WPP’s media investment arm GroupM has launched a new tool, the AI Marketing Maturity Model, designed to help marketers transition to using AI tools in an efficient manner. The model, developed within GroupM Nexus, assesses marketers’ current readiness for implementing AI tools across six different areas, and advises which sorts of tools and AI investments are most appropriate. The model has initially launched in North America and the UK, and will roll out in Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Norway, Italy, Portugal and Australia.
GroupM says it’s already seen concrete examples of how AI can deliver measurable efficiency gains for advertisers. The media agency cited a number of clients which have undergone ‘AI transformations’, including a global FMCG company which saw a 22 percent increase in media efficiency, and an optical retailer which saw a 15 percent increase in sales and a 16 percent decrease in cost per acquisition.
Knowing that AI can drive efficiency is one thing – actually figuring out which AI tools are relevant for your own company is another. “Surveys show 70 percent of marketers want to leverage AI but only 4 percent feel they have the right skills to do so,” said Nicolas Bidon, global CEO of GroupM Nexus. “The need to help marketers adopt AI quickly, but thoughtfully, responsibly, and strategically is clearer than ever.”
I’m sorry Dave, I’m afraid you can’t do that
For a start, different companies will have different audiences, and different marketing objectives, which will make some AI tools more or less relevant. And many businesses won’t yet be set up to get the most out of more advanced AI tools. Some of these tools, for example, will draw on deep datasets to find media efficiencies. But if the marketer doesn’t have that data, or they don’t have it organised properly, those tools won’t be relevant for them.
The risk for marketers, then, is that in their keenness to start using AI to drive efficiency as quickly as possible, they end up inefficiently trying out AI products which they’re not ready to use.
Hence, GroupM’s Marketing Maturity Model, as the name suggests, starts off by assessing how well set up each marketer is to get the most out of AI tools. The model looks at a marketer’s existing data assets and AI activation capabilities, and then gives a maturity benchmark based on six vectors: marketing analytics, digital analytics, commerce, creative AI, audiences, and bidding.
GroupM says a consultant will then help clients map out how to improve their AI maturity, while also highlighting which sorts of AI tools and use cases will provide most value in the short term. The media agency says its model is based on data from more than 100 completed AI transformation consulting projects.
