
It’s been one week since the highly anticipated Cannes Lions 2024—the event of the year for advertising and creativity. We are excited to present our top five takeaways from the event, revealing the industry’s priorities for the year ahead.
Navigating the post-cookie era
One of the pivotal discussions at Cannes Lions 2024 centered around signal loss and identity resolution. The industry is grappling with the impact of third-party cookie deprecation, driving a move toward alternative identifiers such as Unified I.D. 2.0 (UID2) and ID5, and contextual targeting. This shift aims to uphold accurate audience targeting while addressing privacy concerns through authenticated forms of identity. Brands and agencies are actively exploring these new strategies to replace traditional cookie-based methods with stable, privacy-compliant solutions.
First-party data providers are also seeking data onboarding solutions to navigate this transition. They need streamlined integration processes, comprehensive ID-matching capabilities, and transparent pricing structures.
Fortified by our roots in offline data and significant investments in our Graph, and our newest offering, Third-Party Onboarding, you can count on Experian’s solutions to maintain strong signal coverage in a cookieless world so you can have uninterrupted, effective marketing.
Unifying targeting across TV platforms
Another focal point at Cannes Lions 2024 was the challenge of navigating TV fragmentation. Advertisers strive for unified targeting across diverse TV platforms, including connected TV (CTV) and traditional linear TV. They emphasize integrating data sources and ad servers to reach audiences across these platforms. CTV continues to stand out in conversations as a crucial and expanding area for advertising, offering new opportunities for targeted campaigns and broader audience engagement.
We’re fueling the expansion of CTV advertising through our signal-agnostic Graph, which seamlessly integrates CTV IDs, universal identifiers such as UID2, IP addresses, and mobile ad IDs (MAIDs) for targeted campaigns. Our newest offering, Third-Party Onboarding, also provides connectivity to more than 10 TV destinations.
Transforming marketing with AI
We would be remiss not to mention the hottest topic at Cannes Lions 2024, the transformative power of AI within data and identity. Discussions highlighted AI’s pivotal role in revolutionizing marketing strategies by enhancing campaign planning, dynamic optimization, measurement, and analytics. AI is not just a tool; it enables marketers to work smarter and faster. With real-time data enrichment, AI will empower marketers to manage large-scale campaigns with unprecedented efficiency and precision.
Marketers envision a future where AI seamlessly integrates into every aspect of their strategy, from understanding and predicting consumer behavior to automating personalized engagement. They see AI as the key to unlocking new levels of precision and efficiency, allowing them to adjust real-time campaigns based on consumer interactions and preferences. This vision includes using AI for deeper audience insights, ensuring that every marketing touchpoint is relevant and impactful.
Striving for strategies for proven ROI
Discussions on measurement at Cannes Lions 2024 focused on how measurement metrics are evolving to keep pace with industry changes. Cross-device, multi-touch attribution, and outcome-based metrics like consumer lifetime value and conversion rates are becoming more important. Accurate measurement is critical for demonstrating campaign impact and optimizing future marketing efforts.
These developments reflect a shift toward more sophisticated measurement practices to optimize marketing strategies and prove tangible ROI.
Through our Consumer Sync solutions, you can improve your attribution quality to understand the true path to conversion by linking all digital touchpoints to a single person.
Creating integrated consumer experiences with retail media networks
Retail media networks (RMNs) are becoming more integrated and connected. Their goal is to provide consumers with a unified online and physical store experience and create a comprehensive marketplace where retailers can work together and use shared data to better reach and engage with their audiences.
“Throughout the conversations, it’s been clear that there’s a lot of demand and interest in building and growing retail media networks. What strikes me is that Experian products, both across identity and data, can be a big support to help grow and fill in these gaps.”
budi tanzi, vp, product
Discussions at Cannes Lions 2024 emphasized how collaborations with technology providers and industry groups can help set measurement standards and ensure transparency. These partnerships can enable RMNs to expand their reach and compete with larger advertising platforms, driving industry growth and innovation.
