Dentsu Aegis Launches 'People-Based Insights' Platform

In the US, marcoms giant Dentsu Aegis Network has rolled out M1, a people-based insights, planning, activation and measurement platform. John Lee, Chief Product and Data Officer of subsidiary company Merkle, will lead the initiative as President of M1 globally.

Dentsu Aegis acquired data-driven consumer insights and analytics specialist Merkle last year, and the latter firm has since designed M1 as a platform using real people data, instead of proxies, device IDs, cookies and panels. The platform taps in to anonymized ID data on 'every adult in the US population', gathered from the DataSource database of 242 million anonymized individuals, containing details of actual name, address and / or e-mail address. For each unique ID, M1 provides proprietary insights on more than 1,000 demographic, behavioral, and motivational attributes from over 30 sources - including the Dentsu Aegis Consumer Connection Survey. Resulting data can be matched with clients' first-party CRM data through an on-boarding 'safe haven', enabling Dentsu Aegis agencies to add to their understanding of existing customers and prospects.

M1 will now sit as a central global resource that will serve all the network's agency brands. Lee (pictured) oversaw the new offer's development and will take responsibility for its continued rollout - with the UK to launch in 2017 and further countries to come in 2018. He will report to both Merkle CEO David Williams, and John Murray, President, Amplifi Global.

Dentsu Aegis Network Americas CEO Nigel Morris comments: 'We believe the future of our industry is a personalized and addressable one, requiring a holistic understanding of people's behavior and motivations. With the deployment of M1 across our US business and a planned global rollout, we are now at the forefront of this evolution'.

Web site: www.dentsuaegisnetwork.com .