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Companies have come to rely on cookies, or small data packets that track people’s internet activity, to gather consumer data that allows them to serve targeted ads online. But given the choice, less than 50% of consumers accept cookies. Cookie-limiting data privacy laws are being codified around the world. Add to that a growing consumer expectation of privacy coupled with shrinking marketing budgets—it all adds up to a whole new era for advertisers.  

And just like any new era, this calls for new technologies.

Television New Zealand (TVNZ), New Zealand’s state-owned, commercially funded broadcaster, wanted to enhance personalized advertising on its streaming app, TVNZ+, while maintaining consumer privacy. Rob Hutchinson, TVNZ’s general manager of digital and data, knew that the organization needed to invest in cutting-edge marketing data tools to meet the moment. He learned of a new product called AWS Clean Rooms, which combines data from multiple sources to find overlapping characteristics, maintaining consumer anonymity by keeping unencrypted data hidden from all parties. Plainly put, this solution would allow TVNZ to meet its robust privacy policy and serve precisely targeted ads, potentially increasing advertisers' ROI exponentially.

TVNZ called Slalom in to help implement AWS Clean Rooms due to Slalom’s extensive AWS expertise and our ability to understand and deliver on TVNZ’s need. “The very first time I met the Slalom team, I described our business problem and Slalom reflected it back with such a degree of accuracy I was immediately confident that this would be a fruitful partnership,” says Hutchinson.

Together, we embarked on a six-week sprint to customize the AWS Clean Rooms architecture for TVNZ’s specific use case. This required a full integration with the network’s existing Microsoft Azure data platform and Adobe Experience Platform (CDP). We worked closely with AWS to identify and activate critical features into the solution, which was still in beta at the time.

Within 48 hours of launch, TVNZ ran its first campaign on the new platform, partnering with McDonald's to serve targeted ads to a TVNZ audience most likely to visit the quick-service restaurant. “The Clean Rooms structure allowed us to search for existing TVNZ viewers with a high propensity to engage with the advertiser, along with people who, data-wise, look a lot like them,” says Hutchinson. 

Traditional television advertising is at the top of the marketing funnel and is an amazing tool for building brand awareness. Using targeted ads, brands have the opportunity to accelerate past the awareness stage, engaging with customers who are either already favorable toward the brand or likely to be. The result? Targeted ads can garner anywhere from four to 10 times the return on ad spend (RoAS)

“Before this service and this project, Television New Zealand had no way of finding out the common customers between themselves and their corporate customers,” says Haris Khan, Slalom principal. “So this has opened up a few avenues for Television New Zealand—not just targeting ads, but also customizing based on customer profiles and behaviors.”

With AWS Clean Rooms, TVNZ can take a small advertiser database and compare those customer profiles to its own extensive data to find similar consumers—without exposing consumer data or running afoul of privacy regulations This can easily expand the list of customers to serve a brand’s ads from thousands to hundreds of thousands. And it has massive potential for small brands that can now use data-enriched marketing to access exponentially more potential buyers with surgical precision.

So, what’s next for TVNZ and its advertising partners? First, the network plans to scale the offering beyond its first batch of 10 early-adopter customers. “The TVNZ team followed back and they were like 'this is great,'” says Alex Black, Slalom principal. “They needed more bandwidth for this, so they worked to expand out the AWS capabilities and bring in more advertisers.” 

“This is a breakthrough for data platforms and for the data-sharing industry,” says Haris Khan. “With AWS providing the infrastructure, people now have a much greater ability to use data to collaborate. This work has shifted my view on where the data engineering community and industry is headed altogether.”

Adds Hutchinson, “This work leapfrogs us ahead of our competitors. We are now the only TV channel that can deliver this level of data-enriched marketing in New Zealand.”

“Advertisers are searching for ways to personalize engagement with consumers, and the solution we’ve built for TVNZ using AWS Clean Rooms provides this,” says Rio Longacre, global lead for advertising and marketing transformation at Slalom. “We are proud to be working with TVNZ and AWS to bring personalized advertising to the New Zealand market. The initiative was a huge success, demonstrating the incredible opportunity for broadcasters, like TVNZ, to be a leader in this space.” 

From global corporations to small businesses, it’s clear: when people use data collaboratively, everyone wins.