As a fan of Whose Line is It Anyway?, I was tickled to give a nod to this hilarious improv show by programming Who Owns Data Collaboration Anyway? for RampUp 2023, LiveRamp’s annual conference where marketing and technology change-makers meet. This year’s theme was “connected by data,” and Who Owns Data Collaboration Anyway? fittingly featured panelists representing a variety of business functions: Lauri Vela, SVP Performance Marketing Omni-Channel at Synchrony; Amber Minson, Chief Revenue Officer at BlueApron; Lynn Hemans, VP, Consumer Intelligence and Analytics at The Hershey Company; and Lana Rainier, NA Media Analytics and Insights Senior Director at Procter & Gamble.
So, who owns data collaboration?
Spoiler alert—ownership of data collaboration strategy shouldn’t fall to one person in an organization. If you only have one owner, or even one team focused on it, the brand and business value you can build through it is already limited.
“That’s the wrong question to say, ‘who owns data collaboration?’ I think the approach that I was taught many years ago way back at Intuit is we actually had a strategy where we told the investment community that data was an asset for our business. The more that the entire business team is thinking about data as an asset that you can absolutely leverage, especially in today’s world where first-party data is so incredibly valuable to us, that really sets the stage where it isn’t about who owns what. It’s that we all are thinking about how we get the most from the data,” Amber shared.
Lynn echoed this notion of data’s “trapped value,” which she is passionate about unlocking. “I truly believe with the right infrastructure and ecosystem all tied together, you can use this information to unlock the trapped value … And I’ve done this in my former world when I worked for YUM Brands and now at Hershey. There is a lot of trapped value, and so that’s why I think it’s so important to get after it now, get ahead of the game. And then our brands will wind up leading versus being a fast follower,” she said.
Using consumer and shopper data for collaboration
Prompted by moderator Daniella Harkins, LiveRamp’s SVP of Product Go-to-Market, Lynn, Amber, Lana, and Lauri went on to share how they work with different teams to align on business goals and get buy in for data collaboration use cases that benefit consumers and enhance their experiences.
“Data collaboration means bringing the data and insights that we have through our analytics and insights and pairing that with data that other companies may have. [For example,] we partner with our retailers where we bring our consumer data, they bring their shopper data, and we can combine that in a data clean room to really find those consumers in the best way to deliver the right message at the right time and the right place. So it’s the power of really bringing that data together to identify those consumers that our brands are trying to connect with,” said Lana.
To learn more—and see what Daniella, Amber, and Lauri are laughing about to boot!—watch the session here.
