Key Takeaways

•  MGM Resorts wanted to be able to personalize their customer experience as part of their five-year digital transformation strategy, and turned to identity resolution technology in order to obtain "data and insights" that were not readily available to them.
•  Lucky Brand needed to create a unified view of their customers. By leveraging identity resolution, Lucky Brand was able to not only discover 1.5 million customers that were not known to them based on their old methods, they were able to "correctly attribute $192 million in customer value" to those customers by finally having a unified view of their customer base.
• An unnamed global lingerie brand was able to use 3rd party data, as well as identity resolution to find out that a very wide swath of their client base liked athletic sportswear. This enabled this global brand to act on this preference and create a product that was a part of this space.
• Enterprise level automotive companies are "onboarding their offline data" so that they are in a much better position to ensure they have the correct customers matched to the vehicle recall. The result of this is a much lower media spend.

Introduction

 

Source

 

Brand Case Study: MGM Resorts

•  MGM Resorts wanted to be able to personalize their customer experience as part of their five-year digital transformation strategy, and turned to identity resolution technology in order to obtain "data and insights" that were not readily available to them.
• By replacing fragmented and, in some cases, inaccurate, information about their customers, they were able to establish a platform where the data was immediately available at key points before, during, and even after their guests visited the resort property. Specifically, MGM Resorts were set up so that they could send their customers personalized messages and customized promotions in order to surprise and delight their guests with a more "elevated experience" that in the end drives engagement between the property and the guest.
•  Prakash Ranjan, the vice president of engineering, marketing technology & digital ventures at MGM explains, "[b]eing able to trust our data and have access to it in less than an hour has been a complete game-changer. We had teams across the enterprise debating the accuracy and validity of their customer data models, [...] we’re no longer wasting time figuring out who our customers truly are. Each one of those teams can now do something more productive and in the best interest of our guests."
• Success metrics, as reported by MGM Resorts, were defined as the ability to build a "single universal Customer 360 database" that completely replaced "multiple separate team databases." Because of this, they were able to reduce significantly the "deduplication of records for greater accuracy in reaching customers." This allowed the resort to go beyond customer experiences just for gaming, and be able to create "flexible predictive modeling accounting for all customer experiences.
• According to Kabir Shahani, the CEO of Amperity which was the company that was tapped to build the identity resolution platform for MGM Resorts, "[t]he Travel & Hospitality industry is under extraordinary pressure to deliver business results despite the weight of everyday operations. It’s enterprise brands like MGM Resorts who have quickly recognized that without a comprehensive customer data foundation, their business is too prone to error, too slow, and lack the capabilities to positively impact their bottom line. Despite the challenges posed by the pandemic, Prakash and his team are helping the company experience strong business results by taking the necessary steps to tighten the loop between data-based insights and the guest experience."

Brand Case Study: Lucky Brand

•  Lucky Brand needed to create a unified view of their customers, and despite making prior investments in tech, marketing, and their customer service teams, they were failing when it came to consolidating their significant customer data. In fact, Lucky Brand had almost 13 million records surrounding their customers, but they were spread across "four siloed data sources" which was preventing them from providing their customers a personalized experience. In other words, even though they had all that data, there was no way for them to use it effectively. 
• By turning to a company that could assist with identity resolution, Lucky Brand was able to not only discover 1.5 million customers that were not known to them based on their old methods, they were able to "correctly attribute $192 million in customer value" to those customers by finally having a unified view of their customer base.

 

Source

 

• Michael Relich, the former chief operating officer of Lucky Brand [now at PacSun] asserted that "[t]his is the first step in building a holistic and actionable understanding of our customers, and the foundation for best-in-class personalization and customer experiences. [...]. We’re finding connections in our data where there are no unique identifiers. Without [identity resolution] those connections would remain hidden and the data would simply go to waste."
•  Lucky Brand projected for year one an $11 million ROI, which will come through as "efficiency gains, new use cases, and enhanced personalization opportunities."

