WPP Media has released a detailed new report designed to help advertisers evaluate the platform capabilities which it believes are necessary to effectively connect them with audiences in the artificial intelligence (AI) era. 

Almost a year in the making, the report provides an “intelligence framework” that establishes five key capability categories that will shape “which players become primary sources of intelligence for business and consumers by 2030,” including data assets, technology, distribution, transaction capabilities and content/media. 

The report, authored by WPP Media Business Intelligence President Kate Scott-Dawkins and her team, focuses on capabilities that will shape “competitive advantage” through 2030.

But given the fluid state of innovation, the current perspective will evolve and the framework provided in the report will be updated quarterly. 

The company said it invites “dialog and collaboration” from the industry to refine future editions. 

The framework provides definitions, wights and scores for each capability category and a detailed look at sub-segments that comprise each category and an assessment of the current leaders, as well as questions that advertisers should be asking about each category.  

The framework suggests that advertising intelligence by 2030 will require “simultaneous excellence” across all five key capability categories and emphasizes that no single company currently achieves that.  

Data assets, the report states, “represent the foundational inputs that enable intelligence capabilities.”

The category measures the “volume, quality, and variety of proprietary data companies possess about users, businesses, the physical world, and individual identities.”  

Multiple leaders are identified for each category and subsegment. Under data assets, “behavioral leaders” include Alphabet, Meta, ByteDance, and Tencent.

Amazon’s leadership is qualified: “strong in purchase signals, less breadth in non-commerce behaviors.” 

Alphabet is described as the sole “real world” leader within the data assets category. “Most peers lack defensible physical-world index at scale.” 

Advertisers are advised to “favor partners with persistent multi-modal signals and verified identity. Insist on clean-room access and deletion SLAs (service level agreements). For lower-funnel programs, prioritize platforms with transaction visibility.”  

For upper and mid-funnel programs, advertisers are advised to “combine platforms with deep behavioral data with shoppable pilots.” 

The report provides a number of “hard choices” for advertisers to acquire excellence in all categories. It also offers some questions that advertisers need to ask, such as whether they want to own or rent their customer intelligence.  

Contingency plans need to be considered — in terms of what happens in the event of a TikTok ban, for example, and how AI bots will impact purchase decisions.

The Full Advertising Intelligence Framework report can be found here.