Tech Trends & Ethical Dilemmas: Privacy, AI, and Industry Transformations

Check out the full episode below! Enjoy the Exchange? Don't forget to tune in live Friday at 12 pm EST on the Greenbook LinkedIn and Youtube Channel!

 

Karen Lynch and Lenny Murphy dive into hot-button issues ranging from drone privacy concerns to cutting-edge AI technologies. They discuss Colgate's use of digital twins, the rapid evolution of AI in brand research, and the critical challenges surrounding privacy and ethics.

The episode wraps up with significant industry updates, including the Omnicom and Interpublic merger, highlighting the need for innovation in an ever-changing market landscape.

Many thanks to our producer, Karley Dartouzos.  

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Transcript 

Karen Lynch: It says it's showtime.

Lenny Murphy: There it is. We were ready. We were so ready.

Karen Lynch: We were quiet. Exactly. Right.

Lenny Murphy: So we were like, whoa. So I feel like we should have music playing today.

Karen Lynch: I don't know if y'all can see there's snow floating in the background over there. Very festive. Oh, I still have my sun blocking, you know, easel paper. But, um, like there's like, it is winter. Yeah, I know I should have a fire over there. Maybe I'll get one of those like, Anyway, not going to get one of those, but yes, there should be a fire. Maybe. Oh, I could always put like a Yule log on the telly in my. There you go. There we go. Yeah, it'll be next year. Note to self next year. I'll have the Yule log on the telly. There we go.

Lenny Murphy: We're waiting on snow to start here, so I don't know if we're going to get like you guys are, though. Yeah, yeah, no, it's a pretty good one.

Karen Lynch: I didn't really expect it to be quite like this, but it's a pretty good one. It's really pretty snow, so. That's cool.

Lenny Murphy: Are you going to have a white Christmas since we're talking about it? Is it going to stay or is it just pretty for now and then it goes away?

Karen Lynch: I didn't know this was going to happen today, so I'm feeling a little confused.

Lenny Murphy: Anyway, that's fine. We shall see.

Karen Lynch: Well, keeping with the holiday theme, Merry Christmas, Happy Holiday, Happy Hanukkah. Happy Hanukkah.

Lenny Murphy: It all starts next week. Right. Kwanzaa, the whole shebang, wherever you celebrate. Happy, happy.

Karen Lynch: Happy, happy to everybody. Glad to be here today. And here's the deal, folks. We're going to have to just do this every week come the new year. There's way too much. There's way too much. And first of all, Lenny and I both enjoy it, but the reality is it's each week, there's just a lot going on. And I feel like the speed of change right now is so fast that even a week, sets us back a little bit. It certainly is a lot to take in for us to kind of curate and come up with what's shareable in a half an hour. But for you all, I feel like, you know, the service that we can do for you is to keep you informed week after week.

Lenny Murphy: And it's and it's all important, right? I mean, we are curating as we pick the articles that we want to include here. So it's not like we're just dumping, although every once in a while, but because there is so much legitimate news, you know, content, et cetera, et cetera, that we think is really important. And yeah, to your point, you know, two weeks, we have to leave a lot on the cutting room floor now. There is some discussion about a path to maybe get some of that stuff and package it up and share that in other ways next year. We'll see where we get to, but yeah, I agree. I think we have to do this weekly or we just can't.

Karen Lynch: We'll be taking time with our family. Over the next few weeks, but come January, I don't know what we'll be doing, I don't think we're back on the 3rd. I don't remember now, are we back on the 3rd? I have to look at the calendars.

Lenny Murphy: Back on the 3rd, then we'll start every week starting the 3rd, so.

Karen Lynch: First time I'm hearing it too, guys. Oh yes, by the way, Lenny, Lenny and I, anyway, we are long overdue for a phone call that just hasn't really happened. So you're seeing Lenny and I talking for the first time in two weeks also, really like one-on-one.

Lenny Murphy: You are, so yeah, good stuff. Well, and okay, and our goal is always to keep it around 30 minutes, but to your point, there's a lot to cover.

Karen Lynch: There really is.

