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This is the fifth in an 11-part series of blog posts that focus on Basis Technologies' corporate guiding principles, and how those values show up in the workplace and in the lives of our people.
At the beginning of the year, there is no shortage of work. Many people’s minds are racing as they try to keep up with their regular workload, while making big plans for the year ahead.
At the same time, there has been no shortage of stressors over the past two years. Outside of the workplace, concerns have included the pandemic, the economy, finances, and more. Professionals are continuing to feel these effects, with nearly half of employees surveyed by McKinsey & Company saying they’re feeling some symptoms of being burned out at work.
One of Basis Technologies’ guiding principles, Choose Positivity, has taken on a new meaning in this context, as there is a greater need for empathy and gratitude from individuals and employers alike.
In reflection on this past year, I asked John Botero (Director Platform Support), Ayse Pamuk (Platform Operations Manager), Mike Rizzo (Agency Lead), and Christine Kim (VP, Client Learning & Enablement), on how they keep a positive mind and what steps we can all take steps towards making work a little less stressful.
John Botero: Show gratitude. A simple “thank you” can go a long way. Gratitude helps build trust and appreciation amongst peers. Something as simple as verbal praise or a quick email can go a long way in making someone feel appreciated and that their contribution is valued.
Also, smile! Sounds simple but smiling is contagious and can change the energy in the room. A genuine smile can improve the mood of those around you. Fake smiling can have a negative effect (people see through the insincerity) so don’t do it, but a real smile can help strengthen relationships and contribute to a positive culture.
Ayse Pamuk: I think it all starts with communication. This does not mean verbal communication per se, but the energy we are radiating while interacting with others. I remember reading once that mood is contagious and that we’re all affected by how others around us are feeling. There will be good days and some bad days so it is not easy to spread positive vibes all the time, but I think we shouldn't shy away from it when we can! Collaboration can also help. Learning from others' experiences, seeing that we're not alone in thinking/feeling certain things, or sharing our opinions and being heard can mean a lot.
Mike Rizzo: This time of year always serves as a great reminder for me around the importance of gratitude, hope and empathy. Through empathy we develop deeper understanding and authentic relationships, while choosing hope and expressing gratitude allows for a more positive outlook and greater appreciation throughout our daily lives.
Christine Kim: Work-life balance. I believe that when you give people the freedom & trust to create a flow that maximizes their work output, it creates a unique space. For example, do they need some flexibility because they have kids at home? As long as clients are happy and work is getting done and the employee is happy, what more can you want? This space opens up the opportunities for people to get creative and figure out what makes them happy and happy & creative people equals positive and outstanding work!
Recognition is also key. When it comes to my role, I work with so many different teams across the company from IT to Marketing to Customer Success to Product to the Media Services team. As you can imagine, this means that whatever I do in my role is really a result of collaboration, thus anything positive that is accomplished is a win for ALL and not just myself. That said, something that is always top of mind for me is making sure I take the time to say thank you and recognize the hard work that people do for the programs I work for. This comes in the form of thank you notes, remembering birthdays, sending small gifts, and always sharing wins with other people’s bosses so that they can see how much they helped!
JB: With most people working from home nowadays, keeping in touch is a priority. To facilitate that I created a slack channel that my team all logs into every morning. We all touch base as we kick off the day and before leaving at the end of the night. Saying hello and goodbye seems like a small gesture, I believe it helps us to retain that team feeling while working remotely and that adds to a positive work environment.
I also try and reach out as often as possible to touch base. Whether that’s through a scheduled one-on-one or a quick “hello” during the day to check in, I believe these routines add to a positive team atmosphere, especially when working remotely. This way you’re not only reaching out when there’s an issue or you need something.
AP: I use humor to manage stress and stay positive. Jokes and laughter can really make all things more bearable. My yoga instructor encourages us to smile in challenging poses. There's something powerful about this attitude so I do my best to apply it everywhere in my life, workplace included.
MR: Being present and curious in regularly scheduled one-on-ones. Our transition to virtual work environments has been an adjustment for us all and I’ve made it a priority to consistently check-in personally and professionally with my team, colleagues, and clients to ensure we’re supporting one another as best we can.
CK: My hope is that I uplift people unintentionally by trying to live my own life authentically while striving to become the best version of myself. However, intentionally, I try to remember small things about people and try to find small moments to make them feel special. This can be in the form of a birthday cards, a small gift, coffee, a ping to say hello or to tell them about something that recently reminded me of them!
