• by Gavin O'Malley  @mp_gavin, February 27, 2009

Advertisers had better wise up and start turning their data into dollars, according to Edward Montes, EVP and managing director at Havas Digital North America.

"Advertisers need to start using their data," Montes said during his morning keynote address at the OMMA Behavioral conference on Thursday. Rather, "when you talk to them about this, they don't understand the power that their data had. They say you've got to go talk to IT."

What's more, "advertisers need to think like ad networks," said Montes. That aeans effectively rebundling assets, eliminating waste, and better managing yield for themselves.

But, no one is saying this is going to be easy, Montes conceded. "This is really hard, and this is really uncomfortable," for many advertisers and agencies, he said. "The skill required to do this is not typical industry work."

Montes, who oversees both Media Contacts, as well as mobile marketing services import, Mobext, wanted to make another point clear. "Most publishers think we're completely devaluing their inventory." Not true, he said. "We're buying more efficiently ... we arbitrate, and the yield will be much greater for publishers."

Montes also took the time to comment on Thursday's news that Havas Digital has entered into a multi-level strategic partnership with Media6°, which uses "social graph" data to connect marketers to customized potential audiences.

"We see great value in it," he said regarding the social space. We think there's an opportunity there to add that as a computational parameter."

Under the agreement, Havas Digital agencies will become early adopters of Media6°'s social graph targeting capabilities in order to integrate consumer insights with hyper-targeting.

Havas Digital is an umbrella holding company that manages all Havas Media's interactive companies. Clients include Air France, Danone, Diageo, Expedia, Fidelity, France Telecom, ING Direct, Nike, Peugeot/Citroen, Repsol, Reckitt Benckiser, Sears and Vodafone.

Launched in 2007 in Spain, Mobext is a mobile agency and strategic consulting company that offers specialized services within the international mobile marketing arena.

Montes, on Thursday, also alluded to Artemis, a proprietary database management system owned by Havas, which has been at at the core of several new products, ventures and new client service applications the agency has been developing.