January 15, 2020 • 11 mins
James Kotecki of C Space Studio speaks with Jonathan Nelson, CEO, Omnicom Digital, Omnicom Group.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hi, I'm James Kotechie. You're listening to the C Space
Studio podcast interviews with technology, media and marketing leaders from CS.
I am James kot Techie and I am in the
C Space Studio at CS, but I'm not alone. I'm
joined by Jonathan Nelson's CEO of Omnicom Digital. Jonathan, welcome back.
(00:23):
Thank you. You are the four time guests of the
C Space Studio, the only one we've ever had for
all four years, and I hope you like the new set.
We try to improve it for you every year, doing
these interviews strictly with you in mind, and I really
appreciate it coming. Thank you. Um So once again, I
think as this tradition, we should probably have you start
by just defining what Omnicom Digital is. Sure, I'm Jonathan Nelson.
(00:44):
I'm the CEO of Omnicom Digital. Basically my job is
to try to push digital and wy Nook and Cranny
in Omnicom, which is one of the large holding companies.
So we own b B, D O, d dB, NEEDOM,
tv w A. On the agency side, we have Precision
Marketing Group, which is the digital assets media buying companies
own d pH D hearts and science, PR companies, shopper
(01:05):
marketing companies, healthcare companies. So all of that's going digital.
And it's my job to try to to push digital
as far and as far and wide as possible inside
of omnicomp. So we've been talking now for four years.
How far have you pushed it in that time? And
how much farther do you have to go? I mean
hard to You know, this is sort of a never
ending journey. So it we've made huge strides. I've been
(01:26):
doing this for over twenty years, so I've seen it
from its inception in the earliest of days. Two now,
you know, a vast I would say a majority of
our business is digital, but you know, we've still got
a long way to go. Are there things that are
not digital that might surprise people that you're working with?
Oh gosh, I mean you're right on the precipice of
(01:46):
are we are right on the precipice of O T
T digital video? I mean, there's some of it's in place,
but it's by no means addressable television everywhere. Uh, but
I think we're kind of ching on that. I mean,
you're seeing screen proliferation five G coming along smarter Television's uh,
(02:08):
all of these things are pointing in the direction of
truly digital television. And is there anything that that we
collectively here at CS and C space need to do
to push this forward? I mean we get to weight
around for the future to happen, or what are the
proactive things? I think? You know, technology is combinatorial, meaning
it takes five G on one side, and you know,
(02:31):
screens coming down in price, and touch screens and cell
phones and all you know you're watching all of it
kind of come together. And these things are a creative
They add to each other. And what we do, as
advertisers were on the buy side is take advantage of
the platforms that increased bandwidth, the proliferation of screens to
put commercial messages in front of consumers. Are things combining
(02:55):
in ways that have interested you or surprised you that
you might out of expected because some of these combinatorial
elements can have unexpected consequences. Yeah, I think we're you know,
we're constantly surprised. I mean, like the rise of social media,
I have to confess, I mean it's pretty old at
this point, but when it came up, I didn't quite
see it coming as it did, and I think nobody
(03:16):
saw the power of it perhaps until the two thousands,
uh sixteen election. Um, you know, it is quite persuasive.
But uh, all of these technologies get deployed in very,
very interesting in different ways. And I'm sure we're going
to talk about AI in a moment here. Well let's go,
let's go, let's go. I think every single year and
(03:37):
this year I was speaking to Gene Foster, who's the
s VP of the show of the Cover Technology Association
that puts on the show. I mean, she said, this
year is the year of AI. We probably could have
said that every year, but every year is more and
more of the Yeah, so it's always true. What are
you seeing? You know? I think AI is one of
those things that you don't really see it because it's
kind of embedded underneath. But increasingly it's embedded underneath everything.
(03:59):
And so probably four I'm probably far for forward to
talk about AI here, and I think that we'll talk
about it, you know, should you have me back for
the next four or five years until it becomes so
ubiquitous that you just stopped talking about it. But AI
will make everything faster, smarter, more efficient. Uh, And whether
(04:20):
that's on the creative side of our business, on the
media buying side of our business, on the commerce side
of our business. I mean it will affect everything in
the same way that digital has gone from nowhere to
kind of the air we breathe, affecting everything now that
digital is the air we breathed. By the way, do
you think the term digital still makes sense to use?
