Are We entering a Singularity in Advertising? MARKERANDALL BEARD, PUBLISHED JUNE 19, 2014 In 1993, Vernor Vinge postulated the concept of the “singularity.” Essentially, the singularity is when cognitive computing advances to the point that computers become self-thinking, direct their thinking to making themselves ever more intelligent, and create advanced intelligence beyond human comprehension or under“The technological singularity, or simply the singularity, is a hypothetical moment in time when artificial intelligence will have progressed to the point of greater-than-human intelligence, radically changing civilization, and perhaps human nature.”

Are We entering a Singularity in Advertising?

MARKERandall Beard, Published June 19, 2014

In 1993, Vernor Vinge postulated the concept of the “singularity.” Essentially, the singularity is when cognitive computing advances to the point that computers become self-thinking, direct their thinking to making themselves ever more intelligent, and create advanced intelligence beyond human comprehension or under“The technological singularity, or simply the singularity, is a hypothetical moment in time when artificial intelligence will have progressed to the point of greater-than-human intelligence, radically changing civilization, and perhaps human nature.”

[Source: Wikipedia]

The Singularity in Advertising?

Vinge was talking about computing and AI in general, but is there an impending singularity in advertising? Could AI advance advertising and media optimization beyond our ability to fully understand the decisions being made?

I’m certainly not the first one to entertain this thought. Matt Herman wrote about it (and mostly wrote it off) in a 2010 Ad Age article “Glitch in the Coming Advertising Singularity,” as it relates to advertising creative development. Roger Toennis penned a very interesting piece called “The Marketing Singularity Is Near,” and how it would take Marketing “back to the future” of pre-broadcast media 1:1 word of mouth driven marketing. And most recently, Tim Armstrong, the CEO of AOL, talked about how programmatic ad buying would drive a media buying singularity in an interview with BeetTV.

The Creative Singularity–Probably Not

Put me in the skeptic column when it comes to an advertising creative singularity. In a recent Nielsen Wire post, I wrote about the five factors associated with advertising creative success. It’s hard to imagine a computer driven creative singularity anytime soon, given the uniquely human use of storytelling, humor, and other creative factors in the best ads.

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That said, algorithms have been developed to write music and news stories: check out “Can Creativity Be Automated?” in the MIT Technology Review. And more to the advertising point, we can now use neuroscience to algorithmically compress :30 TV ads to :15s with virtually no loss in effectiveness, so who knows for sure? Perhaps your new copy writer or art director will be named Hal.

The Media Singularity–Probably So

Unlike creative, media planning, buying, and measurement is much more likely to be more automated, smarter, faster, self-improving and thoroughly beyond the ability of most humans to understand. In fact, it is already being done in some cases through Real Time Bidding (RTB) platforms in digital. The media singularity beckons.

The component DNA parts are mostly here and now, although they aren’t fully functioning in a cohesive, integrated manner and are absent altogether in some areas of the media ecosystem. But a fully automated, smarter than human, media optimization singularity is in the near future. What are the DNA parts?

1. Digitization—Digital enables data to be fully harnessed by computing. And this is as true of media as anything else. The more digitized the advertising and media data, the more computing power can be enabled to buy, measure, and improve performance—automatically and in real time—and without human intervention.
2. Exposure and Conversion Data—The capturing of data—the drivers like audiences, viewability, content, exposure frequency, placement, etc., and the outcomes, like brand impact and conversion—are making it easier and easier to truly understand what works, what doesn’t, and how to improve. Much of this data capture now takes place in highly automated and real time systems, many of which were pioneered by digital attribution modeling firms, and can leverage both advertiser first as well as third party data.
3. Attribution Modeling—We’ve measured advertising and media sales effects for years now with single source ANCOVA’s and market mix modeling. Both are very good at what they do. The emergence of non-PII data at the individual level—both advertising exposure and conversion data—will enable the brand or sales impact measurement of each and every touchpoint and all combinations of touchpoints at the individual level—in real time. Attributing brand and sales impact to touchpoint exposure is critical to improving performance.
4. Machine Learning—Machine learning is a branch of artificial intelligence, including the set of activities associated with systems that can learn from data and self-improve over time. Machine learning capabilities tied to attribution modeling will enable self-learning in real time to continuously improve and optimize advertising performance. Said differently, machines will learn on their own how to improve advertising results without human intervention.
5. Programmatic and Real Time Bidding (RTB)—Already, over 20% of display advertising is transacted through real time bidding platforms. The platforms, processes, and data sets are already in place to power RTB beyond display advertising, although TV and other non-digital mediums are mostly out of bounds for now—but not forever. Much of the current RTB focus is based on audience types, web behavior, retargeting, and so on. But, it’s only a short leap to driving RTB based on brand and sales impact via the attribution modeling capabilities covered above.

So what we have is a future world in which individual level exposure and sales data is digitized and connected through API’s to data platforms, attribution models run in real time, machine learning iteratively improves results, and buying is transacted through real time bidding platforms. In limited form, this future already exists in subscale pockets of the advertising ecosystem. And all of this will happen at lightning speed—in milliseconds, and at massive scale—hundreds of millions of data points, such that it will be beyond any human’s ability to comprehend what is happening except at a conceptual level.

I’m not naïve. There are many barriers to a broadscale advertising singularity, and they’re not to be minimized. Existing business models, technology platforms, processes, media and device fragmentation, digital ad fraud/bots, industry habits, personal relationships, and other factors are all very real hurdles to the realization of this future state.

But the technology building blocks are already in play. Progress toward this vision will be rapid but along a jagged and non-linear path. Much of advertising as we’ve known it for the past 100 years or so will be upended, and, in fact, is already in the process of doing so.

Is this good or bad? Regardless of where you land on that one, here comes the future of advertising—and one thing is certain–it will be a singular experience.

Author:Randall Beard     Randall Beard on the Web Randall Beard RSS Feed

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This article originally appeared on MENG Blend and has been republished with permission.

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