Adobe’s Campbell Foster on the opportunity to ‘exploit the walled gardens’ with personalisation

“If you look at HBO, none of the recommendations are personalised. They are recommending what they want you to watch not what you want to watch. They just kind of swing products that they think will boost their margins.”

A pivotal part of Foster’s work involves building unique experiences for TV distribution like the iPlayer in the UK. This means using analytics and a range of technologies to enable media companies like the BBC and Channel 5 to deliver TV experiences across every screen.

For Foster, Amazon falls on the right side of the personalisation spectrum because of the interesting way it uses retail data to personalise the video experience for Amazon Prime.

“They have access to so much consumer data and history, and yes they use that to make obvious recommendations but they are also using consumer data for their video experiences.

“[With HBO] they have a lot of programmes in their back-catalogue that have dedicated audiences that people just don't know about because they are pushing Game of Thrones so hard. I think that's where an agency could have really added value and helped them, in terms of their viewer data strategy and incorporating preferences to ultimately drive more subscribers and create better viewing experiences.”

An opportunity to exploit the walled gardens approach?

But does personalisation come at a cost? Google’s and Facebook’s walled gardens are often mentioned in the industry. But with Facebook having to regain advertiser trust after its measurement glitches, should these tech giants become more transparent with their data?

“[Facebook] came clean and at least they were not lying about it. I appreciate their honesty and I think advertisers do too. There’s two ways to look at the walled garden approach. They are going to be a lot more transparent with Procter and Gamble than they are with a small advertiser. A lot of it depends on the dollars, the Euros, and the pounds at stake.”

And Foster is not interested in throwing a pity party for agencies. Having previously worked at Google, Foster says the tech giants “have no obligation to help agencies” as data is their “most valuable asset so why give it away for free?” Foster says it’s like saying agencies should give away their most brilliant creative directors to other competitors.

But Foster says media companies have an opportunity to exploit the walled gardens by joining together: “If Channel 4 and Channel 5 can't work together somehow, to deliver personalised ads, they are going to lose more dollars to Google and Facebook than they already are. And they know it. So it’s basically media companies versus Google and Facebook.”

The future

With talks of Facebook buying its own TV shows, and Google making YouTube more valuable to advertisers, what does the future hold in this space?

“Google and Facebook are both getting into the TV business. So that's what YouTube has always been about. Who knows maybe Google buys a media company, [like] CBS? There's a big battle brewing over TV ad dollars.

“I think you will see the sellers and the media companies who own the ad inventory starting to partner more than they have. I do think that it’s going to be easier for media buyers and the brands they represent to get reach and scale in professional video delivered digitally outside of Google and Facebook.”

And finally, Foster has this advice for marketers when it comes to personalisation.

"Marketers should not overwhelm consumers with choice. It's cool to customise cars but I don't want to have to customise 95 different things before I can drive it. That's the paradox of choice right?"