(04:41):
I kind of everything? I mean as I mean, so, yes,
I run Omnicom Digital. Uh, but it it does start
to lose its relative I wouldn't say relevance because everything's
you know, we've always said something in Omnicom, which is
everything can go digital, will go digital. And I think
(05:03):
that that's an easy bet, like that's that you know,
it was perhaps heretical twenty years ago, but now it
appears to be true. And I think that's true. And
I think that AI everything that can have AI in
it probably will. Yeah, we've talked in the past about
AI and creativity. Are there new AI powered creativity tools
that you're seeing that your teams are using that you're
excited about as we look in Yeah, we're so we're
(05:25):
looking We're using a lot of what we call computer
vision to try to understand what are all the elements
in say a video, So looking at millions and millions
of videos across the Internet, dissecting them and saying, Okay,
here are the objects in that video, here are the
people in that video, here's the music, here's the mood
and the sentiment. I mean, what we're trying to do
is really understand what works. And it's impossible for an
(05:48):
individual to view a million videos, but it's pretty easy
for a computer to do it. So there's a great
example of how AI is looking at creative in this
case video, dissecting it and then give it back to
the human so that human can interpret it and say, okay,
this is what what is effective? And is that getting
pretty good even with video to identify objects or does
(06:08):
it still have a little bit of a ways to go? Oh?
I think it's this is a this is a marathon,
not a not a sprint. It's not gonna be like, okay,
done perfect, It's always going to be getting better. But
it's pretty it's pretty good and it's very real. Talking
with Jonathan Nelson, CEO Omnicom Digital m is there a
technology that makes you nervous as as an advertiser? As
(06:31):
an advertising market I think so. An interesting thing this
is we're here on day three of CS. It's three
really truly functional days, so we're kind of getting to
the near the end. I've met with most of the
major digital media providers and every single one of them
started their presentation to us with privacy in mind. And
privacy I am very happy that our industry is having
(06:54):
that privacy discussions, not only as a consumer but as
a professional. I think something that we need to be
very very conscious of. And it appears that the industry,
whether it's through the California Privacy Initiative Compliance g d
p R, but just in order to have a clean,
well led space to do business and we need privacy.
And is the consumer from the consumer perspective, does privacy
(07:17):
feel like I feel like something different? Or does it
just be like they get to do all the same
stuff they used to do and have the same experiences,
just now they know they're operating a safer environment. I
think that we as an industry are trying to figure
out how do we create an environment where there is
trust going both ways? And some consumers care and some
of them quite frankly don't. But I think it is
(07:40):
the entirely appropriate thing for the ecosystem to be thinking, talking,
and doing something about. Um. You speak to so many
marketers and deal with so many different types of marketing.
Is is it easier or harder than ever to be
a marketer? Is that the wrong way to ask the question? Perhaps? Oh.
I think that the complexity of what we're doing is
scaling nonlinearly. It's there's more tools, technology, screens, options, media companies.
(08:06):
It's exponentially harder to do marketing at scale. On the
other hand, to do something, you know, to do an
Instagram a very simple Instagram ad or keyword buying for search,
that's pretty straightforward. But to do it with thirty keywords
or a massive media meets creative you know, across the
(08:27):
world exponentially harder. Will a I make it easier, Some
aspects of it will get easier. Uh, yes, But I
think ultimately AI is just a component of it. It
is so complex right now that I don't see the
complexity ending anytime soon. So what does that mean for
how you hire people to join your team? What kind
(08:48):
of a mind are you looking forward to your part
of this? I think that the types of people that
we hire are are functionally different where there's a lot
of discussion. We probably talked about this. Data science is huge,
but people that write algorithms, coders, people that are integrating
a p I s. I mean, these are people that
normally would not have existed in advertising, but for quite
(09:09):
frankly for the past decade or so, actually have We
are just ramping the numbers of those people quite dramatically
at this point. The other side of this is the
creative side, which I think people sort of forget about.
