Known quietly grades the work of bigger agencies as it tries to empower the word ‘agency’

But their mission is empower the word agency again — as in, giving clients agency over their media efforts as a means to optimize results and get more for their proverbial buck. All in a fraction of the time it used to take to do that optimizing and number-crunching. 

Schireson said Known has about six other clients waiting to use Skeptic in a similar fashion — checking other agencies’ work and innovating and adapting their own media plans and executions according to how they use Skeptic. 

“Clients are now pushing the buttons themselves — they can have that Iron Man suit. They can be Tony, Tina or Tyrone Stark,” said Martin. For a fee, of course, the size of which neither would discuss.  

One client, who spoke on condition of anonymity, explained that “Sometimes you have a hunch about something but you don’t have the time in your day to necessarily go figure out which data to look at or how to confirm or deny,” said the client. “Having Known as a really critical thought partner and to have the tools that help us run this as a bit of outside-in view of our own world, is really helpful.”

So what is Skeptic? A blend of data-science, APIs from major platforms, measurement data from a variety of sources, enables clients to create dozens if not hundreds of variations of insight crunching and media evaluation using older – and newer- generative AI and ad tech acumen. Emphasizing pattern recognition, Skeptic can be used either directly by clients as an app or SaaS-like desktop platform, or can be handled by the agency on their behalf. It can create briefs, it can analyze active campaigns across all media, it can assess back-end results. “We’re not building ad tech — we’re building tech for advertising,” said Schireson.

“This is 3.0 of agency functionality,” he said. “You can literally log in and see the same simulations that our data scientists run, see the same optimization that we’re running. You can tweak your own parameters or you can ask us to do it.”

Martin said clients generally pursue three avenues when using Skeptic. “In some cases, we’re replacing some of the things [other agencies] do and probably doing it in a more advanced way,” he said. “In other cases, we’re doing some things that [agencies] aren’t doing and they don’t want to ever do. And in some cases, we’re doing some stuff they’re not doing that they wish they were.”

Clients who are either using Skeptic directly or through Known’s teams have generated solid results. Ben Whitla, who heads up brand and marketing efforts for Slate Auto, a new EV truck brand backed in part by Jeff Bezos, uses Known as its media buying and optimization AOR and use Skeptic specifically to identify optimal customers in places one wouldn’t think a car brand might show up: farmers’ markets, rodeos, etc. Slate is about to embark on its first road tour to show off its customizable EV truck. 

“Being able to have full cross-channel visibility means we’re only focused on what’s working and what’s not,” said Whitla. “We see the detail in real time, and we optimize in real time, and so we’re making better choices than we ever could have previously.”

Whitla explained that the efficiency has led the brand to spend less while still maintaining the same conversion rates, which he said he’s never seen before. “Normally, when you start to reduce spend, all of a sudden the price goes up because you’re talking to fewer people,” said Whitla. “That’s not happening, because we’re able to target so precisely.”

Kat Grider, vp of media and digital experience at home security firm ADT, said her team first used Skeptic as an audit of its media spend and internal account management. She’s now starting to use Skeptic directly rather than going through Known’s team to develop a testing framework for digital spend.

“As we see results, we’re learning about new audience segments, and it’s been a real game changer for us in terms of the scale and the pace,” said Grider. “We’ve always tested and been diligent with that, but the ability to scale it and think in 3D not just 2D (my metaphor for it) has been a huge asset.”

Even an advertiser as small as Sesame Workshop has just started using Skeptic directly, even though Known has been its media AOR for six years. Aaron Bisman, svp of marketing at Sesame Workshop, said following an audience segmentation effort, echoed the idea that Skeptic empowers the brand to choose its own direction like few other tools can. 

“That we were being given agency to speak, through the work [Known has done] has certainly been a key component of of our relationship,” said Bisman, who added his brand already enjoys the advantage of having beloved and familiar characters.

“Known absolutely helps us punch above our weight in those ways of understanding how we are seen by audiences [against] any other brand that is vying for their time and disposable income and attention.”