Ground Control launched in Melbourne on March 1st, 2020. There was a whiff of COVID at the time, but we certainly were not expecting to just have a couple of weeks in the office together before the lockdowns kicked in.
We started the business with the pre-existing Brandwatch clients from One Small Step Collective (who brought AI-powered social listening tech Crimson Hexagon to this part of the world, before they were acquired and assimilated into Brandwatch), and Blackwood Seven, pioneers in AI-powered MMM (and now acquired and assimilated into Kantar).
Right from the start, only a minority of our clients were actually in Melbourne, and one of the hidden benefits of the whole COVID process was the normalisation of video calls. So, not only could we efficiently and effectively service clients in other parts of the country, we could also pick up clients around the world (or at least where time zones overlap at the start or end of the day). Just this week we have had meetings with clients or prospects in the US, Hong Kong, Singapore, Japan, and of course, Australia and New Zealand.
It’s shaping up to be a busy year ahead.
We have a sharper focus on a portfolio of tech that is all about driving better ROI for advertisers, and making their agencies look smart. There will always be a place for consumer insights, but right now, the brands and agencies we are talking to want cheaper, faster, better solutions.
And, of course, AI is taking centre-stage. We have been banging on about AI-powered tech to help marketing for, well, 4 years, and then along comes ChatGPT and the whole ecosystem suddenly changed. It’s the classic threat/opportunity scenario. On the threat side, everyone thinks ChatGPT can solve all the problems that our specialist tech does (mostly, it can’t, but it can do a great job of seeming like it does). But on the opportunity side, people are now more comfortable with the predictive power of AI and are finally grasping that the weird stuff we have been talking about (generative marketing attribution) actually might have some legs.
Anyway, if you spend all your money on performance advertising, we have some tech that can make that all work more efficiently and effectively by improving the data and eliminating wastage.
If you spread your money across channels, and have some more complex media analytics requirements, we have some tech for that too.
And if you’re one of the agencies we’re not already talking to, let’s have an intro chat. We can make you look even better. It’s our birthday gift to you.