Lenny Murphy: Plus, you know, it's the last day of work for us, at least theoretically, at least scheduled. At least scheduled. I can say I won't have any meetings, I don't think, over the course of the next two weeks.

Karen Lynch: Yeah, yeah, I personally am taking Monday, Tuesday off, So I will be back on the 2nd. But I will be checking emails, of course, if anybody needs anything. The exchange at greenbook.org is still the place to send your information so that it is not up to chance that we come across your news. The best thing for you to do is send those stories to us. So we'll be checking that and making sure that anything that happens in the next two weeks is fair game for conversation.

Lenny Murphy: Shall we yeah, well, I have to do one more thing though on so your lights which are incredible So is it Christmas or are you doing a drone imitation?

Karen Lynch: The drugs don't even bother me although I can't imagine where you're going with the drones. I find it really interesting because like, I don't know, I think it's really cool. Like, you know, people, Tim and I have had a lot of conversations about privacy and the fact that, you know, hypothetically they were, there's some over Connecticut too, I guess, or there were some sightings over Connecticut. And the idea is if a drone was in my neighborhood, but I'm outside in my neighborhood, they're allowed to be filming me outside of my neighborhood. Like there's no, um, that's okay. Like if I'm out in the world, if I'm walking on the street in my town, the drones can capture that. There's like, anyway, so that to me is a very interesting aspect of this, is the privacy aspect. And again, that can send us down a very slippery slope, so.

Lenny Murphy: There's all types of places to go with that other than, I would just say that the entire topic presses every one of my geek buttons. We won't take it any further than that. Yes, yes.

Karen Lynch: I may or may not have heard that you were told not to talk about the drones at one other point because somebody brought up the drones. And I was like, wait, are we not allowed to talk about them? And they're like, for different reasons, Karen. Because I'm ready to talk about them from a fun standpoint and everything. And someone else was like, settle down. Don't go there.

Lenny Murphy: And I'm like, I'm itching. I'm itching. You know my prediction. It'll come true at some point. I'm telling you, this is just a step towards it. But anyway.

Karen Lynch: You and I can talk at 12: 30. There we go. About all of that. When the live button goes back off, I'll say, go, Lenny.

Lenny Murphy: You've got 10 minutes. But let's go. It ties into AI and tech and all of this good stuff. So let's start.

Karen Lynch: So yeah, and we're going to get to something super fun AI related, but let's just talk about these two brands that have gone public with some of their initiatives. And what I mean by that is Colgate has piloted digital twins for product development. They've spoken about this. This isn't a secret. What's interesting to me about it is that there are press releases about it. So they are publicizing their efforts in the digital twin space. This is a big brand who is vocally and publicly sharing, hey, we're doing this. We are using digital twins for our, you know, consumer input. And I just think that's really interesting to me. Yep.

Lenny Murphy: And let's be clear, when you say digital twins, you can, that's a synthetic sample. So, you know, it's an avatar, it's an agent, it's all these terms, right, kind of wrapped up in the idea of, you know, it tests product concepts with digital avatars, digital brands of consumers. So we've been talking about it. We've been saying this was, and we know other brands are doing it too.

Karen Lynch: It's just that, you know, this link that Karley's going to share, this is a Reuters link. I mean, this is a press release that they could use or not a press release they share. I think they were at an event where they shared it. And then the press picked it up. So yeah, it's pretty cool. Pretty cool.

Lenny Murphy: It is. And here we are, right? If you had been listening to The Exchange for the last year, this should not surprise you, because we knew it was coming.

Karen Lynch: And other brands, if you're listening and you're a brand and you haven't gone there, it's time.

Lenny Murphy: Just give it a shot, test it out. Well, shout out, on that Colgate, we actually have a podcast episode coming up with Delica Osler.

Karen Lynch: I think it comes out next week, I think.

Lenny Murphy: It comes out Monday. It comes out Monday from Colgate. So if you want a little more context on what Colgate is thinking, then tune into that podcast. Yeah, cool, good timing.

Karen Lynch: Yeah, that's great timing. Good, good, cool.

