CANNES — With today’s marketing landscape fragmented across dozens of tools, consumer-data company TransUnion is positioning itself as a one-stop solution for brands looking to better understand, expand, and measure their audiences.
“Today’s marketer has somewhat upwards of 16 different solutions in order for them to understand their consumers and future consumers through the lifecycle journey,” Brian Silver, executive vice president of marketing solutions at TransUnion, said in an interview with Beet.TV’s Andy Plesser at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity.
TransUnion, historically known for its expertise in identity resolution, is offering brands a simplified approach to audience discovery and measurement.
“If somebody wants to provide their first-party data, or we’re interoperable to any place in which they have their first-party data, we’re able to enhance their customer set through our identity resolution product,” Silver said.
Audience identifiers are considered essential for advertisers to accurately recognize, target and engage consumers across multiple channels and devices. They enable brands to deliver personalized, measurable campaigns while minimizing wasted spend and improving overall marketing efficiency.
Beyond helping brands better understand their existing customers, TransUnion offers lookalike modeling and advanced measurement capabilities, enabling marketers to expand audiences and track campaign effectiveness, all within one unified platform.
“It’s a single place where somebody can go to understand their current customers, their future customers, measure that, understand the outcomes, and then bring that back to begin again,” Silver said.
Role of AI and agents in audience discovery
Silver also sees major potential for AI and autonomous agents to transform marketing, but with an important caveat.
“Right now, agents really represent acceleration: acceleration of data discovery, acceleration of consumer discovery, exactly what your customers needed,” he said.
However, Silver said brands still need reliable validation tools to ensure those AI-driven insights translate into real-world outcomes.
“I believe that TransUnion has the ability to be that validation, of actually finding a consumer who’s going to execute on what it is you want them to do,” he said.
Identity, first-party data and the road ahead
For brands and publishers looking to work with TransUnion, Silver said the most important step is having a foundational understanding of their own audiences, whether at the household or individual level.
“It’s easier for them to work with us if they understand their customer set and they have some form of connective ID around a persona,” he said. From there, TransUnion can enhance those audiences, expand reach, and provide critical measurement across campaigns.
And for companies still navigating the complexities of data-driven marketing, Silver emphasized TransUnion’s advantage: “We’re not in the media game ourselves. Our job is to help our customers do what it is they’re looking to do.”
As AI and agents continue to reshape the industry, TransUnion is betting that simplifying identity, measurement and audience expansion will be key to unlocking smarter, more efficient marketing for brands worldwide.
“It’s still early days,” Silver said, “but we’re really excited about it.”
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