Experian offers comprehensive solutions for RMNs. Our Profile Insights and Enrichment tools offer valuable customer behavior insights, driving smarter inventory management. We enhance ad targeting beyond item-level purchases with accurate data and syndicated audiences, aligning with broader media strategies. Third-Party Onboarding enables expansion beyond owned and operated inventory, supported by our Graph for enhanced connectivity.
“Data providers are excited to eliminate digital hops in their data flow using Experian Third-Party Onboarding. Third-Party Onboarding is uniquely set up to reduce friction for third-party data and the ecosystem in general.”
adam kobus, director of data partnerships
Experian events at Cannes Lions 2024

This year, we hosted a kick-off happy hour, content studio, and members of our team joined various panels across the Croisette. Here’s a recap of our week at Cannes.
Experian’s kick-off event with Audigent and LG Ad Solutions
To kick off the week, we co-hosted a happy hour with Audigent and LG Ad Solutions. At our sold-out event, attendees enjoyed a live performance from St. Lucia.

Content studio
We interviewed 27 thought leaders across the industry in our content studio. Our interviews covered topics like:
• Signal loss
• Connected and linear TV
• Data collaboration
• Future of addressability and personalization
• Retail media networks
• And more

We’ll be sharing more from our content studio over the coming months. Follow us on LinkedIn or sign up for our email newsletter for the latest updates.
Panel participation
The Experian team participated in four panels throughout the week across the Croisette:
- Scott Kozub, VP, Product Management, joined the Brand Innovators panel, “Future of media,” where he discussed how media companies can adapt their content and distribution strategies to cater to changing consumption habits as media becomes more fragmented across devices and platforms.
- Kimberly Gilberti, Chief Product Officer, joined OpenX’s panel, “Unlocking addressability: Navigating the post-cookie era,” to discuss the prevailing strategies for achieving addressability in a cookieless world.
- Budi Tanzi, VP, Product, participated in Audigent’s panel, “Curation in regulated industries,” where they talked about why curation is effective in regulated markets like finance and health.
- Rachael Donnelly, Chief Marketing Officer, joined The Female Quotient in the Equality Lounge for their panel “Emotional agility: Leading beyond the double standard,” where they explored the power of diverse storytelling and its impact on audience engagement, brand building, and the bottom line.

Let’s keep the momentum going
As we wrap up another exciting week at Cannes Lions, the discussions have shown us the potential for innovation in signal loss, TV fragmentation, AI, measurement, and retail media networks. These topics pave the way for a more connected future in advertising. Which trends are you most excited about? Let’s continue the conversation! Reach out to us, and let’s dive deeper into these topics together.
Stay connected
We understand that customers may be experiencing uncertainty with their marketing strategies with Oracle’s exit from advertising. Experian is one of Oracle’s primary data providers powering their audiences. We can help marketers easily make the switch from Oracle audiences to Experian audiences without changes in advertising effectiveness or efficiency.
We have mapped Oracle audiences to Experian audiences to make it easy for you to switch your campaign targeting to Experian. Reach out to your account representative or our audiences team for information about audience mapping and finding the most relevant Experian audience for your campaigns.