Lenny Murphy: Read.AI, same thing. We've been talking about this happening.

Karen Lynch: This is so interesting to me, friends. So Read.AI, I'm sure you know, they have tested their AI-powered answers feature. And this is interesting to people in the industry for a couple of reasons. So it's their AI-driven answers feature, so basically, you can ask a question sort of like Quora, I guess, or, you know, even Googling an answer or even asking chat GPT, but you can go into Read.AI and you'll get responses based on user content, right? So it's basically making it interactive and engaging. But what's interesting to me about it is if I have a question about a brand, I might go to Read.AI and do some brand research. I might be a consumer doing some brand research in Read.AI's platform which is great stuff because of the anonymity of the user profiles. So that's something, again, to pay attention to and just see what they're doing, because that's a whole lot of data to be mined for your brands.

Lenny Murphy: Yep, yep. And we did a podcast a long time ago, I think last year with Read.AI. And think about what we saw as AI started to emerge, they quickly wait, we're sitting on a goldmine of information. No, chat GPT, you know, Google Center, you can't get it without a license. Yeah, it's because they're monetizing us, they have a research function, they always have. Now they're incorporating AI into this kind of, you know, universal, you know, question and answer. And I'm sure that it will build from their great example of taking a redstone and thinking of your own community. Or your panel, or whatever the case may be, or your existing repository of insights. It's the same basic idea. Yes, we're just going to see more and more of that emerging.

Karen Lynch: Yeah. It's really cool stuff. Cool stuff.

Lenny Murphy: Speaking of questions and answers.

Karen Lynch: All right. All right. If you're not, you know, enough of a geek that you haven't been paying attention to OpenAI, they've been doing this for 12 days of shipmas. In this house with Tim Lynch, he's been tracking this every day. Today is the last day. Today is day 12, just so you know, at one o'clock Eastern, they'll be the last one. We don't know what OpenAI is doing today. But among the announcements this past 10, 11 days was 1-800-CHAT- So voice and AI text. I did it for the first time a little bit earlier before the show and I was just like, holy cow, I don't even know how to respond. Lenny hasn't done it yet. So we're going to do it live. Okay. So Karley, you have to, you know, like shout or something if you can, if you can't hear this, Lenny, let me know if you can't hear this, but I'm going to turn my mic down right to my phone and see if you all can hear 1-800-CHAT-GP. Let's see what happens. It's going on speaker. Hello again. It's Kat DPT, an AI assistant. Our conversation may be reviewed for safety. How can I help you? Hey, Kat. Can you give us some ideas to get in the holiday spirit? Absolutely. How about starting with some holiday decorating, listening to festive music, or baking some seasonal treats? You could also watch a classic holiday movie or plan a get-together with friends or family. What's your favorite way to celebrate? I love the movie idea. Do you have any recommendations? Oh, definitely. You can't go wrong with classics like Home Alone, Elf, or The Grinch. Or if you're in the mood for something heartwarming, It's a Wonderful Life is a beautiful choice. Do you have a favorite among these? I love all of those. My favorite is probably Love Actually. Are you planning a movie night soon? I'm not. How are you celebrating, Chat? Well, as an AI, I don't celebrate in the traditional sense, but I do get to enjoy all the festive conversations and help spread holiday cheer. It's pretty sweet. How are you planning to celebrate this year? You know what? I think I'm going to have to end, although I could talk to you all day. Thank you so much. OK. She doesn't want me to hang up. She wants me to stay. I was like, please talk to me.

Lenny Murphy: I want to engage in a sweet gig.

Karen Lynch: How crazy is that? Yeah. How insane is that interaction?

Lenny Murphy: It is.

Karen Lynch: Yeah, friends, you can talk to her. I mean, this just took it to a whole new level for me because now I'm literally having a phone conversation with an A.I. Who is just talking to me and having a conversation that I might have.

Lenny Murphy: Well, and think about it. So it's free. Anyone has access to this. If you have a telephone, if you have the ability to call, I assume anywhere in the world would be, I guess. If they're, anyway, the point is, you don't have to download anything. You don't have to have an account. You don't have to do anything of that nature. It's simply free access to information on demand and not just information.

