how they expect to improve the customer experience.

To help you develop better insight about your customers, here are four best practices that use the powerful capabilities within Adobe Analytics:

Flow exploration and fallout analysis.
The first step to delivering great customer experiences is having an understanding of how people are navigating your digital channels and where they are hitting stumbling blocks — some people call this “behavioral pathing.” One of our behavioral pathing tools in Analysis Workspace is called flow exploration. It lets brands visualize customer movement through digital experiences, showing the steps taken from entry point to conversion or churn. Users can easily overlay key metrics to further break down and explore user behavior — allowing them to drive improvements on content and flow which increases the likelihood of conversion and retention. When you discover a common usage pattern, you can now create a dynamic audience segment of that cohort of users.

Analyzing cohorts.
Suppose that you want to analyze how customers who sign up for your newsletter or install your app engage with your brand over time. Does signing up for your newsletter increase a customer’s likelihood to purchase over time? Are customers who install your mobile app more likely to remain loyal in six months? A cohort report within Analysis Workspace allows you to isolate a specific event and then see how often the same users completing that event go on to complete a future event. It’s a powerful analysis tool that helps you better understand how your digital experiences are impacting your customer’s lifetime value.

Comparing customer segments.
Segmentation is a core strategy crucial to any marketer’s success. Segment comparison within Analysis Workspace intelligently discovers the differences — and similarities between your sets of target audience segments through automated analysis of all underlying metrics and dimensions. In speaking with customers, we see analysts spending an incredible amount of time comparing various segments in order to understand the actionable differences between them. Segments often overlap with each other or have non-obvious differences lurking deep within the data, and uncovering these insights is like picking a needle out of a haystack. With Segment comparison, marketers and analysts use the simple construct of a Venn diagram to gain new visibility into which segments are most important to their businesses — and why — so they can acquire and convert customers much more efficiently — saving time and money.

Enrich customer profiles with offline attributes.
One of the most helpful ways to improve your ability to understand your customers is to enrich your first party behavioral data with offline customer attributes such as CRM data. This helps analysts and marketers develop better customer segmentation, enabling more effective measurement of your marketing campaigns, messaging, and digital experiences. Some common examples of enriching your customer profiles through what we call customer attributes include applying loyalty, demographic, or lifetime value to your visitor data. This revolutionizes the way you see your customers, leading to better insights. Better insights inevitably lead to better targeting, messaging and optimization of digital experiences.

These best practices are just a sampling of what our leading customers are using to extract insight about their customers and put that insight into action. It’s no longer enough to simply be data-driven. Organizations need the systems and tools to be able to turn data into insight and insight into action as quickly as possible to optimize digital experiences. Standard web analytics will no longer suffice. In the era where experience is the differentiator, organizations need the best-in-class customer intelligence tools and best practices.

References
1.     https://hbr.org/2014/08/the-value-of-customer-experience-quantified
2.     https://econsultancy.com/reports/digital-intelligence-briefing-2017-digital-trends

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from Digital Marketing Blog by Adobe https://blogs.adobe.com/digitalmarketing/customer-experience/leadership-quadrant-four-things-adobe-better-anyone/

Adobe Advertising Cloud Bolsters Cross-Screen Planner With Connected TV

Today’s media and entertainment consumers are spoiled. There is more content available on more devices than at any time in history. In the past five years, the number of new shows on online services has increased 500 percent, and the average U.S. consumer watches over five hours of content of cross-traditional TV and digital video daily. But as consumption continues to hockey stick, over-the-top (OTT) media — TV content delivered via internet connected devices — is growing significantly faster than traditional linear methods. And most of the industry would agree: Advertisers have failed to keep pace.

That’s why today, Adobe Advertising Cloud is pleased to announce several important updates to its connected TV (CTV; a subset of OTT) offering to help bridge the gap between this critically important medium and existing digital ad formats. Regardless of whether a marketer is executing a linear TV buy, a digital-only buy, or a combination of both, it is crucial for them to understand which individuals have already been reached by an ad and the frequency at which they have been exposed to the ad, so they can deliver the optimal media mix to most efficiently achieve their advertising objectives.

To solve that problem, Adobe Advertising Cloud has added connected TV advertising formats to its cross-screen planner. Built to maximize de-duplicated audience reach, the cross-screen planner can ingest a marketer’s linear TV or digital base plan to identify audiences advertisers have not already reached, and then deliver against those audiences on TV, desktop, mobile, social — and now, CTV. And because the cross-screen planner is integrated directly into Adobe Advertising Cloud’s demand-side platform, marketers can understand not only how CTV audiences are behaving, but also how it compares to other channels in terms of driving effectiveness.

Most importantly, it gives advertisers the ability to control frequency not only within connected TV, but also across all Advertising Cloud channels and devices, including desktop, mobile, social, OTT, and linear TV environments.

However, understanding audience behavior and channel effectiveness is only part of the puzzle. That’s why Adobe Advertising Cloud is also pleased to introduce audience targeting and reporting across connected TV. Advertisers can activate first- and third-party audience segments and layer on geo, demo, interest, and device targeting to reach connected TV viewers. This enables advertisers to reach precise and highly engaged audiences and understand the true value of each impression relative to their entire campaign. Audience demographic verification in connected TV apps is provided by Nielsen DAR.

For most marketers, achieving ideal reach and frequency, understanding channel effectiveness holistically, and reaching precise audiences in premium environments would represent a meaningful improvement from the status quo. But to close the loop, Adobe Advertising Cloud is introducing comprehensive conversion reporting for connected TV campaigns. By using anonymous, non-personally identifying information (PII), marketers can now understand how connected TV ads impact online and offline conversions as well as determine overall brand lift and attitudinal metrics via targeted BrandSights surveys. Adobe Advertising Cloud’s unique cross-channel attribution solution — from search to linear TV — is the first of its kind.

Brands that have successfully leveraged Adobe Advertising Cloud’s new connected TV capabilities include 3M and Allianz.

Adobe Advertising Cloud’s connected TV partners include A+E Networks, Discovery Communications, Vudu, and many more. Adobe Advertising Cloud’s cross-screen planning tool is available to all U.S. clients on a managed service basis. Connected TV audience targeting and conversion tracking are available to global clients on a self-serve basis and connected TV audience reporting via Nielsen DAR is available to select clients in a beta opportunity. To learn more about Adobe Advertising Cloud’s CTV offering, please reach out to your local Adobe account representative.

“Connected TV has been one of the final frontiers in the digital video landscape with regards to targeting and measurement. We are pleased to work with Adobe Advertising Cloud to bring our TV Everywhere approach to advertisers. With the extension of Connected TV, Discovery enables marketers to reach audiences at scale in a premium and transparent environment,” said Greg Ashton, Director, Digital Revenue and Yield Management, Discovery Communications.

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from Digital Marketing Blog by Adobe https://blogs.adobe.com/digitalmarketing/customer-experience/adobe-advertising-cloud-bolsters-cross-screen-planner-connected-tv/

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