Divergent views trail Google’s phasing out of third-party cookies
By Felicia Nwosu
As industry players brace up for the latest pivotal shift that comes with Google’s farewell to third-party cookies, some seasoned professionals in Nigeria’s marketing communications industry have expressed divergent views and unique insights on how businesses, advertisers, and marketers can prepare for the impending changes to adapt and thrive on the digital landscape.
The business leaders, who spoke in separate interviews with MARKETING EDGE, noted that the online advertising ecosystem is on the edge of a revolution, while advising practitioners and key players to brace up for the transformative shift and to develop strategies and tactics as viable alternatives.
Dr. Tunji Olugbodi, the Executive Vice Chairman and Group Chief Executive Officer of Verdant Zeal Group, Africa’s emerging multinational marketing communications group, affirmed the need for the industry to transit and adapt quickly to the shift with targeting and measurement technologies. He also called for partnership among concerned industries, emphasising the need to work with data and activation partners to enable them to provide a seamless transition as possible with the understanding of the local data regulations.
“I think it goes without saying that data speaks to what you can use to establish behavioral patterns. It’s the reason there’s a lot of talks around regulation and the legalities. But we’ve also seen from experience, in practical terms, that these things are not always well fortified, We’ve seen situations where data breaches are around the grid. This also establishes why certain things should be initiated – a new product done this way, a new service done that way, so they can continue to optimise the opportunities in consumer purchases and consumer habits.
“There is a need to get prepared; data is life. Data is the future. When you look at the increasingly technological orientation that we have, what data helps you to do is to plan and project even better and to predict behavioral patterns
Babatunde Shobanjo, the Group General Manager/ Group Chief Operating Officer of Insight Redefini, also shared how his agency has already developed an agile mindset by rethinking retargeting strategy ahead for the impending phase-out of third-party cookies with a number of steps to prepare itself and its clients for the transition
He pointed out how imperative it is for advertisers to take proactive measures to avert the negative impact of the looming era on online advertising and marketing efforts by adapting and adopting new methods of tracking users and collecting analytics data.
“We have another company called Velocite; they’re involved in gathering data, so we already warehouse a lot of data. We also partner with people that share data with us, so we have international organizations that actually share data on what they think Nigeria is, and we compare it with stuff that we’ve gathered. This is how we are preparing and waiting,” he said.
Adeola Kayode, Head of brands & Creative Services, 9Mobile, while peering into the future, also revealed that his company has already dived into the future by fostering innovation that will empower marketing strategies and catalyze transformation by embracing the shift to new targeting and measurement technologies.
He noted that a cookie-less future may seem daunting, but expressed optimism that it would provide the ample opportunity for marketers to provide more personalized experiences while safeguarding consumer privacy.
“It is for us to begin to house our own data management system internally and then begin to prepare that source of primary data to speak to external data sources that we are ever going to be having later. That is how we are already preparing ahead of that time. So if it comes or doesn’t come, we are already preparing. It is important that you begin now to build your own primary source of data so that everything you get during the period will be to thrive successfully even though they have been postponing.
“But to a larger extent, what we are already doing is to begin to think about that future by organizing data and make them have a handshake with whatever secondary source of data we are ever going to get, so that at the end of the day, whenever there is a cookie shutdown, we will already have some data that we can begin to process as well,” he said.
Ife Odedare, Brand Manager, Malta Guinness, explained that, with the phasing out of 3rd Party cookies by Google from its Chrome browsers which command a share of over 60% of the browsers, current indicators show that digital advertisers are not yet fully ready for a post-cookie world. He asserted that re-targeting will likely take a big hit until more compliant solutions are developed and made widely available while outlining 3 proposed workarounds for digital marketers.
These alternative options, he mentioned, include first party cookies which will require marketers to invest in the work required to get data directly from consumers with their consent using forms and other appropriate tools, where the data will then be used to create customer experiences and targeting for consumers who opt in.
The second option, according to him, is contextual targeting/advertising. The digital guru said this involves placement of ads on 3rd party platforms determined by the relevance/content of the platform to the ad in question.
“On IDs, it’s important to note that with the cookies phase out, device fingerprinting (collecting device data to form unique fingerprints) will also be affected. In its place, ad-tech companies will likely explore a variety of identity solutions using personal information voluntarily provided by first party users to create unique IDs that are encrypted and matched as appropriate. Google, as part of its Privacy Sandbox initiative, is developing tools to serve as alternatives – details of which we’ll know as the cookie phase-out kicks in,” he said.
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