Karen Lynch: I mean, that's a, so that's pretty, that's pretty crazy. Yeah, this is information, but also engagement, interaction. Yes. A little bit of connection, which is the weird part. A little scary because suddenly we're almost almost like the engagement is what I found most interesting. And I guess my facial expression probably showed that, but I'm like, when she says things like good choices, now I'm getting validation from AI, right? Like really interesting.

Lenny Murphy: What is that going to do? Well, the movie, what was it? Her with Joaquin Phoenix. Yeah. Which we've talked about before. Right. I mean, guys, we're there.

Karen Lynch: That's that. So, I mean, yeah, there's other things, you know, I don't know what today's announcement is going to be. There are other, other, other things. What did Tim just say?

Lenny Murphy: Oh, I'm not seeing the chat. Sorry. Uh, it's liberating for those that don't have bandwidth, et cetera. It is 800 in the U S but also 800 chat GPT in what's app outside the U S. So that's interesting integrated with WhatsApp instead of metas. Um, okay.

Karen Lynch: OK, I know. So for all of this, just OK. But I think, as I think I said in the beginning, and Lenny has said it before also, things are moving fast, HS. I know. Well, but you could talk to ChatGPT and do it anyway. A one-on-one conversation is great for introverts. It's just moving really quickly. All of these things that they are doing are moving really quickly. So let's shift into this Google agent space. Because that's another huge thing. We've been talking about agents and what that's going to mean for our industry, for research, but the reality is this agent space that Google has launched is going to be equipping organizations that have this technology built into their platforms with a lot of power. I mean, talk about, what is that single source of information? Knowledge management systems, like everything, are suddenly being managed in a very different way.

Lenny Murphy: Yes. Well, and not just managed, but executed on, right? I don't want to include the link in here, but Salesforce announced basically the same thing. I mean, everybody is doing this, the next generation is the agentic approach, which is not just information, but action. They're building programs, effectively, for all intents and purposes, but on steroids that function as if an employee, you know, we're doing these functions. Revolutionary from a process standpoint. Then, we are going to see so many things play out on this whole agent component, personally and professionally. It's crazy.

Karen Lynch: Yeah. And one of the, one of the quotes from the, if you, you know, clicking on the link that Karley shared there about this, With Notepad LLM Plus, your employees can upload information to synthesize, uncover insights, and enjoy new ways of engaging with data, such as podcast-like audio summaries and more. So you can query the system with your own data in it, and it will share it with you in a way that you can take it all in. You can listen to it, which is pretty darn cool. To get that kind of a share back of a query, I think is going to be really cool.

Lenny Murphy: So. I mean, imagine that combined, I'm sure that it probably is already or will be soon in Slack, right? I mean, we use Slack extensively. We share information or Notion, the read AI, all of these transcripts and meetings, et cetera, et cetera, this entire knowledge base of everything that you're incorporating. Yeah. And to parrot that back from an audio standpoint. Excuse me. Yeah. I know. It's just moving really fast, friends.

Karen Lynch: And so anyway, and if it makes me and Lenny just say, oh, man, this is really, this is happening, I can just imagine for some of you, it can be really overwhelming. So I'm glad you're here, and I'm glad you're listening, and we'll all be OK.

Lenny Murphy: Well, time gets into the next thing of Google DeepMind's new video model plus the launch of Sora. We just said we're kind of geeking out about how we could make an audio Compilation. Well, it can do a video too. So imagine if Whatever I imagine? I think we probably should try it. Yeah, you know, working. That's all this information now but it is an anime Yeah, you know Yeah, and there we go and Yeah, and by the way some of the video I've seen on Uh, not just sore, but also the deep mind, some of the early stuff. Yeah. I mean, boy, it's, I almost dropped the F palm again. It is effing amazing. Like truly you have to put the expletive in there. It is mind blowing how good it looks. It is hard to differentiate that it is, uh, not true. Saying that Grock Grock, uh, released one too. It is crazy how realistic it looks.

