Thinking Out of the Box. An Interview with Jin Kim, President of CDA

Jin Kim, President of CDA, believes that both his identity and career have revolved around not really “fitting in to the traditional culture or system, which has actually worked out great for me to come in as a more ‘outside-the-box’ strategic thinker.” Starting out after college launching Korean Air’s successful Skypass Loyalty Program, he moved into marketing, then mobile, before launching Creative Digital Agency (CDA) in 2016.

Charlene Weisler: What is your definition of programmatic?

Jin Kim: There’s the industry definition: “Programmatic ad buying uses algorithms to automate the purchasing process.” I think the primary difference is with programmatic, you target the individual, rather than the publication. There is a lot of power in programmatic, particularly from a bottom-of-funnel attribution standpoint, which is really attractive advertisers who are always asked to prove return on investment. What we’ve seen is that so much emphasis has been placed on programmatic (which is at its best at the bottom of the funnel), other parts of the customer journey are starting to atropine from lack of attention.

Weisler: Why place more emphasis on direct?

Kim: Programmatic really excels at the bottom of funnel; attributing and optimizing conversions and lift to ad spend. The problem is balance. There’s so much buzz and activity around programmatic right now, that key parts of the funnel are being ignored. That’s the area that’s ripe for disruption. Programmatic has less qualitative impact at the awareness/inspiration stage compared to direct. There are also industry-wide challenges regarding brand safety, viewability and fraud that still need to be worked out. You see this rebalancing happening with the biggest buyers in advertising now – the brands who really have the budget the experiment and take risks to see what works best. Last year, even though programmatic market share went up, big brands shifted spend to direct ads. PG&E cut $200 million from programmatic spend and increased direct spend by 25%. Unilever increased the number of brands buying direct by 112%. Chase decreased the number of programmatic publishers in its portfolio by 98.75%. And the result of these shifts was either an increase in reach or YOY growth in sales.

Weisler: How important is Digital in a buy?

Kim: The main points you’ll hear people talk about are the data & insights, the high specificity of targeting, the agility (you can update a creative mid-flight), the scalability, and the ability to optimize for conversions and sales. But one thing that is often overlooked when it comes to digital advertising is the emotional impact. On mobile in particular, the retention rates for video are much higher than they are on broadcast TV, even though the screen size is smaller and the video length is typically shorter. The mindset of a mobile audience is quite different – more focused in – compared to their mindset when consuming other media channels.

Weisler: How relevant is creative in a campaign's success?

Kim: There’s a lot of cynicism when people talk about creative these days. I’ve heard people say that “creative is a commodity,” and some brands are experimenting with programmatically generated creatives and ad copy. There’s probably something to be said for that, but if you want to have a strong and lasting relationship with the consumer, you’ve got to have original creative that makes an impact. It doesn’t need to be huge and flashy, in fact, these days a smaller and more relevant story is often the most powerful you can get. One thing we believe is that video can be personalized. People have been extolling the virtues of personalized, one-to-one marketing communications for years now, but there’s this belief that video is too unwieldy and expensive to execute this way. If you focus on a mobile audience, I can tell you this isn’t true.

Weisler: What data is most important?

Kim: All data is important. Data centric organizations are the ones that will survive all the disruption happening around us. The top 5 firms in the world are all built around data. The Economist had a great quote last year where they said “The world’s most valuable resource is no longer oil, but data.”  

Weisler: What are the biggest challenges to brands today?

Kim: The biggest challenge for brands today lies in their ability to relay a powerful message through creative storytelling. Too often, brands try to tell their story from their own point of view when rather, the most successful campaigns are told from the audience’s point of view, allowing the brand message to appear naturally. These campaigns are much more authentic and therefore well-received by the audience.

The end-user is always, always, always the hero of the story. Another challenge a lot of brands face is agility. When you’re part of a huge, multi-layered company with dozens of departments, internal agencies, etc., it’s hard to push new ideas into the market.

Weisler: How can they be overcome?

Kim: Follow the data, follow the audience, and accept that you will need to constantly learn and evolve. If you are an expert in digital marketing in 2019 – and you don’t keep learning – your skill set will be obsolete by 2025.

Weisler: Where do you see your part of the business five years from now?

Kim: The biggest change is what’s happening at brick and mortar. Consumers are no longer required to venture into brick-and-mortar locations to shop, completing a majority of their transactions online. This is just going to ramp up more in the next few years. From our standpoint, this huge disruption at retail is an opportunity to facilitate transformation of the in-store experience. In the next five years, we expect our experience driving in-store mobile activation and digital engagement will help retail brands survive and thrive with the changes that are coming.

This article first appeared in Mediapost.com