The Power of Data in Modern Marketing | Tom Martin

David McBee: Hello and welcome to Simpli.fi TV, the web series and podcast for agencies, brands, marketers and media buyers. I'm David McBee. Our guest today is Tom Martin, Director of Media Services at Communica. Tom is a seasoned professional with four decades of expertise in media planning and buying. Since 2019 he has been at the helm of Communica's media division, overseeing a wide array of consumer retail and institutional accounts. As the media director, Tom's proficiency extends across diverse paid media platforms, encompassing traditional, digital and emerging channels. His dedicated team meticulously crafts and implements client specific strategies, always prioritizing precision, cost effectiveness, and measurable results. Tom, welcome to Simpli.fi TV. Tom Martin: Thanks for having me. David McBee: I'm glad you're here. Tom, I was pretty excited to find out the reason you selected Simpli.fi as your DSP. Would you mind starting with that story? Tom Martin: So last year about this time our agency decided to bring in a lot of our digital buying services in-house. We were using third parties managed services over the years, which was fine. Some good companies, but we really had no control over either our targeting or our buys itself. So what I did was we did a search last year, came up with about four or five options, including Simpli.fi. All had their strengths and weaknesses, but really what intrigued me was I was watching TV at home one night. Just something innocuous was on with my wife and I saw a Simpli.fi commercial. So I'm a big time streamer, so it appeared on probably DirecTV Now or something like that. I soon saw the ad a few more times after that, so then I thought, "You know what? If this company knows where to target me, then I'm sold that they're going to be able to target my client's audiences also." So that was really a deciding factor how we chose Simpli.fi because, hey, you guys have the targeting down. David McBee: I know our targeting team and our marketing team are going to be very excited to know that commercial worked. Have you had some success then with CTV with your clients then? Tom Martin: Yes. We use CTV for many of our clients and we were impressed with what Simpli.fi could provide to us. It gave us control over what deals we could select and the CPMs and so forth. So it was a very good option to pick Simpli.fi for that reason. David McBee: Let's talk about your long career. You've been in media for 40 years. I imagine you have some great stories. Do you have a proudest moment you'd like to share? Tom Martin: Certainly. I've had many, many success stories. In 40 years you're going to have some. Every blind squirrel finds an acorn, I guess, but I've also had some fails along the way. Who hasn't? I think the thing, though, I'm most proud about in all my years was hiring my youngest daughter, Zoe, as our digital manager. She came from Penn State. That was my alma mater, as well, and I think the thing I'm most proud about is the experience and work that she's brought to Communica. Our agency is so much better for it. And it's not only her, but there's so many talented young people we've brought on board in the last few years since I've been here. Really makes me proud that this agency really looks to the young talent and my daughter especially actually following someone in my footsteps. David McBee: I love that so much. My daughter, Zoe, just went to college to learn journalism and poli-sci. So I don't think she's going to be following in my footsteps, but I totally get it. Is there something specific that Zoe or anyone in that younger age group has brought to the agency that's worth mentioning? Tom Martin: Certainly. I think the younger audience is certainly more digitally acclimated than a lot of us old timers. And I think that she's brought that level of thinking that we didn't have when we were in school obviously. When I went to Penn State, we were talking about cable and we were talking about running the newspapers. It certainly changed in 40 years and she learned about Google search and how to do digital display campaigns and CTV and OTT. Certainly I think she brings a lot of that new media expertise to the agency. David McBee: So what new technology or emerging media are you the most excited about? Tom Martin: So when certainly someone talks about true emerging media, you can speak of virtual reality and augmented reality, AI. I mean, that's all becoming big obviously, but what I look at in terms of emerging media is really what fuels the media. And what fuels the media these days is data. These mobile devices that we all have and we all carry around all have powerful processors and they also contain countless data to be mined. I saw something that said the average household has 20 plus connected devices today from smartphones to smart TVs, laptops and tablets and so forth, video game systems. 20 plus connected devices. What I like to do is look at how we might use these devices and the data that they have to market in new and exciting ways. For example, I like to tell people we can actually use the data from these devices to time travel. You think what are we talking about? If I'm a restaurant owner, say, I can go back in time, per se, to track how many people dined at my competition in the past month and incentivize those same individuals to try my establishment with a digital campaign. In the same way, I may be able to use the same device data to market to an audience maybe going to a crowded beach on a hot sunny day in real time and reach them with a digital campaign on their devices or maybe with a digital out of home approach. Not withstanding, streaming media has exploded partly due to the pandemic. I'm even developing strategies now to message our CTV viewers in real time with offers and incentives based on pulling data from our own website, our own client's website. As I said, it all comes down to data. No matter what media you're talking about, using that data is important to target successfully. David McBee: That is exciting stuff. Before we go, do you have a piece of advice that you would like to share with our viewers? Tom Martin: If I'm going to share anything with our current clients or prospective clients, it's mine your first party data. And when I say mine, I mean mine, M-I-N-E. Mine your first party data because that's really where the future is, is looking at your first party data, looking at who you've reached, looking at who your prospect list might be, who your last list might be. I mean now, yes, we've done that for years. Advertisers have done that for years with direct mail list, but now we can reach these individuals in a split second, much more cost effectively than with a direct mail campaign. So mind your data because it's very important when we look to go and target in the future. David McBee: Solid advice. Thank you. Do you have a favorite podcast or a book that you'd like to shout out? Tom Martin: I'm an avid podcast listener, but I would say the book that best guides me is the Holy Bible. Don't worry, I'm not a preacher. I'm not going to preach to you, but one of my favorite phrases in the Bible I like to tell people is it came to pass. And you'll see that a number of times throughout the Bible because I look at my own life. In 2019, I left New York for Toledo, leaving my wife behind to tend to the household affairs. In 2020, her mom passed away. We had to clean up that house and sell it during the pandemic. Then in 2021, we finally sold our house in New York, moved our household to Toledo where in 2022 my wife was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. I'm grateful now because she's in remission, but I look at that phrase. Certainly a lot of things came to pass, but they did pass and it allows me to look hopefully at a brighter future. David McBee: I love that, Tom. Thank you for sharing that choice with us. I'm a big fan of that book as well. If anyone wants to get ahold of you or get in touch or follow you, what's the best way for them to do that? Tom Martin: You can reach us by reaching out to Communica. We're in Toledo, Ohio. You can reach us online at thinkcommunica.com or reach out to one of my associates, Barry Rosen, Christina Redra, Amy Fitzenrider. Any of those folks will be happy to help you discuss your marketing pain points and hopefully we can provide timely effective solutions to you. Thank you. David McBee: And thank you for being my guest, Tom. Tom Martin: You're welcome. Thanks. David McBee: And thank you all for watching. Simpli.fi TV is sponsored by Simpli.fi, helping you to maximize relevance and multiply results with our industry leading media buying and workflow solutions. For more information, visit simpli.fi. Thanks for joining us today. I'm David McBee. Be awesome and we'll see you next time.