Karen Lynch: Yeah. Yeah. And I think, um, it's not, it's not, we don't have a link for it. I'm pretty sure I saw it on LinkedIn and it was, um, Alfred from listen labs in his LinkedIn feed. I think he experimented with it and shared. And I looked at it, it was his likeness and I looked at it for a while and he was in this very long sort of Cape and I'm like, Oh, that's cool. Like not Cape, like one of those like jackets, you know, dusting the floor kind of Cape like jackets. Very, very futuristic. And, and I, it took me a minute. Even though he was explaining he was using the tech, it took me a minute to think that it wasn't really, that's not really what he was wearing. It took me a minute to kind of reconcile what I was seeing with who I have seen in person. Anyway, it's a little jarring, I think, to think about what's possible.

Lenny Murphy: It is, and it's broader, yeah. Boy, there's so much to unpack over the next year and hell, next month on these the implications when it's that readily available. What does that mean for fraud? What does that mean? You know, we're talking to people and, you know, from a research standpoint, let alone differentiating reality from fiction. Yeah. You know, it's big. I know. You know, let's think about that.

Karen Lynch: Just going down that rabbit hole with you a minute is, you know, how many times do we do as research companies ask participants to upload video, to kind of be like, upload a video, because that's some sort of a fact checking that they're actually a real person, right? But are we entering an era where we really have to make sure those uploaded videos aren't AI-assisted videos and they're actually real people doing what they really want to do? So I don't envy you, friends, but you have to be paying attention to this and stay a step ahead of the curve. I'm preaching. I'm preaching.

Lenny Murphy: I'm ready to get out my damn horse. You should. Because this sounds like science fiction. It's not. It's a science fact. Just because we're not seeing that widespread yet. And we may come up with reasons why somebody wouldn't do it. But we also didn't think that there would be multimillion dollar businesses set up overseas that are based on $0.25 per answer for a survey.

Karen Lynch: Yeah, go ahead. I'm sorry.

Lenny Murphy: No, I mean, there are not some enterprising people in, you know, in Asia or Eastern Europe or the place, the usual suspect countries that are not, you know, setting up phone banks with this technology to be able to tap into these resources. I'm telling you, they are. I'm sure it's happening right now. It's just not a scale yet. Yeah, yeah.

Karen Lynch: Well, and you know, I know we want to talk about Entropics too, but these, these, I'm jumping to these smart glasses for a minute, because it's all related to this, like this world that we're living in. You know, going to the local mall and I'm doing some Christmas shopping and I walk past a sunglasses hut and there's, you know, the Meta Ray bands, like right in the window being advertised as I'm walking through the mall and I'm like, gosh, this is so surreal to me that these glasses are right here. I said to, you know, Tim, I was like, do you want these glasses? And he's like, I still, you know, the Google Glass, you and he has that Google Glass trauma. But Sonos releases their kind of smart glasses with AI trans translation, real-time translation, and I'm sitting here thinking, like, and I could be walking down the street wearing these sunglasses, talking to somebody in a different language, and having it be translated to me real-time, and suddenly the language barrier is gone. Like, can that really be happening? I think the reality of what this technology is going to allow for, but also my daughter and I were then talking about this, and I said, you know, imagine you're staring in front of the shelf, and you say out loud, you know, to your glasses, gosh, which brand is the healthiest for me? Or which bread should I buy? Which bread is great for people who have gluten sensitivities? And the glasses give you that information and help you shop. If you're wearing them, when you're looking at a shelf, I mean, the possibilities of smart glasses being actually integrated so much into our day that you can just buy them walking through the mall, like it just seemed surreal. The price points are significantly down. You know, they're, this is not an, I don't want to say unaffordable, because for some, of course it is. So I speak from a place of, you know, this kind of privilege, but you know, we're talking two to $300.

Lenny Murphy: Like that's very different. It's cheaper than a phone. I mean, I'm sure it's linked to your phone, I'm sure, but how much longer will that be the case? So, right. The, where there's simply equipped with, with, you know, wifi or whatever the case may be.

