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From markets to people: rethinking how media measures success

Madan Sundararaju
April 20, 2020

Over the course of the past few posts, we’ve touched on the new era of personalized media, the technologies that are transforming the industry, and the challenges inherent to this evolution.

Now, within the context of today’s unprecedented societal disruptions, I’d like to address the crux of this revamped media: people want personalized, engaging experiences on their schedules, and media organizations need to tap into new datasets and solutions to build individual profiles to deliver that.

The challenges media organizations face are clear. What remains clouded, though, is the solution. While no one has all the answers, our Capgemini solutions and rich industry experience certainly give us the perspective that will help organizations succeed.

Cultural transformation

Successful digital transformation in any industry starts with decisive executive action and a culture of data-driven decision making. Instead of viewing technology as primarily an IT function, organizations need to embrace and gravitate towards the value of technology agility.

While technical resources and IT needs are extremely important, digital transformation is as much about changing mindsets and approaches as it is about building a technology foundation. Many organizations neglect to address the culture shift required to drive successful transformation initiatives. Without this evolution in mindset, the best technology in the world will not be enough to accomplish digital-transformation initiatives, rendering large investments effectively moot.

Remember, digital transformation begins with a cultural revolution. It is not about technology – it is about mentality.

Stay small, move fast

While organizational vision and mindset are critical to transformation success, high-level executive commitment is not enough to deliver success. The organization itself – people, roles, and teams –need to evolve just as much as the culture does.

Small, diverse teams that represent the cross-functional nature of a digital-enabled business should form the backbone of a successful organization, doubly so in today’s current environment of economic uncertainty, where agility and efficiency are more valuable than ever. Strategically creating these teams and implementing these changes may be more difficult than deploying the technology, but they enable the productive, iterative approach required of organizations to stay agile enough to deliver on customer needs.

Beyond anything else, organizations need to:

  • Adopt an MVP (minimum viable product) mindset and understand the value in building, launching, measuring, and optimizing at speed
  • Address tasks with small, agile teams to allow for flexibility and an iterative approach
  • Lock in on the audience – what is their experience like at every step of the journey, and how can we make it better for them?

Customer-centricity is the key

These personal and organizational transformations all operate under the same general approach: organizations need clear data to inform and drive what transformation should look like. Since the goal here is to orient the organization totally around the customer, naturally a company would need robust, centralized customer data.

Data centralization that can acquire inputs from every customer touchpoint helps to build a 360-degree customer view. Obviously, this data can inform personalization exercises around recommended media content, but media organizations that dig deeper will find exciting opportunities thanks to this centralized customer data. For example, this data could enable fantastic, Disney-esqe branding and cross-channel sales opportunities around content franchises and non-media experiences (theme parks, events, toys, etc.).

This data is even valuable in its own right. While data privacy needs to be an utmost concern, media organizations that have robust, personalized market data greatly enhance the value of their ad slots. Ad spend flocks to the players that can segment and personalize content, since companies can now control who sees their content at a much finer scale.

The new shape of media

Digital transformation is rapidly reshaping the media industry. Consumers want personalized content and intuitive experiences, and media organizations need to address these needs immediately if they want to retain audiences.

Throughout the series, we’ve acknowledged the transformative power of technology and organizational culture. That is because Capgemini works on the cutting edge of this industry on a daily basis. We have been in lockstep with the players ushering in this new media era, and this experience has proven invaluable to our award-winning client work.

If you have questions, comments, or want to learn more, please get in touch. Our team will be happy to work with you to realize the full potential of your digital transformation.