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In this article…How data collaboration is evolving from 2023 to 2024How to create efficient data collaboration strategies We live in a data-driven world, and businesses need effective data collaboration strategies to remain successful. Before you determine your 2023 and 2024 data collaboration options, it’s essential to understand what data collaboration is. In short, it involves sharing and combining data from multiple sources to better understand a customer base and make informed marketing decisions. Read on to learn more about our three-step plan to create new data collaboration strategies, how it’s evolving, and what we do to ensure our solutions help maintain your company’s data privacy. How data collaboration is evolving from 2023 to 2024 Data collaboration strategies continually evolve thanks to changing industry dynamics and new technologies. As we move from 2023 to 2024, we’ll likely see collaboration extending outside businesses, meaning data can be shared with external partnerships in the form of a data ecosystem. A data ecosystem is a platform that combines numerous information points, including packages, algorithms, and cloud-computing services, to allow businesses to store, analyze, and use the data they’ve collected. To ensure you’re ready for 2024 data collaboration, you’ll need to take a forward-thinking approach toward new data strategies. How to create efficient data collaboration strategies Here are our three steps for efficient collaboration to make the most of 2023 data collaboration and prepare for 2024. Identify your collaboration goal What are you hoping to gain from data collaboration? Do you understand the audience you’re trying to target and what you want regarding outcomes? To measure your success, you should set short- and long-term goals surrounding data collaboration in 2023 and 2024. Maximize the value of your data One of the most important reasons to gather data is to discover in-depth insights into your audience and the effectiveness of your marketing efforts. You’ll be able to identify hidden patterns and pinpoint trends you may not have noticed before. With this information, you can make more strategic marketing decisions to stay competitive in your industry. Resolve digital identities Collaborating on data with trusted partners can help you gain a more complete view of your customers by building comprehensive digital profiles. Resolving digital identities can provide greater insight into online and offline behavior of individual consumers, allowing you to better connect with your target audience and boost brand loyalty. Find an alternative to third-party cookies Digital privacy regulations are getting more strict, which is why it’s so important to find more secure alternatives to third-party cookies. By collaborating on data, you can gather essential insights without relying on cookies. This means you’ll still get the information you want while complying with privacy regulations. Choose the right collaboration partner Before you choose a data collaboration partner, it’s essential to ensure their privacy standards align with yours. How do they collect data and use it ethically and responsibly? At Experian, we are dedicated to protecting consumers and delivering responsible and transparent data practices. We focus on five Global Data Principles — security, accuracy, fairness, transparency, and inclusion — to ensure we treat data carefully and respectfully while boosting economic growth and resilience in the marketing environment. When you partner with us for data collaboration, you can trust that your data is protected in a system built for 2023 data collaboration needs — both known and unknown — while still evolving for 2024 and beyond. Choose a secure environment for collaboration Data collaboration security is vital to safeguard your business and consumers’ information. You can make sure your new data collaboration options are protected in several ways. We’ve outlined three options below. Collaboration in clean rooms Clean rooms are secure, private environments where data is shared and analyzed without exposing the underlying raw data. This ensures that sensitive information remains protected and insights are discovered securely. Experian has vetted clean room partners if this is an option you prefer while still getting industry-leading identity resolution. Collaboration directly Collaborating directly with your partner can be a good option if you have robust security measures. Encryption, access controls, and regular audits are essential to maintain data security in direct collaborations. Collaboration with Experian We excel at meeting our clients where they are and accommodating their technical capabilities and how they manage their data. We offer a secure and compliant environment for data collaboration. Our data collaboration solutions are designed to protect your data while enabling deeper insights. At Experian, we understand the importance of data privacy, and our platform reflects our commitment to safeguarding your information. Enable deeper insights and activation with Experian’s data collaboration solution Data collaboration is crucial in today’s business world, and Experian’s solutions are designed to help you bring together your 2023 and 2024 data collaboration strategies securely and efficiently. With Experian, you can unlock deeper insights, resolve digital identities, and confidently navigate the evolving data privacy landscape. If you’re looking for the right partner to enhance data collaboration to drive growth and innovation in your business, you’ll find a secure environment and the right partner with Experian. Contact us today to get started. Contact us Latest posts

