Before Talking About Clean Rooms, Let’s Talk About Data Collaboration

Mindshare’s NA Chief Data Strategy & Analytics Officer, Brian DeCicco warns that marketers are rushing into the novelty of clean rooms ahead of identifying what exactly they’re searching for and how this technology uniquely addresses those use cases. Instead, they should start by looking at why data collaboration is essential to their strategy.

In 1904, the Welte-Mignon “reproducing piano” set the music industry ablaze. The riff on the player piano allowed famous pianists to record their performances on “piano rolls” which could be sold and played on Welte-Mignon pianos found in households across the world. This remarkable invention would usher in a golden age of recorded music that introduced pianists to a massive, engaged audience.

You’ve probably never heard of the Welte-Mignon. Despite all the hype, not a lot of people had a 500-pound reproducing piano that could play those rolls in their homes. Perhaps this wasn’t the straightest line to capitalize on the growing consumer demand for recorded live music performances in the age of 78s and the Victor Victrola – the emerging convenient, affordable format of choice at the time.

I share this story because it illustrates a common tale in technology adoption cycles: when hype precedes clarity on the need the technology aims to fulfill. It’s a tale we see often in marketing technology today. That technology trend right now is the clean room.

Spoiler alert: The clean room is not the Welte-Mignon. Clean rooms have already demonstrated value on a variety of use cases and their future looks quite promising. But marketers are rushing into the novelty of clean rooms ahead of identifying what exactly they’re solving for and how this technology uniquely addresses those use cases.

The hype is intense right now, but the fact is clean rooms are just a means to an end. Data collaboration is that end.

Read the entire piece at WARC.