Why DCO doesn’t work.

As advocates of a better, more relevant marketing, we frequently talk about DCO as a technology that’s worth considering. DCO, or Dynamic Creative Optimisation, is an approach where data is used to help tailor the message in a creative way to the recipient, at the same time influencing the media buying. The best thing since sliced bread!

The best thing since sliced bread!

Of course it’s not only the technology that’s important. On the other hand, if technology makes things possible that weren’t before, I think we should embrace that. Especially if these possibilities are for the better. I don’t know about you, but to me, relevance might be the most important subject in marketing. Tailoring messages to a context is kind of a big deal. Especially when it comes to doing it at scale. A perfect pitch will always consider the audience. In one-on-one conversations this is something we do naturally. And maybe this is why there’s still a difference between advertising and sales: advertising sets the scene while sales turns it into a personal thing.

.. difference between advertising and sales: advertising sets the scene while sales turns it into a personal thing.

So when technology helps us transcend these boundaries, that’s a good thing, right? The problem with innovation is that something new might not have a clear-cut definition. To a lot of people, DCO seems to be “a technology”. Something to consider, something to test. I’m absolutely in favour of trying and testing. But when something doesn’t have a straightforward definition, the technology might not be worth more than the name itself. That’s what we see happening with DCO in a lot of cases. After all, DCO is a means to an end: to communicate in a more relevant way, using data. When all this is wiped off the table by putting the technology in front of that final goal, we’re not getting anywhere.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to claim the technology. I’m not propagating that we're the best (but open for that challenge), or that you should work with us if you want to do a DCO project. It’s in our best interest that DCO is becoming a standard marketing principle, that it’s something common and no longer novel. Then we can focus on the strategy and the creative part and make a difference there, not just in the “we can build it” part. Let’s compare it with Tesla .. They need a market of electric vehicles to be an outlier. Or compare it with websites. Suppose your website builder delivers a shitty unfunctional website. You know enough about the web to understand it’s not the technology that’s bad, it’s the implementation.

What we see a lot these days is that DCO is picked up as something an advertiser heard about and briefed their (media) agency on as something to try. The next thing we know, it has been tried, it didn’t work, and the program is canceled.. Conclusion: DCO doesn’t work (for us).

This is horseshit. If DCO doesn’t work, the implementation is flawed. Sure, DCO isn’t the answer to all your marketing problems. Sometimes, perhaps often, it’s not worth the investment or it’s not the solution to the thing you are trying to solve. Compare it with learning a new language: it might not be worth the effort, it might take too long or you might not feel like it, but being able to communicate in the native language of the other guy, will always give you an advantage. In the same way, if DCO makes sense in a given context, and if the right data is available, it will always make a difference! Because it’s about relevance. It’s about tailoring your message to the receiver. This is always a good thing.

The enemy of DCO is bad implementation. A client that demands it because she heard about it, little appetite at the agency side (for whatever reason: technological, working harder, abuse, less control, more transparency that not everyone is waiting for ..) and the next thing we see is a shitty implementation that “proves” DCO doesn’t work.

It makes me angry. It makes me sad.

Let’s do it right, we will all benefit from it! Not in the least the consumers who are fed up with all the irrelevant shit that’s shoved in their throats.

Let’s do it right, and be the difference we want to see in this marketing world.

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