dunnhumby’s Hayward: End of the road for JICs?

A brave new world of single source data was championed by dunnhumby’s Martin Hayward at MediaTel Group’s ‘Future of Media Research’ seminar on Thursday.

Hayward envisaged a future world of single source data where IPTV, online and purchase activity would all be available in a single system, therefore allowing brands and advertisers to evaluate the true effect of advertising on purchase behaviour.

Hayward predicted a time where the industry would “look back fondly” upon a time where only TV viewing behaviour was determined by a sample of homes.

He believes we are on the “start of a journey” where eventually billions of pieces of data passively tracking consumer behaviour will enable joined-up insight and evaluation.

The general feeling of other panellists, and delegates, felt that while this is the likely endgame, these developments are in their infancy and will very much be a long term process.