Karen Lynch: Yeah. Let's, let's circle back to to the privacy issues, but I guess it's perfectly okay if somebody is walking down the street, they pass me on the street, and they're wearing these glasses, and now I'm on their phones, and if they're having a conversation with me, like, it's so interesting.

Lenny Murphy: It's gonna be great. That was a debate during Glass, when Glass was rolled out. I mean, yes, Tim, we share the trauma, but that, you know, those things did bring up that conversation. Is that okay that you're, you know, you're walking through? I mean, we have that now. I'm sensitive if I'm recording my kids at an event, to not get everybody else's kids. There's issues that we have to resolve as society overall, which is probably good. We can mention the Anthropos Clio, which is a privacy-first focused AI application. There continues to be these tensions that we are nowhere near settling. And that's the world that we're going to be, we're going to have to grapple with all of those things.

Karen Lynch: Yeah. And what I liked about this article too, again, thinking about if I'm a company, you know, sample provider or, um, you know, recruiter, um, I, I would like to pay attention to, I would like to think that I would pay attention to this privacy first and some of the efforts they're doing to see what I can borrow for the work that I do. Um, and, and, you know, privacy first, I think is a really great mantra for the insights in the Linux industry right now is like, gosh, that's really what we need quality first, maybe is a stronger word than just privacy first. But, you know, those two quality, integrity, privacy, they're all really quite linked in.

Lenny Murphy: Yep, ethics of our industry. Well, that's a good segue you teed up our transition. The inside association unveiled their participant Bill of Rights.

Karen Lynch: The whole thing is it is it up to from other Bill of Rights that we've seen in the past?

Lenny Murphy: Have you scoured it that way? It's a new version, right? I mean, I think that there's just tons of thinking that continues to go into this and it's tied into the other kind of the cross-industry work that's being done. Yeah. Yeah, privacy is a big piece of it, obviously, quality, et cetera, et cetera. It's well, it's needed. The challenge remains that when it comes to respondents, there's supply challenges. We have different models of how to drive supply, and that supply in many cases is at risk of bad actors and contamination. We've covered that stuff extensively over the last year or so. It's good for us to be thinking about these things. I remain skeptical about the pragmatic impact, not because it's not good work. It absolutely is vital, good work, and hats off to everybody involved in it. But crappy people are going to do crappy things when they think they can make money. And it's always a fight to try and stay in front of them, despite how well-meaning we may be.

Karen Lynch: Yeah. Yeah. I hear you. I hear you. All right. We have so much more to cover, Lenny. We do. Go. Like, how do we even because it's kind of two that are sort of general, general within the industry, you know, we received some information that's kind of came at us via an email. So I'm not really sure that we have a link for this one, Karley, just so you know, maybe we do. Maybe I found a different link. I don't remember how good I was thinking this morning, but Angus Reid expanded their leadership team. So LP Porter as VP of qualitative services, Ben Hudson as VP of marketing, and what do you always say when there are leadership changes or leadership appointments, what's going on internally? Right.

Lenny Murphy: I mean, so there's been a lot with, uh, with, uh, with the Angus Reed group, whose members also, you know, I mean, Angus is a force to be reckoned with in Canada.

Karen Lynch: Another podcast episode that you had, right? Yeah.

Lenny Murphy: Yes. Yes, absolutely. Uh, the, um, you know, so rivals reached three, you know, they're connected. He still has some connection even to Alita. Although very passively, I think, the point is, there's a transition that's brewing for a large, significant player in the inside space. I don't know. We just pay attention to these things, right? It's all good. It means there's growth happening. There's rethinking of these things. And there's a lot of that occurring all over the place.

Karen Lynch: So, yeah. And in other industry news, C-Space is celebrating 25 years, which is pretty solid. But what they're doing to market is, I think, really interesting. To market, not to market, M-A-R-K-E-T, but to mark the anniversary they're launching an edition of Customer Insight. It's a guide that they have about their communities. So they're going to be launching a kind of a guide about where communities have been and then where communities are going. That's something you'll see if you click on the link that Karley has already shared. So yeah. So, you know, and, and they're particularly focused on engaging the next gen or Gen Z who are doing things very differently. So anyway, good for them, but also thank you to them for sharing. I think I'd like to see that to see kind of where communities have gone and where they see them going. That'll be interesting. Cause God knows we need community. If I can talk to an AI agent, not a human, you know, we got to give credit where credit's due.

