M&C launches 'global living brand intelligence platform'

Two M&C Saatchi Group agencies – growth specialist Clear and data consultancy Fluency – have joined forces to create what they insist will be the largest living brand intelligence platform in the world.

The Brand Desire Engine taps into eight artificial intelligence platforms and over a billion data points from what they claim are “some of the world’s most trusted living data sources”, the tool uses psycholinguistic analysis and machine learning to identify the signals that work out why brands grow and the amplifiers that determine how they grow.

The scheme then uses publicly available performance data to evaluate brands’ historic performance – and future – commercial potential by “harnessing the power of data-driven intelligence and cutting edge technology” to help clients grow.

The Brand Desire Engine looks at the “whole picture” of brand management and scores each driver – from positioning territories to marketing channels to experience delivery – on its ability to create desirability for that brand.

For the first time, M&C reckons, marketers will be able to identify the unique drivers of brand desire as they emerge in real-time consumer behaviour and create informed, forward-looking strategies to capitalise on opportunities.

Clear chief strategy officer Rhonda Hiatt believes Brand Desire is the “most powerful driver we have in building both brand and commercial value”.

She added: “We no longer have to rely on gut, guess, or less than ideal survey sample sizes to tell us how to build Brand Desire. Instead, we just need to capture the information the whole world is putting out every day and synthesise it into something clear, commercial, and actionable. This is a game-changer that allows us to create adaptive brand strategies that evolve as quickly as desire – and the world around us – shifts.”

Fluency co-founder and chief strategy officer Tim Spencer continued: “Every interaction and transaction generates new data that gives us true insight into not only what people think they are doing, but how they are actually behaving.

“Brands not only exist in our shared consciousness, but are being coded at enormous scale, and significant advances in machine learning and AI are helping us to interpret and leverage this data in ways that simply haven’t been possible until now.”