The recent merging under the KINESSO banner of the IPG Mediabrands companies Kinesso, Reprise, and Matterkind provided a way for the holdco to unify the data derived from a brand’s full marketing system into a single capability.
With offerings spanning across performance marketing and data and technology, the rebranded KINESSO agency is positioning itself as the ‘most powerful delivery engine in the industry’, covering social platforms, e-commerce, influencers, retail media, martech and more
KINESSO Australia’s CEO, Jessica White, said that although it’s an old name, it’s very much a new brand.
“We didn’t do a lot of talking locally in the market [about the rebrand], but Kinesso at the time was more data and tech, Reprise was search and social, and then Matterkind is programmatic, addressable,” she said.
“A marketer doesn’t care about our separate brands, though – they just want to know that we’re delivering an outcome or result.
“We have really deep discipline, and we’ve got a lot of talent and innovation that has come out of each three of those brands, but I think coming together is enabling us to get that more holistic, performance strategy that we can then give to clients.”
White said that the merger of these different specialties came at a good time, as due to there being so much disruption happening in the marketplace, companies have to look at non-media solutions in order to deliver digital in a way that is going to cut through.
“That’s where the adtech/martech comes in; it’s the glue that enables us to have really effective performance outcomes and you can’t do that just by looking at things in siloed channels,” she told AdNews.
“Gaining trust and getting people to really buy into a brand now is so much harder than it has ever been and that’s where influencers become so important. Creators of content is an area that we work really well with our MBCS team with.
“The only way we really get in front of consumers is meeting them where they are, not where we want them to be. We’ve had a lot of success in talking to clients and flipping the script in talking about performance and outcomes, led with an influencer strategy or retail strategy, because that’s really what is going to be the game changer in driving better results or competitive advantage, as opposed to just thinking about things in channels.”
Part of how this is enacted is not just through unifying capabilities, but also in upskilling and training staff, with external providers brought in if needed.
KINESSO Australia’s chief product officer, Andy Holford, said this has manifested is in something like ‘training prescriptions’, an initiative the agency is trialling at the moment.
“This is where we go to literally each individual person and ask ‘what is it that you need to thrive and succeed? What are your gaps’ and we look at what’s available internally, what’s available externally, and they get a customised plan to be able to try and get them to the next level as well, which is definitely a lot of work but it is something that I think our people have come back so far and said this is hugely beneficial,” he said.
“There’s been an obsession in the industry, not just with agencies but more broadly, about efficiency and how can we make everything an automation. That’s impacting our people, so we need to think about how do we then use that time that they’ve got back to add value?
“That’s the big thing that we’re trying to flip – creating more time for play. I think a lot of clients now are asking for more consultation, they want more help, they want more strategy, they want to play with new channels and solutions, and that requires some support as well. It’s a new avenue in a new world and it’s a very different remit than a typical performance agency has been asked for before.”
Holford agrees with White’s assessment that the role of channels is changing, saying that now, a lot of the funnels in the marketing world are “almost collapsing”.
“That’s quite interesting, because it then begins to change the format and what formats are available,” he told AdNews.
“What is SEO in 2024? It used to be ranking on Google, but now some searches are starting on TikTok or they’re starting on Amazon. What does that mean for how you show up on Amazon or TikTok and your evergreen content and how you use influencers? I think for the future, everything is starting to change from being in neat little boxes to becoming more entwined and that’s something that both agencies and clients have to contend with.”
White said that despite technological advancements across the industry, the ‘magic’ that the agency creates is still going to be derived from the ability of KINESSO’s people’s to leverage that technology.
“We’ve got the largest data spine, we’ve got the end-to-end capabilities from planning through to activation generating insights, AI is going to help that even more in terms of assisting us on the way through that workflow, but what is going to be the thing that gives the competitive edge for a marketer is still going to be in how people use those tools and using that time that they now have as a result of automation,” she said.
“I think that that’s where we’re kind of leaning in equally if not more than the technical capability. The future isn’t going to be in how our automation systems work; the future of performance is in how we design reaching consumers.
“How are consumer patterns changing? What is the linear TV of the future? If people are sitting in front of TikTok all day and that’s a ‘lean back’ environment, what does that mean? There are really big questions being asked about how we plan and how we look at designing an entire media strategy and the big ideas will still come, but how we connect that and deliver an outcome and performance is going to come from humans.”
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