But there's a whole new generation of people coming in
who are digital natives. Like they were born after the iPhone,
uh or we're conscious after the iPhone kind of existed,
(09:30):
so they had a supercomputer in their pocket, you know,
growing up their entire lives and the mindset the shift
of a digital native is huge. And the way that
they think about creative and the messaging and the personalization.
They they've never lived in a world where the world,
the world on the screen didn't configure itself to be
personalized to them. And so that in turn is affecting
(09:52):
the creative and and and our hires and our work.
And I imagine that that those kind of new minds
aren't necessarily in the mindset of, you know, is creative
versus data or somehow being oppositional. It's all just kind
of exactly. They're fluent, right like they're they're fluent. You know,
they may not be a data scientist, but they can
understand data. They not be. They're interoperable across apps, across devices,
(10:14):
operating systems. You know, they're not thinking, hey, I'm watching
that TV on the wall, or I'm watching that screen
in the cab, or you know, on the subway platform,
or or you know, the phone in my pocket. They
just go, hey, here's my total experience. And it's not
just age. But you're seeing a lot more of these
people that are interoperable coming coming on board in our world.
(10:36):
Speaking of experience, you've had a great experience career in marketing.
What advice do you give to these new people about
how to navigate a career filled with technological technological change.
I think there's no single trick to this. You really
have to read a lot, explore a lot. Curiosity is
the biggest possible thing that you should have, which is,
(10:59):
you know, look at it and try to understand it contextualized.
I realized that every trend is not going to be
around forever. I mean, think about CS. You know somebody
who was pointing out the last year it was all
about folding machines, like you put your shirt there and
it folds it. Apparently they're not they're out on the
floor this year, but that was the big thing last year.
You know, that's an example of something that happened very quickly.
Fast twitch stuff or long twitch stuff like five G
(11:21):
is really going to change a lot um ai. As
we talked about before. That's a deep systemic change, so
you might want to read and understand that. So think
of the mega trends and then also think of the craft.
How do I apply that to what is on my
desk today? When you talk about curiosity, thank you so
much for helping to satisfy some of our curiosity here
in the C space. To thank you for having me
(11:42):
as always, fourth time is definitely the charms. Thank you, Elson,
CEO Omnicom Digital, Thanks for being here. Thank you. This
podcast is in partnership with the I Heart Podcast Network.
Hi, I'm James Kotechie. You're listening to the C Space
Studio podcast interviews with technology, media and marketing leaders from CS.
I am James kot Techie and I am in the
C Space Studio at CS, but I'm not alone. I'm
joined by Jonathan Nelson's CEO of Omnicom Digital. Jonathan, welcome back.
(00:23):
Thank you. You are the four time guests of the
C Space Studio, the only one we've ever had for
all four years, and I hope you like the new set.
We try to improve it for you every year, doing
these interviews strictly with you in mind, and I really
appreciate it coming. Thank you. Um So once again, I
think as this tradition, we should probably have you start
by just defining what Omnicom Digital is. Sure, I'm Jonathan Nelson.
(00:44):
I'm the CEO of Omnicom Digital. Basically my job is
to try to push digital and wy Nook and Cranny
in Omnicom, which is one of the large holding companies.
So we own b B, D O, d dB, NEEDOM,
tv w A. On the agency side, we have Precision
Marketing Group, which is the digital assets media buying companies
own d pH D hearts and science, PR companies, shopper
(01:05):
marketing companies, healthcare companies. So all of that's going digital.
And it's my job to try to to push digital
as far and as far and wide as possible inside
of omnicomp. So we've been talking now for four years.
How far have you pushed it in that time? And
how much farther do you have to go? I mean
hard to You know, this is sort of a never
ending journey. So it we've made huge strides. I've been
(01:26):
doing this for over twenty years, so I've seen it
from its inception in the earliest of days. Two now,
you know, a vast I would say a majority of
our business is digital, but you know, we've still got
a long way to go. Are there things that are
not digital that might surprise people that you're working with?
