As Sussex-based Quad leans into its transformation into a marketing experience company, the business is unveiling a new partnership aimed at making the job of marketers even easier.
Quad has teamed up with Google to use its cloud services to offer new marketing solutions powered by artificial intelligence.
“Quad’s history and legacy for the past 50 years has been in household data,” said Joshua Lowcock, president of media at Quad. “We see that as a unique and important differentiator for us and we believe our approach to data is future proof.”
Quad regularly updates its data stack, which touches 92% of all U.S. households and nearly 97% of the adult U.S. population. Across any given 18-month period, Quad’s data stack contains more than 3 billion validated or revalidated data points.
Households provide more resilient data points than phone numbers, email addresses, IP addresses and other digital identifiers. They also reveal audience passions and interests through the types of content recipients proactively request.
Quad reaches a large percentage of households through its legacy print services. This provides the company with a unique way to collect consumer data that’s not already available to data brokers, along with unique data sets for each type of consumer.
“Imagine as a marketer, if you had access to this brilliant data stack that is super predictive and can help you build audience dynamically,” said Lowcock. “Imagine if it was as easy (to use) as ChatGPT. You can say, ‘I want to create an audience. Here’s what I want to achieve and the type of consumers I want to reach’ and out the back end comes a customized audience plan that gets down to the (media) channel itself.”
Using Google Cloud’s AI optimization capabilities and large language models, Quad’s new AI-powered solutions seek to allow brands to create highly personalized content at scale across multiple marketing channels.
“Using AI to dynamically create creative (content) is not particularly novel, but the ability to build audiences that are truly omni-channel and the ability to optimize looking across channel, that’s really hard, and that’s unique,” said George Forge, senior vice president of client technology and product development at Quad.
In addition to providing image generation, processing, content creation, layout design, translation and more, Quad’s new offerings will address the challenges of managing large product catalogs and diverse audience segments.
“The real value in data is actually democratizing access and taking it out of the hands of the data scientists,” said Forge. “I need to get it in the hands of our marketing clients. I need to get it in the hands of the people who are client-facing every day, because that’s the way we’ll actually do transformational marketing for clients.”
Through its new partnership, Quad will also use AI to deliver enhanced workflow optimization, content production, asset development, scaled creative and media capabilities.
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Becoming an agency
For several years, Quad has been expanding and tailoring its offerings to address modern marketing challenges.
Long known as a printing company, Quad now offers integrated marketing services. Those new offerings have helped the company navigate the decline of its legacy printing businesses.
A handful of acquisitions over the past several years – including Apple Tree Group, Periscope, Rise Interactive and Ivie & Associates – have bolstered Quad’s creative and digital offerings and expanded the business beyond print services.
“We grew up as printers,” said Forge. “We’d love to do more direct mail, but we need to lead with the data. What does the data say is going to be the most efficient way to connect with an audience for a particular brand’s goals? Data will tell you that.”
In February, Quad acquired North Carolina-based DART Innovation, an in-store digital media solutions provider. Quad says the acquisition is intended to position it to become a leader in marketing for retailers, consumer packaged goods and consumers.
In May, Quad also announced the launch of a new creative agency named Betty. Betty integrates all of Quad’s creative business lines. This includes the company’s brand strategy and design, content creation, campaign ideation, and retail and adaptive design businesses.
Over the past 18 months, Quad has continued to tailor its suite of marketing solutions. The company recently announced Rise, a firm providing brand, performance and content media services, and Household Fusion, a co-mailing option that combines multiple pieces from different marketing or periodical mailers to reduce postage costs.
At its West Allis facility, Quad will soon open a Marketing Experience Innovation Center that highlights the company’s capabilities as a marketing agency. Modern technologies including 3D scanning to create digital twins and In-Store Connect, a solution that allows brands to create direct connections with shoppers through digital screens and kiosks, are all on display.
“This is about us, as a marketing experience company, helping our clients connect in the most efficient, accurate manner that we can across all channels,” said Lowcock. “That’s the foundation of all this work.”
