Data Night – A Deep Dive into New Data Models, Talent and A.I.

We are so excited to share some insights from the launch of “Data Night”, a new event series that took place in Toronto on October 10th. The inaugural evening event was hosted by IAB Canada’ s Marketer Council in collaboration with Data and Analytics Committee at IPG’s offices.  The program entitled “New Models” was designed to bring advertisers together in a casual setting to get unplugged on the holy grail of digital – data.

The conversations ranged from use cases of Artificial Intelligence and a healthy debate on data ownership to a sobering discussion around the talent required to future-proof for the data age.

Kicking off with a buzz of energy, Darrin Porter, Director of Agency Relationships at LiveRamp and Andrew Lo, CEO of Kanetix took the stage to review their own data models; one being an open system, the other a closed loop system, both models have unique applications. It was incredible to see the impact AI was having on user experiences in the insurance category.

Our well-rounded discussion panel was moderated by CEO, IPG Mediabrands Canada, Graham Moysey who led a stimulating conversation with our panelists that included Lysianne Planche, Senior Manager, Marketing Intelligence at Loblaw Digital, Seif Khemaissia, Director of Insights & Analytics, at INNOCEAN and Andrew Lo, President & CEO, Kanetix.

Though there are many opposing schools of thought to the question around data ownership, the electric surge of viewpoints sparked a great debate! Some thought the consumer should own the data and others believed it was owned by those who mined it. This led to a discussion around the idea that everyone owns it. It became increasingly clear through discussion that Canadian Privacy regulations would have a significant impact on our ability to continue the current speed of innovation. Looming amendments to PIPEDA threaten the industry’s ability to leverage the tremendous amounts of investment towards data processing in our sector.

Moving into the Talent conversation, there was concurrence across all panelists that finding and retaining talent was a major concern for today and the next few years.