JB: I had a colleague recently send me a quick thank-you note after helping to solve a problem their client was facing that was causing a real issue with the account. When you work in a high-pressure, fast-paced environment it’s easy to overlook the niceties when dealing with colleagues, but that quick note made my day and helped to strengthen the positive relationship we already had. I know I said it before, but a simple thank-you note can go a long way.
AP: When I look back to 2021, I think joining the Women in Tech leadership group has made the most notable positive impact to my life. Connecting with women in our organization through events and the mentorship program, as well as attending recruiting events outside of our organization has empowered me beyond my wildest dreams. So I can't thank the WiT leaders (Victoria, Christine and Kelsey) for bringing me in!
MR: Conscious Leadership trainings with Lola Wright. I am extremely grateful to Basis leadership for prioritizing these sessions as well as Lola and all of my colleagues for showing up, sharing their own unique perspectives and experiences while allowing the space to learn and grow together and individually.
CK: Earlier this year, we brought home the award for Best Education Program by Ad Exchanger. When you’re such a small team, this type of recognition puts you on another level of glee! It becomes a direct output of the hard work you put into it. When this happened, I had so many people go out of their way to text, call, email to say congratulations. It truly felt like a company celebration and I was so proud of the entire team for bringing it home.
JB: It’s been said that positivity does not imply the absence of negativity and I believe this to be true. A healthy positive outlook can only be acquired when negative situations are confronted. To move forward on a positive foot, negativity must first be acknowledged.
To combat toxic positivity I feel the first step is to not ignore the issue or pretend it’s not a problem but to rather face the issue, acknowledge the situation and then find a solution that works. Ignoring the issue will not fix the problem, and acknowledgment is key; if you don’t acknowledge the issue you won’t learn from it, and you miss out on an opportunity to grow and better yourself and your team. At the end of the day, a negative outlook is never a good way to move forward but negativity can be the seed of growth that allows us to do better or be better and that’s always a positive thing.
AP: Thinking positively doesn’t mean we should block out all negativity. In the end, all feelings are valid and one of the worst things one can do to another is to ignore their reality. So whenever someone shares something negative about a situation, I do my best not to judge but just to listen. I also try to avoid giving advice unless I am asked to. I think this alone helps a lot with creating a safe space to further discuss what can be done to improve conditions that's causing stress.
MR: While I do my best to always choose positivity, it’s vital to feel and work through all that life throws our way, the good and the bad. Lola shared a quote with our group by Dr. Michael Beckwith that really resonated here—“pain pushes us until our vision pulls.” Toxic positivity hinders our ability to push ourselves further and continue to grow as a partner, parent, colleague, and friend.
CK: It’s almost easier and tempting to tell someone to look at the bright side or to highlight the silver lining. While usually not intentional, a response like that can feel dismissive or has a “get over it” tone. It’s important to validate and recognize people’s experiences. Unless someone is explicitly asking me for my input or another perspective, I try my best to simply sit and try to listen and validate what they are saying – even if that means sometimes I don’t have anything to add to the conversation. After all, it’s not about me and my response in those moments. I try to make it 100% about what the other person might be going through.
JB: Knowing that I get to work for a company that helps to facilitate a positive working environment where people feel appreciated, respected, and genuinely cared for not only puts a smile on my face every day, but it’s also one of the many reasons I love working at Basis!
AP: I found my old journal today that I thought I'd lost while travelling 4 years ago! I read a few pages and realized that I am no longer bothered with most of the things written there. It gave me lots of hope that whatever I'm struggling right now shall pass as well.
MR: Gratitude for my wife and our almost-four-year-old who’s silliness, curiosity and kindness always brings a smile.
CK: My pandemic puppy—all day, every day!
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Learn more about Basis Technologies' culture here.
After years of working at agencies in the digital media industry, Helene Parker decided to forge her own path and build a programmatic consultancy in 2019. In the few years since she became an entrepreneur, Helene has gained hard-and-fast insights about what works best to grow her business.
In this episode, Parker shares critical professional lessons to engage and retain clients, advice for anyone thinking of starting their own programmatic consultancy, and reflections on the upsides of leaving the traditional nine-to-five.
We get it: the end and the beginning of the calendar year are high-pressure, fast-moving times. Not only are you monitoring big-budget holiday campaigns for your clients and setting goals for the year ahead—you're also scrambling to secure everything on your holiday gift list (during a supply chain crisis, no less) and checking the latest recommendations on how to gather safely with family and friends.
It’s a lot—so we won’t waste any more of your precious time. Get a head start on what’s going to be important in the upcoming year by checking out Basis’ four quick tips for marketing success in 2022.
