The messy meso

Value can often be found in the middle

The messy meso

I was on a call last week and someone mentioned (when describing their desired media strategy) about marrying the macro and micro. Something I think about a lot.

This is Meso. Meso is latin for middle.

Meso is most commonly found in research professions, and I’d argue that not many think about meso in advertising strategy terms (just because I’ve never heard it used in person), and that’s because it’s messy. Very very messy.

When producing an advertising strategy, one minute you’re drawn to the high-level macro head-nodding, and the next you’re drawn in to micro log level data insights. Both sides arguing that each other are wrong and that they are right – but in reality, a big opportunity for advertising professionals is to get their hands dirty in the messy meso.

Meso is also *perfect* for programmatic. Technology and data enabled advertising (the definition of programmatic), and by design that brings together the macro of advertising and the micro of data and tech. You can’t have one without the other. Understanding this union in the middle and the factors you can dictate within it, is where big wins can be made.

More details on meso here - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Level_of_analysis

In other news… Neustar sells for $3.2bn

Neustar is a heavyweight in the US (& somewhat in rest of world, but less so) when it comes to advertising identity resolution. Huge customers on both buy and sell side, and despite the headwinds around identity, they have recently exited for what appears to be a lumpy sum (27x EBITDA) to Transunion.

Why this is interesting is that it flies in the face of commonly perceived wisdom about identity going away (not just ads, but in general). Panels are back in fashion. Endless articles about the death of the cookie. Banning of targeting advertising in the EU. You get it.

How on one side do we have companies pumping in billions of $’s to companies which connect user identity across devices & environments whilst on the other we have activists & conflicted corporations (Apple) who think identity is going away?

How do advertising industry constituents make sense of these huge macro and micro factors? Answer = getting their hands dirty in the messy meso.

Have a good rest of your week.