Welcome to our first newsletter from those of us at Transparent Partners. I keep thinking lately, what an amazing time it is to be a marketer, or technologist or company builder. As we began putting content together to share with our clients, partners and friends of Transparent, I couldn’t help but feel excited and thankful in so many ways. Let’s reflect for a minute on the kind of projects and thought leadership we are working on already this year.
I believe our industry now has everything we need to drastically improve marketing effectiveness. While we have talked of personalization since consumers first adopted the internet, the execution essentially amounted to ads that stuck with us across the web like a piece of gum on the bottom of your shoe. No one really wants that. But with the advancements we see in Customer Data Platforms (CDPs), including real-time capabilities and improved architectural choices, marketers can finally transform the consumer experience. Add in advancements in measurement and optimization and your opportunity to surprise and delight your consumers has never been greater.
Perhaps even more importantly from a consumer’s perspective, I think we are finally beginning to get privacy right. For far too long this topic has been an afterthought for marketers and especially advertising technology companies, offloaded to the Chief Privacy Officer or “someone in legal”. Basically companies treated it as how to meet the minimum standards. But not anymore. Yes, state and federal governments are enacting new regulations and increasing the pressure to respect consumer privacy, but marketers are also finally treating privacy as a core brand benefit. If there is one thing you take away from this letter make it this – your brands should place a high priority on putting a full consumer privacy program in place inclusive of roles, responsibilities, documentation, and technology. If you are a CMO investing in and counting on data initiatives to deliver growth, you’ll want to be sure all that data is usable. We are betting big here and our clients are benefiting from it.
And let’s not forget recent innovations in technology that are already making us rethink marketing. Specifically generative AI and all its implications. Being the curious types that we are, our folks at Transparent began testing ChatGPT from OpenAI as soon as it was available. The big question for all of us is how do we not fear these tools as potential replacements but rather harness them to 10X our own potential as marketers! I feel confident we are going to see some amazing things in the months ahead and we aim to be the trusted partner working with you to identify, understand and deploy innovation to grow your brand.
Finally, on a personal level I can’t state enough how thankful and excited I am to work alongside the men and women of Transparent Partners every day. After nearly 25 years in the marketing industry, I know when I see something special, and this group is special. The combination of skills, energy and passion for client results we bring to the job each day makes me proud and I hope you feel the same way when exposed to the team. We are excited to help you create the ideal consumer experiences, here’s to a great year ahead.
Aaron Fetters, Managing Partner, CEO