We are excited to announce that we’ve updated our CAPE data with 2020 Census data. This release updates estimates and projections from 2010 and replaces all previous CAPE data attributes. U.S. Census data offers a great opportunity for data enrichment The U.S. Census is conducted every 10 years to determine the number of people living in the U.S. in addition to collecting data on dozens of topics across 130+ surveys and programs. U.S. Census data is already broken out into regional groups and covers 100k+ different geographies: States, counties, places, tribal areas, zip codes, and congressional districts. Block groups are the smallest geographic area for which the Bureau of the Census collects and tabulates data. They are formed by streets, roads, railroads, streams, other bodies of water, and other visible physical and cultural features. What is CAPE? Census Area Projections & Estimates data (CAPE) data from Experian utilizes a proprietary methodology to make the data easy to action on for marketing use cases. Made from U.S Census and Experian consumer data, CAPE data sets are developed at the block group and zip code level and targetable at the household level. CAPE 2020 updates CAPE 2020 uses the 2020 Census data blended with other Experian data to update CAPE’s unique attributes for data enrichment and licensing. Multiple sources are used and data is delivered at a block group level or zip code. Experian provides unique CAPE attributes not available through other sources that provide Census data. These include our Ratio and Percentages attributes, Score Factors/Segments, and Mosaic. CAPE 2020 use cases Our CAPE 2020 data sets enable strategic marketing analysis and decision-making. You can use CAPE 2020 data to understand the differences in the markets you serve as they relate to core demographics, housing attributes, education, income, employment, spending, and more. You can do this to: Find populations that are not typically captured in standard demographics. Cross-reference Census demographics data with other behavioral and shopper data. Understand supply and demand for products sold. Get started with our CAPE 2020 data today If you are using Experian’s CAPE 2010 data, please work with your Experian representative to migrate to CAPE 2020. If you are interested in learning more about our CAPE data, get in touch with us today. Latest posts

Centralized data access is emerging as a key strategy for advertisers. In our next Ask the Expert segment, we explore this topic further and discuss the importance of data ownership and the concept of audience as an asset. We're joined by industry leaders, Andy Fisher, Head of Merkury Advanced TV at Merkle, and Chris Feo, Experian’s SVP of Sales & Partnerships who spotlight Merkle's commitment to centralized data access and how advertisers can use our combined solutions to navigate industry shifts while ensuring consumer privacy. Watch our Q&A to learn more about these topics and gain insights on how to stay ahead of industry changes. The concept of audience as an asset In order to gain actionable marketing insights about your audience, you need to identify consumers who are actively engaged with your brand and compare them against non-engaged consumers, or consumers engaged with rival brands. Audience ownership Audience ownership is a fundamental marketing concept where marketers build, define, create, and own their audience. This approach allows you to use your audiences as an asset and deliver a customized journey to the most promising prospects across multiple channels. With this strategy, you enhance marketing effectiveness and ensure ownership over your audience, no matter the platform or channel used. Merkle enables marketers to own and deploy said asset (audience) so that marketers can have direct control over their audience. With audience strategy, you can tie all elements together – amplify your marketing reach, while maintaining control of your audience. Merkle connects customer experiences with business results. Data ownership Data ownership refers to the control organizations have over data they generate, including marketing, sales, product, and customer data. This data is often scattered across multiple platforms, making it difficult to evaluate their effectiveness. Alternatively, owning this data, which is typically housed in a data warehouse, allows the creation of historical overviews, forecasting of customer trends, and cross-channel comparisons. With advertisers and publishers both claiming ownership over their respective data and wanting to control its access, there has been a growing interest in data clean rooms. Data clean rooms The growing interest in data clean rooms is largely due to marketers increasing preference to maintain ownership over their audience data. They provide a secure environment for controlled collaboration between advertisers and publishers while preserving the privacy of valuable data. Data clean rooms allow all parties to define their usage terms – who can access it, how it is used, and when it is used. The rise in the use of data clean rooms strengthens data privacy and creates opportunities for deeper customer insights, which leads to enhanced customer targeting. Data clean rooms unlock new data sets, aiding brands, publishers, and data providers in adapting to rapidly changing privacy requirements. Why is centralized data access important? Centralized data access is crucial for the effective organization and optimization of your advertising campaigns. It involves consolidating your data in one place, allowing for the identification of inconsistencies. Merkle’s