Domenico (Mimmo) Palmieri is Associate Director, Global Ad Analytics at Condé Nast. In a career spanning almost a decade, he previously worked at The Financial Times, AudienceScience and MEC.
Who is your digital hero?
Claude C. Hopkins, advertiser executive turned author who passed away in 1932, well before the advent of the internet and all the wonders of digital ads and modern technology.
Not a conventional digital hero, I know.
What has he done to win hero status in your eyes?
He pioneered the science behind advertising, massively contributing to the introduction of data analytics practice, the concept of A/B testing, attribution and in general, measurement of campaign’s outcomes and effectiveness, driven by the sole goal of optimising his customer’s marketing spend.
How has his heroism helped drive digital?
In an era where measurable signals were scarce and advertising was considered more of an artistic practice rather than a profession, his theoretical underpinnings have opened the door for modern data driven advertising and fuelled an industry that quite frankly wouldn’t have thrived as well as if it wasn’t a quantifiable practice and had a way to prove its impact on business’ outcomes.
What are the biggest challenges in digital we need another hero to solve?
The industry needs to find new models that ensure ads can be an integrative part of the digital experience and contribute to the exchange value with the users or customers instead of merely extracting value or worse, causing harm.
Problem is, our industry is optimised to maximise users’ attention and this is not only having a significant impact on our society, such as increased carbon footprint or the effects of social media on teenagers, but it’s also affecting the industry’s bottom line in the long run by damaging its reputation.
What is your most heroic personal achievement so far in digital?
As a kid, I struggled a lot with maths. Ironically, over the time I embraced my fear of numbers, overcame the weakness and ended up working in a data-driven industry which is something I’d have never imagined.
This mindset and the knowledge gained have enabled much of the bigger or smaller achievements in my career whether it’s supporting the sales rep to win an RFP with powerful insights or leading the roll out of large BI, Data and Ad Analytics systems.
However, no lie, I still struggle with multiplication tables!