Oh gosh, I mean you're right on the precipice of
(01:46):
are we are right on the precipice of O T
T digital video? I mean, there's some of it's in place,
but it's by no means addressable television everywhere. Uh, but
I think we're kind of ching on that. I mean,
you're seeing screen proliferation five G coming along smarter Television's uh,
(02:08):
all of these things are pointing in the direction of
truly digital television. And is there anything that that we
collectively here at CS and C space need to do
to push this forward? I mean we get to weight
around for the future to happen, or what are the
proactive things? I think? You know, technology is combinatorial, meaning
it takes five G on one side, and you know,
(02:31):
screens coming down in price, and touch screens and cell
phones and all you know you're watching all of it
kind of come together. And these things are a creative
They add to each other. And what we do, as
advertisers were on the buy side is take advantage of
the platforms that increased bandwidth, the proliferation of screens to
put commercial messages in front of consumers. Are things combining
(02:55):
in ways that have interested you or surprised you that
you might out of expected because some of these combinatorial
elements can have unexpected consequences. Yeah, I think we're you know,
we're constantly surprised. I mean, like the rise of social media,
I have to confess, I mean it's pretty old at
this point, but when it came up, I didn't quite
see it coming as it did, and I think nobody
(03:16):
saw the power of it perhaps until the two thousands,
uh sixteen election. Um, you know, it is quite persuasive.
But uh, all of these technologies get deployed in very,
very interesting in different ways. And I'm sure we're going
to talk about AI in a moment here. Well let's go,
let's go, let's go. I think every single year and
(03:37):
this year I was speaking to Gene Foster, who's the
s VP of the show of the Cover Technology Association
that puts on the show. I mean, she said, this
year is the year of AI. We probably could have
said that every year, but every year is more and
more of the Yeah, so it's always true. What are
you seeing? You know? I think AI is one of
those things that you don't really see it because it's
kind of embedded underneath. But increasingly it's embedded underneath everything.
(03:59):
And so probably four I'm probably far for forward to
talk about AI here, and I think that we'll talk
about it, you know, should you have me back for
the next four or five years until it becomes so
ubiquitous that you just stopped talking about it. But AI
will make everything faster, smarter, more efficient. Uh, And whether
(04:20):
that's on the creative side of our business, on the
media buying side of our business, on the commerce side
of our business. I mean it will affect everything in
the same way that digital has gone from nowhere to
kind of the air we breathe, affecting everything now that
digital is the air we breathed. By the way, do
you think the term digital still makes sense to use?
(04:41):
I kind of everything? I mean as I mean, so, yes,
I run Omnicom Digital. Uh, but it it does start
to lose its relative I wouldn't say relevance because everything's
you know, we've always said something in Omnicom, which is
everything can go digital, will go digital. And I think
(05:03):
that that's an easy bet, like that's that you know,
it was perhaps heretical twenty years ago, but now it
appears to be true. And I think that's true. And
I think that AI everything that can have AI in
it probably will. Yeah, we've talked in the past about
AI and creativity. Are there new AI powered creativity tools
that you're seeing that your teams are using that you're
excited about as we look in Yeah, we're so we're
(05:25):
looking We're using a lot of what we call computer
vision to try to understand what are all the elements
in say a video, So looking at millions and millions
of videos across the Internet, dissecting them and saying, Okay,
here are the objects in that video, here are the
people in that video, here's the music, here's the mood
and the sentiment. I mean, what we're trying to do
is really understand what works. And it's impossible for an
(05:48):
individual to view a million videos, but it's pretty easy
for a computer to do it. So there's a great
example of how AI is looking at creative in this
case video, dissecting it and then give it back to
the human so that human can interpret it and say, okay,
this is what what is effective? And is that getting
pretty good even with video to identify objects or does
(06:08):
it still have a little bit of a ways to go? Oh?
I think it's this is a this is a marathon,
not a not a sprint. It's not gonna be like, okay,
done perfect, It's always going to be getting better. But
it's pretty it's pretty good and it's very real. Talking
with Jonathan Nelson, CEO Omnicom Digital m is there a
technology that makes you nervous as as an advertiser? As
(06:31):
an advertising market I think so. An interesting thing this
is we're here on day three of CS. It's three
really truly functional days, so we're kind of getting to
the near the end. I've met with most of the
major digital media providers and every single one of them
started their presentation to us with privacy in mind. And
privacy I am very happy that our industry is having
(06:54):
that privacy discussions, not only as a consumer but as
a professional. I think something that we need to be
very very conscious of. And it appears that the industry,
whether it's through the California Privacy Initiative Compliance g d
p R, but just in order to have a clean,
well led space to do business and we need privacy.
