Oracle Marketing Cloud is pitching as a way for brands to break free of the vertical integration which characterises the ad tech and agency landscapes.
Its global vice president, Steve Krause, told AdNews that it wasn't going after agencies' lunches per se, but was pitching as a more flexible marketing tool than media agencies.
“We are not going to say because you use our DMP you have to use our DSP (we don't have a DSP), or you have to use our holding company agency,” Krause said.
“The ad world is full of strange forms of bundling and vertical integration where you buy a DMP but it comes with a DSP...even Google these days has gone down the path of wanting to do everything with them.”
Oracle has been a busy player in the ad tech space, and has been pitching to existing and potential clients in Australia about moving some of their marketing focus into the Oracle Marketing Cloud instead of more traditional above-the-line efforts.
Krause said it wasn't aggressively spruiking the point but instead was quietly building its platform and waiting for the weight of marketing trends to pivot towards it.
“I don't think what we're saying is everything should change overnight just because we enable it. I think what we're saying is that there are some really clear trends,” Krause said.
“The trends are advertising is going more digital than analogue. Advertising is becoming even more data-driven than less, more targeted and personalised and all of that.
“It's very clear that the customer patterns that were triggered by the internet but are now pervasive everywhere ... that is still playing out, but I don't think anybody sees it going back the other way.
“I'm not hearing anybody saying: 'You know what, print's about to take off'.”
He said Australian marketers weren't so much behind the eight-ball when it comes to their US counterparts, but there was a wider range of marketing talent here.
“What I've learned is that in Australia there's a wider dispersion of capabilities. There are some strong, advanced modern marketers. There are also quite a few folks who are still doing relatively basic things,” Krause said.
“There are marketers here where you can drop them right down in the US and all of a sudden they'd have a bigger audience and how they're doing the marketing would be up there with some of the best.”
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