Press Release: In DMA’s 2016 Analytic Challenge data scientists from today’s leading data and analytics firms went head-to-head to determine who can best calculate a customer’s lifetime value and teams from AdTheorent and DataLab USA emerged as co-winners. Sponsored by DMA’s Analytics Community and EY (Ernst & Young LLP), the 2016 Analytic Challenge recognizes the top solutions to driving personalized customer interactions. Influent50 was awarded the runner-up prize. All three winning companies were highlighted earlier this month at DMA’s &THEN event in Los Angeles, where attendees gained a full briefing on the competitors and their solutions.
“An ever expanding sea of data is changing the way we communicate, do business and live almost every aspect of our lives,” said Tom Benton, DMA CEO. “And with data’s growing role in the marketing and advertising industry, the DMA Analytic Challenge is increasingly one of the most significant of DMA’s annual awards programs. We are proud to recognize the winners of this competition and celebrate their innovative and responsible use of data to improve lives.”
“At EY, we work with our clients to unlock information from large collections of data and wide networks of data in public domains,” said Joe Kruse, Data Analytics, Financial Services Office for EY. “In this data-rich environment analytical sciences are key to find meaningful signals that can be the difference for critical business decisions. EY has been extremely pleased to sponsor this challenge, to encourage participation in this field, to work with teams from a variety of disciplines, and to have the privilege to see how these teams have used their skills, creativity and persistence to create their solutions.”
Competitors in DMA’s Analytic Challenge were provided with two datasets containing more then 850,000 records, and were tasked with predicting the lifetime customer value of the customers listed within. Each of the three winning solutions were developed with a team of four or more data scientists. Common strategies used across solutions included segmentation, text mining and deep learning/machine learning techniques.
“AdTheorent’s machine learning platform is uniquely equipped to process immense amounts of data in a rapid and efficient manner, which capabilities we leverage each day on behalf of our advertiser clients in order to identify audience attributes and deliver unprecedented engagement,” said James Lawson, Managing Partner and CLO of AdTheorent. “We are especially proud of our brilliant team of data scientists, under the leadership of Xiaofei Du, and pleased to see our core capabilities leveraged to predict customer lifetime value in the lending space. We are thrilled to be awarded first place in the DMA Analytic Challenge and we thank DMA and EY for their efforts in organizing and administering the Challenge.”
“The DMA Analytic Challenge provides a great venue for companies like DataLab to share their innovative techniques within the realm of analysis, predictive modeling, and data manipulation with the marketing and analytic communities,” said Aaron Davis, Vice President, Analytics Team for DataLab USA. “I’d like to thank the DMA & EY for hosting the challenge, as well as the team at DataLab for putting forth another exceptional effort.”
“Influent50 is extremely proud of this DMA Analytic Challenge recognition as it demonstrates Influent50’s expertise in analytics with consumers age 50 and above,” said Junjun Yue, Analytics Director for Influent 50, an AARP Services Agency. “These consumers are critical as they control over 70% of all US disposable income and spend over $2 Trillion annually. Influent50 has been helping clients more efficiently and effectively target this key market through proprietary data and expert analytics capabilities. The DMA Analytic Challenge has highlighted one of Influent50’s key strengths in giving clients a competitive edge.”
The DMA Analytic Challenge is organized by DMA’s Analytics Community. The Community’s purpose is to provide marketing strategists and analytic practitioners with a forum to develop thought leadership and best practices related to customer-centric, data-driven marketing and analytics. Click here to learn more or join the group. DMA’s Analytics Community is one of five practitioner communities curated by DMA for its members to connect peer to peer groups for networking and knowledge-building. For more information on DMA Communities, click here.
