Gurman Hundal, MiQ
"The marketer has the keys to every single platform that has all the business's data."
Gurman Hundal, MiQ
"Why just run an ad campaign for a client, when the intelligence that I can extract from that ad campaign has a much greater value?"
I
t is a constant refrain of those who criticise the UK tech scene that it lacks businesses with the ability to scale overseas. Only a few unconventional companies have been able to take a digital
business model from these shores to a global market and, most importantly, break into the US.
However, that’s precisely what Gurman Hundal has done with MiQ, which he launched in 2010 with business partner Lee Puri; it now boasts over 500 employees in 13 offices around the world.
MiQ, which rebranded from Media IQ earlier this year, has differentiated itself through a positioning of ‘marketing intelligence’. Alongside the programmatic ad buying platform it started out with, it has found even greater value lies in providing detailed insights and analytics around online behaviour, and in creating bespoke technology solutions that clients can adapt to transform their own businesses - brands such as BWM, Sony and Avis.
“Why just run an ad campaign for a client, when the intelligence that I can extract from that ad campaign has a much greater value?” Hundal pointed out to the audience at Oystercatchers’ Evolve event this month, where MiQ was an event partner.
He tells Marketing Week that the strategic insights gleaned from how campaigns perform – such as the interests and behaviour of those who engage with it, or the times and devices on which they are most likely to do so – have “much more power than just delivering a media KPI.”
Confident of what its platform could deliver, MiQ targeted the US market with intent, to the extent that it now does 75% of its business with American customers. With trade also burgeoning on this side of the Atlantic, Hundal explains that there’s plenty that separates the UK and US – but plenty that unites them too.
“If you start your business in the UK, you learn a lot of good skills because the UK doesn't have as big budgets [for marketing as some other countries] but it pretty much has the same amount of competition. You've got to be able to customise; you've got to be able to fight harder for every pound that you're going after.”
He says the US requires more simplification and standardisation,
but adds that “in the field of media and marketing the cultures are pretty similar”. That’s perhaps no surprise when the countries
are increasingly influenced by each other and consumers
share an enthusiasm for many of the same media providers and digital platforms.
MiQ’s business may have taken off by going west to the US, but it has looked east for the technological prowess and data science capabilities that power its growth. Its technological base is in Bengaluru (Bangalore), India, a hotbed for cultivating the necessary data specialisms, and one of the few locations in the world able to provide talent at a level concentrated enough for a business such as MiQ to scale globally at speed.
Hundal says: “The best decision we ever made was to launch a business in India, where we weren’t trying to sell to Indian clients, we were just trying to build our underlying technology and analytical capabilities and recruit some of the best talent in Bangalore.
”Yet even with such expertise at MiQ’s disposal, it is how it is applied that matters. Marketers’ requirements are complex and change rapidly, meaning any technology business today needs to be able to over-deliver."
Hundal is in no doubt that marketing is at the very centre of the business universe today; that its unique connection to the needs and desires of customers is set to be every brand’s key competitive advantage in a globalised economy, with increasing competition and a swelling number of data points. But there are plenty of things marketers still struggle to get a handle on.
One is that data often still resides in siloes within businesses. Unlocking these silos is crucial in maximising the value of the data companies hold and ensuring it can be used to improve the customer experience and increase profitable sales. As Hundal told the audience at Evolve: “The marketer has the keys to every single platform that has all the data about the client’s customers; the client’s competitors; the macro ecosystem, whether it is the social ecosystem, the weather – everything. So imagine if the marketing department is the place you go to influence strategy, not just be told how to execute strategy.”
Marketers’ problem is that they need to be able to bring their data together from across different platforms. They also need the capabilities and the KPIs for analysing the data to create actionable insight. And this is where MiQ believes it has the technology with
the power to thrust marketers right to the forefront of business decision-making.
British tech companies often struggle to scale abroad but 'marketing intelligence' firm MiQ is doing just that, by using insights from digital campaign data to put marketing at the centre of businesses' strategies.
How marketing's role
and responsibilities are shifting (TBC)
How one UK tech business saw global growth take off
Part of A Marketing Week content series sponsored by MiQ
Organisation
Marketing
The Future
14 August 2018