Acquisition by Publicis Groupe means growth for Epsilon in India: Ric Elert

In its biggest takeover yet, Publicis Groupe this year acquired digital marketing firm Epsilon from Alliance Data Systems for over $4.4 billion in order to deepen its digital expertise. This happens to be the second biggest deal in the history of advertising, behind only Dentsu's $5 billion acquisition of Aegis Group in 2012. Interestingly, it provides yet another example of the advertising industry’s increasing reliance on consumer data, recently illustrated by rival IPG’s decision to buy database marketing firm Acxiom for $2.3 billion last July.

On the sidelines of his recent visit to India, exchange4media chatted with Ric Elert, President, Epsilon-Conversant, on Epsilon’s way forward post acquisition by Publicis and the India-scheme of things for the company, among other things.     

Edited excerpts below: 

What would Epsilon’s way forward be post acquisition by Publicis? How do you see it unfolding and benefiting both the companies and the clients?

Epsilon is going to sit at the heart of Publicis Groupe, turbocharging all of its capabilities around the world. As part of this, Publicis will leverage our technologies across its group as Epsilon 2.0 to leverage our ability to drive identification across our clients, our unique data assets, our expertise in solutioning and optimising with artificial intelligence, and our measurement capabilities. This will come to life in many powerful ways across Publicis’ business and clients. On the creative side, Epsilon assets will bring customer insights to improve ideation, build more relevant campaigns, and fuel the dynamic creative engine to further adapt to real-time context of customers—who they are, what they do, what they buy. On the media side, the connection between Epsilon’s data sets and Publicis Media’s billions of touchpoints will provide superior intelligence to build consumer IDs, segment audiences and maximize media buying ROI by accurately measuring and optimising campaigns in real time. And on the digital business transformation side, Epsilon will enable Publicis to deliver deep proprietary customer insights to further optimize clients’ business model.

So it’s going to introduce Epsilon with some of the most senior leaders at Publicis’ clients. It’s very exciting for everyone at Epsilon as we get to take our technologies to the next level and work with some of the world’s biggest and best brands. In addition, it will provide us with unprecedented access to experts who we can collaborate with.

India plays a very important part in Epsilon’s journey. The acquisition by Publicis Groupe means growth for Epsilon in India. I firmly believe the future holds great promise and opportunity for Epsilon as all the things that we have worked on for so long is coming to the forefront and us taking a lead position at Publicis.

How is India different from both a talent and market standpoint from the rest?

India is unique in so many ways. From a people standpoint, the availability of high calibre talent who work at Epsilon, and across Publicis Groupe, is truly amazing, delivering capability and work that comes to life across the globe.  It’s inspiring to see the pride, work ethic, commitment and ownership our colleagues in India demonstrate in their solution areas. You cannot help but be excited about the future that is waiting to unfold here - and to be able to provide opportunities to our colleagues to work on more future-focused projects.  

From a market standpoint too, this is an area of focus for us as we definitely want to offer our business solutions to clients in India. We are also drawing up the blueprint to open a data centre that supports this market as it is growing and evolving rapidly. I think the Indian market is ready for disruption and for a company like Epsilon that can help brands turn data into personalized customer experiences and drive growth.

The global economy is predicted to be growing at the slowest rate since the recession, while the Indian economy is facing a slowdown. How does that affect Epsilon in India and globally? How have demands from clients changed?

I think it’s really an opportunity for us because our technology solutions have always been geared to driving performance for clients. When there is tightening in the markets, you need performance based solutions that help drive your business. This enables clients not only in identifying new areas for growth but also reducing wasteful spending in areas that are not delivering ROI.

For us at Epsilon, this is a chance to play on a bigger stage because it’s no longer about traditional marketing where clients hope their efforts deliver results. It’s about delivering personalised marketing that works, measuring it and proving that to clients. And we have built our technology solutions and business around those distinct capabilities so the demand is only going to grow.

What marketing and sales automation tools and technologies do you currently use? How often do you measure the performance of your marketing analytics and sales reporting?

We provide our clients CRM, loyalty and email solutions that organise, manage and activate their first-party data across channels. We also have the industry’s leading identity resolution platform, which allows us to create robust, privacy-protected consumer profiles that comprise more than 7,000 dimensions.

With those rich profiles, we are able to accurately recognise and reach clients’ existing customers and prospects in real time to deliver personalised messages at scale. Today, it is not enough to just deliver a message to the right individual -- measurement is key. We are constantly measuring performance at the individual level in order to determine the next best message to put in front of the consumer. Our clients work with us because we can help them drive measurable sales outcomes, so we are not only measuring performance but also sharing those insights and reports with clients.

How do you see Epsilon and other customer engagement platforms better leveraging AI and machine learning?

AI and machine learning are baked into all that we do, powered by our rich data and privacy-protected consumer profiles. When real-time data informs machine learning, brands can eliminate waste that comes from messaging someone who may not be in market and that increases the drive performance of your marketing.

We commissioned Forrester Consulting to conduct a study on identity resolution earlier this year and one of the interesting things we found was that 58% of Indian marketers surveyed face challenges in determining how accurately their identity resolution programme allows them to message the right person across devices and channels. So, we feel our AI and machine learning capabilities can prove to be a real differentiator for us. Our work with Swanson Health and Coach are two success stories in this area.

With our consumers’ profiles, Swanson Health understood what their individual customers cared about, including their personal preferences. That knowledge was used to inform real-time decisions by deep-learning machines about the best data-driven message to send to a shopper throughout the journey at all brand touchpoints. That work won a 2018 DMN Award for Best Consumer Campaign. The work we did for Coach is another best-in-class example. Coach leveraged Agility Harmony’s machine learning and decisioning engine to deliver personalized inbox content. It won an EIS Award for Email Marketing Excellence.

What are your target areas and expectations in terms of growth numbers as we go forward?

Our core platform is an area we will be focusing on and expanding. Every single client that we talk to is looking for solutions that are encompassed in that. Some of the biggest brands in the world have been looking for such solutions as they believe it can create great impact in their customer interactions. Our platform provides unprecedented scale to talk to both customers and prospects in clear personalised messaging - thereby driving growth that every single client is chasing today.

Recently, a senior leader in of one of the largest consumer packaged goods brands sent me an email, outlining the five key aspects he was looking for in a solution. And that identically matched what we deliver! So it’s these conversations that give me confidence we are on the right track and it’s just a matter of keeping true to our core as we continue to deliver and exceed our clients’ expectations.

Overall, it’s really an exciting time for Epsilon. To be part of the Publicis family and be on the growth path here in India. Undoubtedly, it’s going to be a bright and promising 2020!