Dan Wilson is Chief Data Officer and Co-founder at Charlie Oscar, a media & creator agency. He spent 20 years in digital marketing, in roles leading data and technology from independent agencies such as Fetch and i-level to networks including Wavemaker and DentsuX.
Who is your digital hero?
I have to go back to my first job, a long twenty years ago… Andrew Walmsley was one of the founders of i-level, one of the first digital specialist agencies that helped bring digital marketing to the mainstream of brands in the UK.
I joined i-level fresh from an economics degree, joining an industry I never knew existed and joining an agency that helped brands tackle new channels which most found equally daunting and exciting.
I have worked at a number of different places since and couldn’t have wished for a stronger starting point within the industry.
What has he done to win hero status in your eyes?
Andrew, along with Charlie Dobres, embraced the channels which were new and difficult. From the first waves of search, affiliates and digital display marketing, through to the beginnings of paid and organic social.
While most of the industry sat on the sidelines waiting for someone to work out how to tackle new channels, Andrew and Charlie represented the new wave of digital marketing agencies (along with some brilliant digital native creative agencies) who first were prepared to test, learn, fail and improve. It took a totally new approach from the traditional media planning and buying services, and required some adventures to set the path.
Digital marketing always moves quickly, but the change was even faster and more unknown a couple of decades ago, and it takes a few to embrace the change that everyone now takes as industry standards.
How has his heroism helped drive digital?
Some people have to be the first to set the path to where we are now. Back in 2005 digital investment was less than 10% of total marketing spend. It was still seen as risky by most brands.
Andrew helped push the UK marketing industry to take the new digital channels seriously, increasing investment across the ever changing world of digital marketing.
The first wave of digital specialist agencies created a way into the industry for waves of talent who are now leaders across many of the biggest companies in the industry.
Without this education across both individuals and brands, the UK digital industry wouldn’t be in such a strong position globally.
What are the biggest challenges in digital we need another hero to solve?
I wish everyone would hold their digital creative assets to the same standard as they do for TV or print.
Some of the ad assets which make it on to mainstream digital channels are terrible, and it continues to weaken the reputation of digital platforms as brand builders.
While these platforms continue to dominate attention and take the lions share of performance spend, decades of misaligned measurement has set a really poor baseline for digital creative execution. Just because someone has accidentally clicked on an ad doesn’t mean it is valuable, and just because someone hasn’t clicked on an ad doesn’t make it useless.
But unfortunately because a big red flashing buy now button generates a few clicks it still continues to generate an overweighted focus for ad creative. Unfortunately, AI creative generation is likely to make this worse before it makes it better, so hopefully someone can fight the trend to improve the creative standards and expectations.
It is in everyone’s interest to do so.
What is your most heroic personal achievement so far in digital?
I feel uncomfortable with the word heroic. But as a data analyst at heart I have been trying to fix the motivation behind this creative problem (I don’t have the artistic or creative capability to try to fix the execution.)
Working with brands from small startups up to mainstream market leaders, I have been able to focus teams on measuring things that matter.
Increasing the focus on incrementality and understanding the drivers of long term growth as well as short term impact.
When you look at those two relationships then it forces brands to value stronger content and more engaging experiences, which creates a stronger platform for creative minds to deliver great work.
Brands that we work with over index on investment in longer form video and creator built assets, because if you measure the right things then those executions win on both the human eye test and statistical measurement.–