Our industry is experiencing a purgatory of sorts. While the cookieless future hasn’t yet arrived, data privacy is top-of-mind and marketers must begin transitioning to new identifiers. The key now is to stay informed—understand how cookie loss will impact your media performance, explore new identity solutions, and test alternate solutions to learn how they’ll impact campaign goals.
Decentralized finance (DeFi) applications such as blockchain, cryptocurrencies, and NFTs present enormous opportunities for marketers. DeFi has the potential to eliminate some of the biggest areas of friction in the world of advertising, including consumer privacy, ad fraud, and time-consuming manual processes. Don’t ignore this area of innovation just because of any weird headlines you may have seen—in the coming years, it could revolutionize the marketing space.
Consumers now expect a seamless experience—be it virtual, in-person, or a blend of both. As big tech invests heavily in the metaverse, more and more brands (including Walmart, Burberry, and IKEA) are tapping into augmented reality (AR) to facilitate engaging customer experiences. In 2022, we recommend evaluating your customer journeys and thinking about how virtual and hybrid offerings can reduce points of friction.
Against the backdrop of a global health crisis, the Great Resignation, and the supply chain crisis, it’s increasingly important for brands to demonstrate their values, community, and culture—and customers expect it. In 2022, advertisers should evaluate their “brand heartbeats”—a term that encompasses both customer experience and brand ethos—to foster genuine connections with their audiences.
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For an in-depth analysis of each of these four trends, check out our 2022 Trends: Our Frictionless Future webinar.
Change is constant. Consumers’ preferences are always evolving, and this nearly two-year long global pandemic has accelerated that evolution and brought about major shifts to many elements within the digital marketing world.
Now, digital marketers, businesses, and brands alike must take bigger moves and more creative, automated, authentic, and inclusive ways to connect with their audiences.
Want to stay ahead of the curve? Read through these trends to know and watch as you strategize for a successful 2022.
66% of voters in the U.S. support adult-use legalization, and 91% support medical marijuana. As of August 2021, eighteen states have legalized adult use, and more than 40 have medical marijuana laws.
While the eventual federal legalization of cannabis is inevitable, marketers today must navigate a complex advertising landscape. Multiple sets of regulations stack up, from federal and state governments to individual advertising channels. Even if an ad passes all those layers of regulation, it can still be denied —for any reason—by a publisher.
Marketers in this space are tasked with more than just selling a strictly regulated consumer good. Their job is to educate, change minds, and reframe stigmas about cannabis use. It’s a tall order—but as the cliché goes, diamonds are made under pressure.
Read on to learn how marketers can effectively navigate the challenges of cannabis marketing in the U.S., in order to take full advantage of its many opportunities.
2021 was a banner year for consumer privacy.
Since the twenty-teens, the increasing consumer skepticism of tracking and targeting technologies, coupled with privacy protection measures taken by government bodies and tech companies, has felt like a slow but steady trickle.
In contrast, 2021 opened the floodgates. In January, Google announced public testing of its Privacy Sandbox initiative. In April, Apple released iOS 14.5, granting iPhone users the ability to opt out of app tracking. In June, Google adjusted their timeline for phasing out third-party cookies.
As consumers, tech companies, and government regulators continue to create the new normal of privacy in advertising, there’s a lot for advertisers to track and consider. If you're looking for a one-stop-shop to help you thoroughly understand the consumer privacy landscape in 2021 and beyond, start by reviewing the articles below—a comprehensive listing of Basis’ identity-related content from 2021.
Editor’s note: Basis Technologies rebranded from Centro in October 2021.
Check out this visual explanation of consumer privacy issues and solutions within the advertising industry.
In this Basis Institute webinar, Basis CEO Shawn Riegsecker and IAB Tech Lab’s Alex Cone weigh in on how marketers can harness forthcoming changes to consumer privacy.
Senior Director of Product Management at the IAB Tech Lab, Alex Cone, answers three broad questions about the future of identity.
Basis’ General Counsel, Derek Zolner, discusses frameworks for how marketers should—and shouldn’t—think about the future of consumer privacy.
Basis CEO Shawn Riegsecker penned this open letter to the industry in March, explaining why shifts in consumer privacy are opportunities to better ourselves as marketers.
In this episode of AdTech Unfiltered, Pedro Pavón, who oversees privacy, data policy, and advertising at Facebook, shares his views on consumer privacy laws and how advertisers should plan for a cookieless future.
Check out these three key points that marketers must understand in order to plan effectively for the future of identity.
Learn about three groups working toward innovative identity solutions.
Looking to understand the history of consumer privacy? Take a walk down memory lane to learn how we got to where we are now.
