How to bridge the cross-screen gap with data

It’s time for brands to take the highway through the “Great Divide.” A chasm has formed between brands and customers. While cross-channel marketing is possible, it has been rendered significantly more difficult through the sheer number of devices consumers move across when interacting with a brand. And while the goal should be to move quickly and agilely, companies often end up doing the opposite by siloing their data in channel-dedicated teams. If they even think of bringing everything together, marketers are faced with a many-to-many nightmare.

BrightTag’s Joe Stanhope discussed a solution at the recent Digiday Brand Summit in Nashville, Tenn. He advised attendees to think of their first-party data as a commodity and take ownership of it. Then comes a three-phase program: collect the data (social and beyond), contextualize it (what does it mean?) and then do something with it. Above all, leveraging your data should provide more control and flexibility in meeting your objectives.