And is the consumer from the consumer perspective, does privacy
(07:17):
feel like I feel like something different? Or does it
just be like they get to do all the same
stuff they used to do and have the same experiences,
just now they know they're operating a safer environment. I
think that we as an industry are trying to figure
out how do we create an environment where there is
trust going both ways? And some consumers care and some
of them quite frankly don't. But I think it is
(07:40):
the entirely appropriate thing for the ecosystem to be thinking, talking,
and doing something about. Um. You speak to so many
marketers and deal with so many different types of marketing.
Is is it easier or harder than ever to be
a marketer? Is that the wrong way to ask the question? Perhaps? Oh.
I think that the complexity of what we're doing is
scaling nonlinearly. It's there's more tools, technology, screens, options, media companies.
(08:06):
It's exponentially harder to do marketing at scale. On the
other hand, to do something, you know, to do an
Instagram a very simple Instagram ad or keyword buying for search,
that's pretty straightforward. But to do it with thirty keywords
or a massive media meets creative you know, across the
(08:27):
world exponentially harder. Will a I make it easier, Some
aspects of it will get easier. Uh, yes, But I
think ultimately AI is just a component of it. It
is so complex right now that I don't see the
complexity ending anytime soon. So what does that mean for
how you hire people to join your team? What kind
(08:48):
of a mind are you looking forward to your part
of this? I think that the types of people that
we hire are are functionally different where there's a lot
of discussion. We probably talked about this. Data science is huge,
but people that write algorithms, coders, people that are integrating
a p I s. I mean, these are people that
normally would not have existed in advertising, but for quite
(09:09):
frankly for the past decade or so, actually have We
are just ramping the numbers of those people quite dramatically
at this point. The other side of this is the
creative side, which I think people sort of forget about.
But there's a whole new generation of people coming in
who are digital natives. Like they were born after the iPhone,
uh or we're conscious after the iPhone kind of existed,
(09:30):
so they had a supercomputer in their pocket, you know,
growing up their entire lives and the mindset the shift
of a digital native is huge. And the way that
they think about creative and the messaging and the personalization.
They they've never lived in a world where the world,
the world on the screen didn't configure itself to be
personalized to them. And so that in turn is affecting
(09:52):
the creative and and and our hires and our work.
And I imagine that that those kind of new minds
aren't necessarily in the mindset of, you know, is creative
versus data or somehow being oppositional. It's all just kind
of exactly. They're fluent, right like they're they're fluent. You know,
they may not be a data scientist, but they can
understand data. They not be. They're interoperable across apps, across devices,
(10:14):
operating systems. You know, they're not thinking, hey, I'm watching
that TV on the wall, or I'm watching that screen
in the cab, or you know, on the subway platform,
or or you know, the phone in my pocket. They
just go, hey, here's my total experience. And it's not
just age. But you're seeing a lot more of these
people that are interoperable coming coming on board in our world.
(10:36):
Speaking of experience, you've had a great experience career in marketing.
What advice do you give to these new people about
how to navigate a career filled with technological technological change.
I think there's no single trick to this. You really
have to read a lot, explore a lot. Curiosity is
the biggest possible thing that you should have, which is,
(10:59):
you know, look at it and try to understand it contextualized.
I realized that every trend is not going to be
around forever. I mean, think about CS. You know somebody
who was pointing out the last year it was all
about folding machines, like you put your shirt there and
it folds it. Apparently they're not they're out on the
floor this year, but that was the big thing last year.
You know, that's an example of something that happened very quickly.
Fast twitch stuff or long twitch stuff like five G
(11:21):
is really going to change a lot um ai. As
we talked about before. That's a deep systemic change, so
you might want to read and understand that. So think
of the mega trends and then also think of the craft.
How do I apply that to what is on my
desk today? When you talk about curiosity, thank you so
much for helping to satisfy some of our curiosity here
in the C space. To thank you for having me
(11:42):
as always, fourth time is definitely the charms. Thank you, Elson,
CEO Omnicom Digital, Thanks for being here. Thank you. This
podcast is in partnership with the I Heart Podcast Network.
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