Here’s everything you can do to prepare your DSP, social, and search campaigns for the iOS14 and the loss of third-party cookies.
In this Basis Institute webinar, Basis’ Director of Media Systems, Ken Rood, offers specific action plans for how to prepare programmatic, search, and social campaigns for a future with different identifiers.
Is Google FLoC the replacement for third-party cookies that advertisers have been searching for?
A comprehensive guide to understanding and planning for a future with different identifiers.
When news broke that Google was delaying the implementation of third-party cookie blocking in Chrome until late 2023, Basis’ VP of Product Marketing, Aubrey Lehrmann, penned a response on what the development means for our industry.
Five quick tips for succeeding in a privacy-first future.
In this episode of AdTech Unfiltered, Angelina Eng, VP of Addressability and Measurement at the IAB, shares her thoughts on the technical maneuvers that advertisers must take on to navigate a rapidly approaching future with far fewer reliable identifiers.
In this Basis Institute webinar featuring LiveRamp’s Travis Clinger, learn what it means to build first-party relationships with consumers and why it is imperative to create an ecosystem built on trust.
The discussions at this year’s Programmatic I/O event focused largely on one theme: identity solutions for the cookieless world.
For the most part, current identity solutions fall into three categories: Addressable identity solutions, contextual advertising, and cohorts/Google’s Privacy Sandbox. This piece discusses the benefits and drawbacks of each category.
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As 2022 brings new developments in identity resolution, Basis Technologies will continue to publish analyses, recommendations, and thought leadership to keep marketers in-the-know. Here's to the privacy-first future!
Download this infographic to get the highlights from our report, “How Complexity, Job Satisfaction, and Automation Intersect in Digital Media.” Research shows that 37% of advertising professionals plan to leave their jobs within two years. Less than 25% say they are completely satisfied with any one aspect of their job – with ‘training and education’ and ‘technology to help with automation of tasks’ receiving some of the lowest ratings. The data was compiled by research firm Advertiser Perceptions from an October 2021 survey of 150 digital advertising decision-makers at agencies and brands. Learn what's driving complexity, job satisfaction and automation in digital media.
Research shows that 37% of advertising professionals plan to leave their jobs within two years. With 90% of professionals agreeing ‘that the advertising industry has become significantly more complex,’ the top factor causing this (cited by 72% of those surveyed) is ‘the increase in different transaction methods for buying media.’ The data was compiled by research firm Advertiser Perceptions from a survey of 150 digital advertising decision-makers at agencies and brands. The report includes insights on:
Want to learn about the complexity, job satisfaction and automation in the digital media industry? Download your copy of the report today.
2021: What a year. Was it only 12 months ago that we were celebrating the end of 2020’s chaos?
In the world of advertising, 2021 saw more than a few paradigm-shifting events. Google announced the delay of third-party cookie deprecation on its Chrome browser, Facebook rebranded to Meta, and Kim Kardashian started dating Pete Davidson as a PR stunt—just kidding (but maybe...)!
Through it all, Basis Technologies worked to bring you the latest news and insights from the ever-evolving advertising industry. Read on to check out 10 of the articles that most resonated with our readers in 2021.
Editor’s note: Basis Technologies rebranded from Centro in October 2021.
Basis CEO Shawn Riegsecker penned this open letter to the industry in March, explaining why shifts in consumer privacy are opportunities to better ourselves as marketers.
Learn about three groups working toward innovative identity solutions.
Here's everything you can do to prepare your DSP, social, and search campaigns for the loss of third-party cookies.
When news broke that Google was delaying the implementation of third-party cookie blocking in Chrome until late 2023, Basis’ VP of Product Marketing, Aubrey Lehrmann, penned a response on what the development means for our industry.
Advertisers must start developing strategies to reach and appeal to Gen Z, which is projected to become America’s largest generation by 2034. Here’s how.
From inconsistency risks to scalability issues, here are six of the main challenges manual data integration efforts pose for businesses.
Basis President Tyler Kelly spoke with Cognizant's Arturo Pena about the strategies of in-housing and B2B addressability in digital advertising.
With misinformation and hate speech continuing to flood social networks, here's what social media advertisers can do to protect their brands and prompt change.
New Climate Voices’ partnership with Basis illustrates how digital advertising can shift opinions on climate change, even among highly skeptical audiences.
In the face of dwindling inventory, brands are wondering if they should scale back their marketing efforts. Here’s why businesses would be wise to continue advertising through any supply chain crisis.
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Farewell, 2021. Here's to a successful 2022, and have a Happy New Year!