• by Steve McClellan  @mp_mcclellan, October 7, 2011

As Tyler Peppel CEO of Tickr.com explains it, data is no longer a stack of reports piled up on the desk of the CMO waiting to be read. Instead, it's a constantly churning "real-time environment." And marketers run the risk of drowning in it if they don't take steps to organize and shape it to their advantage.

Pepple, whose firm has developed software (still in the beta phase) to help companies manage the constant stream of data spewing forth from the great digital maw. He was one of several Advertising Week participants who spoke about the changing world of data management and how it is transforming the way marketers and agencies communicate with consumers.

With systems like Tickr's and chartbeat.com, which is already on the market, businesses can slice and dice data in an infinite number of ways and examine it in real time, giving marketers opportunities to respond at a moment's notice. Having this option, requires marketers to "act in real time" as well, said Tony Haile, CEO, Chartbeat.com.

Tim Spengler, speaking on a separate panel, said it was critical that clients share their data with their agencies, because it is now a key driver in planning the media and messaging for brands. "Where a brand communicates, says a lot about," Spengler said.

Just as important, Spengler added, is that data, when analyzed in the right way, also debunks the old John Wanamaker "myth" about marketers knowing that half their advertising works, they just don't which half. "With the data, we now know what's working and what isn't," he said.

Getting clients to go along isn't always easy, said Joe McCarthy, CEO Publicis New York. But part of the agency's job going forward is to convince reluctant clients to embrace new approaches to marketing and advertising that the digital age offers. "There needs to be trust" in the agency-client relationship, he said. And make no mistake, he added, "everything now is digital. And it's not going to settle down. Digital is dynamic and will always be changing."

Clients have to harness the technology that is empowering consumers so that they can communicate effectively going forward, said Spengler. "The younger the brand the more risk you have to take," in terms of being open to new techniques, particularly in the peer-to-peer communications arena, said Spengler.

For the agency, that also means communicating effectively with clients and convincing them that if they're going to keep up they need to be shifting budgets and taking at least some dollars previously earmarked for paid media and spending more in the owned media sector.