Lenny Murphy: Let's do C space commuter space back in the day when Diane started the whole M rock back then, right, the market research on communities. I mean, they were the company, others were playing, but they, they kind of kicked down the door, right, right. And really drove growth of the category. So we're pioneers. And that's, that's great. We got a bunch of news. You want to just try and run through them?

Karen Lynch: Yeah, go. Yeah.

Lenny Murphy: Well, you know, Cantor media drama. Can't turn in episodes or flirtations like no, I think, you know, they're in a friend zone. Exactly. But HIV did submit an offer to buy Cantor media. Interesting. Is also the private equity group that owns Susie. Does that mean they'll mash them up? No, not necessarily. But kind of like Tama Bravo, we've seen a couple other big private equity groups that like space and Bain, they make multiple investments in the category of the research world. So that's really interesting. The HIG is, is, you know, they feel very bullish about the space and acquiring assets. So that's kind of cool. $1 billion for Kantar Media. Yeah, it's pretty cool. It's a big number.

Karen Lynch: Maybe by the new year, we'll have an acquisition and not just talkable. One, right? So maybe that will be, maybe that'll be.

Lenny Murphy: Yeah. Formal offer. I'm sure, you know, so it sounds like that's, uh, you know, if it's a good offer, that'll probably work. Um, uh, speaking of big valuation, their Databricks, uh, 95 billion valuation.

Karen Lynch: I love that number. I'm like, all right, I see you analytics, somebody on the consumer insights side of our industry. I see the analytics industry. Cool. Yeah.

Lenny Murphy: Yeah. And they're, they're, a foundational kind of analytics infrastructure company. So that's great. More consolidation, Read's acquired 7 cents. Congrats to Chip Lister. And that group, again, private equity backed. This was interesting. Nielsen integrates realized attention technology. That is a combination of eye tracking and facial coding. So as Nielsen beefs up their muscle around add testing and attention. And that one makes so much sense to me. Yeah. So, so pretty cool. They announced some senior appointments. This behavior was started by HANU. It's behavioral data, the capture behavioral data, behavioral network, integrated with Datality. So, Clint, you know, give you a shout out as well. So cool, cool stuff, cool partnerships there about just data about creating data ecosystems, primarily.

Karen Lynch: Yeah. Oh, another one. Yeah, that.

Lenny Murphy: So tick tock in Nielsen, this in this fragmented media ecosystem, fragmented platforms, as for them to now Nielsen to integrate with tick tock as an ad engine. Yeah. And to measure attention to the ads on tick tock.

Karen Lynch: Yeah. Which is a almost like an oxymoron, because I think the whole reality of TikTok is the platform can hold your attention for long, but these videos, maybe they got two seconds, three seconds before you could be, I know you're not really on TikTok, but as a woman who is, and with family members who are, like, God, you decide in the split second whether it's got your attention or not. It's fascinating to me, so.

Lenny Murphy: So that's interesting, the metric would be different.

Karen Lynch: The attention metric for TikTok is different than You can, it is really a split second to maybe one or two before you decide if you're going to stay or go. And then when you stay, how long do you stay? I, I just, I find it as a platform really interesting.

Lenny Murphy: So yeah. Well, of course we'll see, you know, my, my bet is the whole TikTok band thing won't fly.

Karen Lynch: I don't think so. I think people love TikTok. I really do. Like I know there's a business, there's business reasons for it, but, um, I'll tell you, if it went away, another one would have to pop up very quickly to fill the need and the behavior. This is content that generations, a new generation, will demand it. And whether it's done on Instagram threads or Instagram reels, they're getting this video content everywhere. It is what the people want.

