How can brands find suitable environments where they can advertise successfully? With DoubleVerify’s Laetitia Zinetti

Data Malarkey - the podcast about using data smarter

In this episode of the Data Malarkey podcast, data storyteller Sam Knowles talks to Laetitia Zinetti, Regional Vice President for Southern Europe of software company DoubleVerify. The company is on a mission to build a better advertising industry, helping brands to improve the effectiveness of their online ad spend, giving them clarity and confidence in their digital investment.

Sam first met and worked with Laetitia more than a decade ago when she arrived at Ebiquity – the independent media investment analysis business – to run the Paris office. In almost 13 years with the company, she rose to be Ebiquity’s MD for Europe. Before that, Laetitia held senior media, marketing, and communications roles in two global transport businesses, first for the Australian national airline, Qantas, and then for the Nissan Motor Corporation.

Our conversation was recorded remotely, via the medium of Riverside.fm, on 7 March 2023.

Thanks to Joe Hickey for production support.

Podcast artwork by Shatter Media.

Voice over by Samantha Boffin.

Laetitia describes herself as a typical multi-tasking woman in business, juggling her career, partner, and children, meaning that she always has a “to do” list on the go. Delightfully, on Laetitia’s list, there’s always a blank box, a box that often gets filled but – while it remains blank – promises opportunity and possibility.

In running DoubleVerify in markets across Southern Europe, the stuff of Laetitia’s data life are billions of impressions generated by online ads, tracked and captured by pixels on these ads. The pixels are invisible to users and are used assess who (or what – as still too often, it can often be bots rather than real humans) sees the ads, the context and environments in which the ads are served. A key focus for DoubleVerify is the concept of brand suitability. This goes several steps beyond the now-outdated concept of keywords and blacklists. Suitability is assessed by rigorous and complex semantic analysis of the context alongside which ads are served, and DoubleVerify employs more than 40 expert linguists to assess and advise on suitability.

Time and again during our discussion, Laetitia emphasises the importance of combining artificial or augmented intelligence with irreplaceable human intelligence as the key to cleaning up the digital ad business; of helping brands secure better and ultimately optimal business performance through ever-better marketing investment. This AI x HI combo is best evidenced in DoubleVerify’s quarterly business reviews it creates for its clients: no more than 20 slides, and a human/empathetic narrative supported by genuine, data-driven insights.

With her feet more than firmly under the table, those in digital marketing should keep their eyes on the European conference agenda, where Laetitia will be sharing new research and thought leadership content commissioned by DoubleVerify, during the course of the year. The best place to find out where she’ll be speaking? Laetitia’s LinkedIn profile.

EXTERNAL LINKS

Laetitia’s LinkedIn profile – https://www.linkedin.com/in/laetitiazinetti/

Announcement of Laetitia’s appointment on MR Web - https://www.mrweb.com/drno/news34747.htm

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