Merkury platform The concept of centralized data is a key component of Merkle’s Merkury platform, an enterprise identity platform that empowers brands to own and control first-party identity at an individual level. A common use case involves marketers combining their first-party data with Merkury's data assets and marketplace data assets to build prospecting audiences. These are later published to various endpoints for activation. The Merkury platform covers three classes of data: Proprietary data set – Permissioned data set covering the entire United States, compiled from about 40 different vendors Marketplace data – Includes contributions from various vendors like Experian First-party data from marketers – Allows marketers to bring in their own data Merkury's identity platform empowers brands to own and control first-party identity at an individual level, unifying known and unknown customer and prospect records, site and app visits, and consumer data to a single, person ID. This makes Merkury the only enterprise identity platform that combines the accuracy and sustainability of client first-party data, quality personally identifiable information (PII) data, third-party data, cookie-less media, and technology platform connections in the market. End-to-end management of data Data ownership and management enables you to enhance the quality of your data, facilitate the exchange of information, and ensure privacy compliance. The Merkury platform provides a comprehensive, end-to-end solution for managing first-party data, all rooted in identity. Unlike data management platforms (DMPs) that are primarily built on cookies, the Merkury platform is constructed on a person ID, allowing it to operate effectively in a cookie-free environment. A broader perspective with people-based views The Merkury platform is unique because it contains data from almost every individual in the United States, providing a broader perspective compared to customer data platforms (CDPs) which only contain consumer data. The platform provides a view of the world in a people-based manner, but also offers the flexibility to toggle between person and household views. This enables you to turn data into actionable insights and makes it possible to target specific individuals within a household or consider the household as a whole. How Experian and Merkle work together Experian and Merkle have established a strong partnership that magnifies the capabilities of Merkle's Merkury platform. With Experian’s robust integration capabilities and extensive connectivity opportunities, customers can use this technology for seamless direct integrations, resulting in more effective onboarding to various channels, like digital and TV. "Experian's role in Merkury's data marketplace is essential as they are considered the gold standard for data. It significantly contributes to our connectivity through direct integrations and partnerships. Experian's presence in various platforms and technologies ensures easy connections and high match rates. Our partnership is very important to us."andy fisher, head of merkury advanced tv Through this partnership, Merkle can deliver unique, personalized digital customer experiences across multiple platforms and devices, highlighting their commitment to data-driven performance marketing. Watch the full Q&A Visit our Ask the Expert content hub to watch Andy and Chris's full conversation about data ownership, innovative strategies to empower you to overcome identity challenges, and navigating industry shifts while protecting consumer privacy. Tune into the full recording to gain insights into the captivating topics of artificial intelligence (AI), understanding how retail networks can amplify the value of media, and the growing influence of connected TV (CTV). Dive into the Q&A to gain rich insights that could greatly influence your strategies. Contact us today About our experts Andy Fisher, Head of Merkury Advanced TV As the Head of Merkury Advanced TV, Andy's primary responsibility is driving person-based marketing and big data adoption in all areas of Television including Linear, Addressable, Connected, Programmatic, and X-channel planning and Measurement. Andy has held several positions at Merkle including Chief Analytics Officer and he ran the Merkle data business. Prior to joining Merkle, Andy was the EVP, Global Data & Analytics Director at Starcom MediaVest Group where he led the SMG global analytics practice. In this role, he built and managed a team of 150 analytics professionals across 17 countries servicing many of the world’s largest advertisers. Prior to that role, Andy was Vice President and National Lead, Analytics at Razorfish, where he led the digital analytics practice and managed a team of modeling, survey, media data, and business intelligence experts. He and his team were responsible for some of the first innovations in multi-touchpoint attribution and joining online/offline data for many of the Fortune 100. Andy has also held leadership positions at Personify and IRI. Andy holds a BA in mathematics from UC Berkeley and an MA in statistics from Stanford. Chris Feo, SVP, Sales & Partnerships, Experian As SVP of Sales & Partnerships, Chris has over a decade of experience across identity, data, and programmatic. Chris joined Experian during the Tapad acquisition in November 2020. He joined Tapad with less than 10 employees and has been part of the executive team through both the Telenor and Experian acquisitions. He’s an active advisor, board member, and investor within the AdTech ecosystem. Outside of work, he’s a die-hard golfer, frequent traveler, and husband to his wife, two dogs, and two goats! Latest posts