Lenny Murphy: Yeah, yeah. We'll sell that place. And then lastly, this is a big one, Omnicom and Interpublic Merging. That's a big old honking merger, right? And Omnicom, they, well, so they've divested, I think they've divested most of their research assets. At one point, you know, they owned Mark, they owned Holland Partners. I think they've sold off most of those. So they were a holding company. With lots of kinds of marketing and data assets. Yeah. Merging with Interpublic, which is, you know, a huge, huge agency network.

Karen Lynch: So this is, you know, I, I haven't clicked on this particular link, but the largest ad global ad company now like that's what's happened. They've now become the biggest with this merger.

Lenny Murphy: I'm not sure that it's been fully approved. No, maybe it did. And I just missed that. But yes, they would certainly be bigger than WPP and Publicis and those groups. It would just control a massive amount of the agency market, creative and especially ad placement and delivery.

Karen Lynch: So big deal, big consolidation. Yeah. Dentsu. Would be the other big one. So those companies, would that drive Dentsu and WPP to merge? To compete? Maybe. Yeah, maybe, maybe. It's an interesting time. Last thing to wrap it up is that what all of that is driven by is data consolidation. That's the theme through all of these things that we've just talked about. It's data consolidation and data utilization.

Lenny Murphy: And take that back to the beginning of the conversation because all of this amazing stuff happening with AI allows us to unlock more value from that. And that's what- And more ways of getting, and more data to get. Like in a world where we have so much data, some of this new stuff that we're talking about is like, yeah, we have a lot of data, but also there's more data we need to get that we don't have yet.

Karen Lynch: And so I think that's the other part of it that's super interesting is, you know, you think we don't need more, but apparently we do because as the mediums change, as the lifestyles change and behaviors change, there's different things we have to measure and get data on, so. Absolutely, we need more data to make better decisions. And everything is like the agent component, all of that, right, is just about creating greater utility. Yeah, yeah.

Lenny Murphy: That hopefully brings forth a better world. And on that note. On that note. Happy New Year. Happy New Year. We hope for a better world. Yes. World peace. I don't know why I did that. World peace. I want to see John Lennon now all of a sudden at the end of Christmas. Maybe, maybe, maybe. But for real, Lenny, do you know what your New Year's resolution is going to be? Oh boy, I don't know. Let's make sure when we come back on the 3rd that we share whatever our resolution is going to be. Let's add that into the next episode because I bet there is one. I can tell you one thing: I continue to battle the weight up and down, right? Memorize. Oh, you went personal. Yes. Oh, because I think it's the one that matters most because, you know, it keeps me around doing all of this and being a dad and doing all those things. So probably that's like, you know, I lost 60 pounds before I, by God, I just need to do it again. So that's probably it. Yeah. Yeah. Well, health, obviously doing whatever you can for your health. I think that should be like a universal just always, always striving to take care of our health, right? And as we reach certain ages, then we need to focus on that a little more even, you know? Yes, because I did that drop before I hit my 50s. And now I expect it's gonna be harder. I think I look good for IX.

Karen Lynch: And you really do. We all have to, you know, bring out a game to, you know, to those stages. So yeah, yeah. All right. New Year. Yes. Yes. Happy holidays. Happy New Year. We'll see you all in January. Absolutely. Thanks, everybody. Bye. Bye.

Links from the episode:

Colgate Pilots Digital Twin for Product Development

Reddit Tests AI-Powered ‘Answers’ Feature

OpenAI’s ‘12 Days of Ship-mas’ Reveals Key Updates 

1-800-CHATGPT Rolls Out Voice & Text AI

OpenAI Expands Canvas to All Users

Google’s Agentspace Launched

Google DeepMind’s New Video Model 

Solos Smartglasses with AI Translation

Anthropic’s Clio Introduced

Insights Association Unveils Participant Bill of Rights

Angus Reid Group Expands Leadership Team

C Space Celebrates 25 Years 

HIG Submits Formal Offer for Kantar Media

Databricks Hits $95B Valuation

Radius Acquires 7th Sense 

Nielsen Integrates Realeyes’ Attention Technology 

Behavix Partners with Datality for Behavioral Data Marketplace 

TikTok and Nielsen Finalize Metrics Deal

Omnicom and Interpublic Merge