Use Cases

• The research team found a source that lists 13 use cases for identify resolution, ranging from the automotive industry, to retail brands, and to the insurance industry.
• While brands were not named, we can summarize data from this when brands and/or companies have been alluded to, and we can name the industry it applies to. 
• The automotive industry can use identity resolution for a more effective way to alert customers about vehicle recalls. According to the source, some unnamed enterprise level automotive companies are "onboarding their offline data" so that they are in a much better position to ensure they have the correct customers matched to the vehicle recall. The result of this is a much lower media spend. Beyond vehicle and parts recalls, automotive companies can also harness identity resolution for specific features customers are looking for when purchasing their next vehicle. These features could be, for example, seat warmers. According to this source, one car company is using identity resolution to target customer prospects based on specific options they cared the most about. In other terms, if someone is looking for a vehicle with a certain kind of leather upholstery, then that company can use identity resolution in tandem with 3rd party data to zero in on that preference and thereby promote that exact feature to the specific potential customer in an omnichannel manner. 
•  Brands can leverage identity resolution to accurately target people interested in specific events, with surprisingly great results. Two examples surround the travel industry and the health and wellness industry. For the former, a travel company was able to reach out to people interested in the Fifa World Cup taking place in Brazil, with offers on trips to that country. In the latter case, the health brand was able to use identity resolution to reach out to users of weight and calories tracking apps, assuming that those users would also be interested in their health brand as they had the same preferences as their target customer. No success metrics were provided.
• When looking at the insurance industry, a key pain point for insurance companies can be sending an offer to existing customers that already have a policy with them. One insurance company is suppressing ads for policies their customers already have purchased from them by using people based search through Google Adwords to change their keyword targeting. Instead, what this insurance company can do is offer them an upsell on policies that are a complement to the ones they already have. This has resulted in a lower media spend. 
• An unnamed home improvement retailer chain that is one of the "biggest" in the industry reportedly partnered with Ibotta, which is a cash rewards app, in order to specifically target the customers of its largest competitor. By knowing who the app's users are, they can offer those same users competitive discounts and promotions, but at the same time not forgetting its existing customer base by sharing loyalty-based discounts with them as well. Success metrics can be measured here by observing whether the competitor's customers "converted and whether they’ve increased their own most loyal customers’ share of wallet."
• The in-house marketing team at an unnamed global lingerie brand wanted to get a much wider picture of the preferences of their customer base before expanding their product set. Specifically, they needed to understand what other product categories their customers were drawn to, even beyond the company's own product offerings. They were able to use 3rd party data, as well as identity resolution to find out that a very wide swath of their client base liked athletic sportswear. This enabled this global brand to act on this preference and create a product that was a part of this space.
• When digging into use cases for the cable industry, one unnamed cable TV network is leveraging identity resolution to link their media buyers 1st party data to 3rd party consumer data such as the expiration dates on car leases. This allows them to tell their media buyers exactly what programs are being watched by the people on their lists, and therefore, where to spend their media buying dollars the most effectively.
• For the telecommunications' industry, identity resolution can be used to personalize their customer's experience in their in-app ads, which can give the person "specific recommendations for phone and plan upgrades." This is an example of using established relationships with a customer base to keep competitors away from them.
•  Identity resolution is being used by an online restaurant reservation service to send different kinds of incentives to different customer segments. For example, those people that religiously use the service almost daily or weekly could be targeted with incentives to book when they are traveling. On the other hand, those that rarely use the reservation service could be targeted with discounts and promotional offers for restaurants close to where they reside.
•  Identity resolution can be particularly effective when the brand is something that is sold from grocery stores, fast food chains, and convenience stores. For example, if the brand is a soft drink then it can be incredibly difficult to figure out who your customer base truly is. In this use case example, an unidentified drink company teamed up with a large multinational grocery store and leveraged their loyalty card data to mine information surrounding the customer's drink preferences and buying habits. This is done in a privacy compliant way because they are using identity resolution across "the digital ecosystem." Both the soda company and the supermarket chain emerge as winners, as the grocer gets a new revenue stream from the soft drink company, and the soft drink company can run a targeted campaign that is guaranteed to drive sales.
• Demonstrating that identity resolution does not have to be all online, companies can use identity resolution offline effectively as well. Two examples provided by this source are a retailer that focuses on its "highest lifetime value customers with digital billboards solely based on location data." Digital billboards are "smart" so they can easily be dynamic and leverage identity resolution to provide laser focused offers. Another example of this is an insurance company that is using personalized direct mail to retarget high-value website visitors. When a member of that cohort goes to the website and asks for a quote, the insurance company sends them a personalized direct mailer in addition to a personalized message across all its digital channels.
•  In-store beacons combined with identity resolution is being used by an unidentified chain of department stores. It works by detecting when one of their customers is in a brick and mortar location. When the customer has been identified, they are sent ads that are personalized and tailored just to them through a 3rd party app. The retail store can then leverage that identity resolution to see the outcome this is having when shopping in-store.

Research Strategy