Vin Paolozzi probably expect to be launching a new marketing data engine on the cusp of a global pandemic that has put half the world’s consumers in lockdown. But that’s what he got.

Still, the chief investment officer of Kinesso, the division IPG launched in October to provide data-driven capabilities to clients, thinks the unit has plenty of work to do.

Chief amongst that work is connecting.

In this video interview with Beet.TV, Paolozzi says Kinesso, which is powered by Acxiom after IPG acquired the company, exists to help brands deploy their customer data for advertiser targeting.

“As (IPG) went through that (Acxiom) integration process, I think we started to see that there was this gap in the industry between sort of the back office, mar-tech of understanding client consumer CRM data sets to the front end office of ad-tech and connections into things like addressable buying platforms or ‘How do you connect the dots between the two?’,” Paolozzi says.

“With that gap, we decided to launch Kinesso to really focus on building this application layer of connecting the dots from the back-office CRM datasets or our client’s first-party data back into the media world. We’ve been focused on connecting the dots between those two things.”

Marrying datasets

As the advertising world looks beyond cookie-based targeting and beyond the world of audience targeting, many marketers are starting to focus less on precision-targeting unknown users and more on targeting users known to their own in-house databases.

Vinesso thinks there is potential in “connecting the dots” between that and publisher’s own first-party data about their consumers. So he says Kinesso has been “working with publishers” to connect their data to the data Kinesso has available from Acxion.

“As we’ve transformed into this world of one to one addressable audience buying, we’re starting to think of how the two worlds come together,” he explains. “The combination of the two is can be really powerful.

“You might be finding niche audiences that are within those environments that have a different way of wanting to be spoken to or ways to be messaged to. The combination becomes extremely powerful with having two together at the same time.”

In times of crisis

Kinesso is comprised of IPG’s addressable activation team Cadreon and its  Data and Technology group. Kinesso will work with IPG Mediabrands, Acxiom and will provide services to agencies across the IPG network.

It expected to have a staff of 1,400 in more than 70 countries this year.

Paolozzi says the current pandemic is causing travel advertisers to attempt “trying to figure out their approach for the rest of the year”, whilst quick-service restaurants are having to recalibrate after moving to delivery-only.

“And so there’s a constant change and challenge of the complexities of ‘How do you work within that environment?,” he says.

“With all challenge comes opportunity for innovation and new ways of thinking where technology can help support how to create more efficiency across your business.”

This video is part of a Beet.TV series titled “Audience, in Context,” presented by Xandr. For more videos please visit this page.   

By Robert Andrews on @robertandrews