• March 25, 2022
• StJohn Deakins
• no comments

The future of good MarTech

There’s a badly kept secret in the marketing technology industry. What is truly considered good MarTech in 2022? The truth is that digital marketing technology isn’t really all that, well, digital – at least not yet. Sure, it utilises lots of APIs, algorithms, smart routing, ingenious ‘tracking’ (snooping) tech, and a whole heap of tech-jargon. However, the practice of marketing hasn’t yet been deeply transformed by technology in the way that most other industries have been (or will be soon). 

In the main, much of our marketing and advertising tech has simply taken the old ‘Mad Men’ mass communications way of doing things and overlaid it with layer upon layer of technology. Each new layer tries to fix the holes and harms created by the layer underneath. Much of this machinery is now well over 20 years old, making it ancient legacy tech by internet standards. Surely it’s time for change?

“Which elephant?”

Examples of this creaking system present themselves in astonishing ways. It was recently revealed that USA Today’s programmatic advertising system was completely broken. And no one in the long chain of advertising customers (brands, ad agencies, trading desks, DSPs, Ad Exchanges) noticed any difference. So they kept on buying the ads. It took nine months (yes, 9!) before USA Today realised and told their customers. As Augustine Foo says, it’s not just that it revealed the elephant in the room, “it turns out that it’s more a case of ‘choose which elephant’!” 

There’s hope

So, we all know the system is broken. We need new approaches, and there are a number of excellent initiatives underway. For example, Goodloop advertising shares revenues from advertising with charities. The World Federation of Advertisers (a group of the big global brands that actually pay for the advertising) has an excellent programme on data ethics. Initiatives such as Duckduckgo and the Brave browser strip out advertising, and remove the snooping and tracking from simple internet searches. 

Good MarTech

At its heart, ‘Good MarTech’ must switch the entire model from being ‘attention first’ to serving humans first; serving people as participating digital citizens, and serving the communities and societies that we all live in. 

With marketing dollars fuelling most of the digital products and services that we all use, this transition is essential if we are to build an equitable and empowering digital society. 

At CitizenMe we believe that this ‘Citizen first’ approach has hugely transformative power:

• We ask what personal digital empowerment really means in an always-on, personal data driven society. Our answer is to give everyone a copy of their own data.  
• We ask what digital knowledge really means when our data is used by others first to make assumptions about us. Our answer is to give everyone their own personal and private AI. 
• Regarding digital equality, our answer is that all global digital Citizens must have equal access to privacy, information, and markets. 
• When it comes to community, Citizens should have the ability to create their own data Collectives. Citizens can choose how to combine and share their data between themselves and with others. Be it for personal/collective information, utility, profit, or for the common good.

Looking forward

We all know intuitively that when networks, communities and systems are open, free and interconnected, they have the ability to grow exponentially in size. This creates exponential new value for everyone. This is our purpose and it’s reflected in the technology we have built. 

We’re proud to have been selected as #1 in UK Marketing Technology innovator this week – the time to make the transition to #GoodMarTech has arrived.

To build a greater understanding of your customers, Citizens or patients with the deep, insightful data they willingly share, you can sign up for free to the CitizenMe Marketplace today. Or if you would like us to advise on a current insight/research requirement, book an appointment.