– WPP Open for B2B leverages IBM’s Watsonx AI and data platform to solve complex B2B marketing challenges
– IBM is the first user of the platform to accelerate its AI-driven marketing and communications transformation
– WPP and IBM to collaborate with LinkedIn to better understand buying groups
June 19, 2024
CANNES, France, June 19, 2024 /PRNewswire/ — WPP (NYSE: WPP) and IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced the launch of a new business-to-business (B2B) solution powered by IBM’s AI and data platform Watson X designed to reinvent how B2B marketers identify and engage customers and prospects throughout the buying journey.
WPP Open for B2B will help marketers solve complex B2B marketing challenges, accurately identify and engage buying groups, and improve customer ROI. Buying groups are made up of multiple stakeholders with different priorities who influence key purchasing decisions inside and outside organizations, which can make it difficult to deliver a consistent message over a long sales period. Traditionally, understanding how to tailor this message across the right channels to guide buying groups to purchase has been challenging and often leads to ineffective marketing spend.
WPP Open for B2B is powered by watsonx – an AI and data platform designed to accelerate the impact of AI in business – and will bring together the leading proprietary capabilities of both organizations. WPP and IBM will strategically collaborate with LinkedIn to help brands better understand buyer groups so they can market more effectively and reach target buyers.
Alan WebberThe vice president of the Digital Platform Ecosystems program at analyst firm IDC believes that “this product and this partnership have the potential to be an exponential force multiplier for the Fortune 1000.”
Stephane PretoriusWPP’s technical director, said: “Our clients want to reach the right people, at the right time, on the right channels and with the right message. However, most solutions on the market today are designed for consumer marketing, targeting decision-makers at a single point of purchase. WPP Open for B2B and our collaboration with IBM and LinkedIn will help us solve some incredibly complex challenges in B2B marketing, using the best of WPP and IBM’s technology and expertise.”
Jonathan AdashekSenior Vice President of Marketing and Communications at IBM, said: “B2B marketers have been focused for years on creating truly personalized, relevant and consistent experiences for buying groups at scale. Our collaboration with WPP and LinkedIn provides real-time, actionable insights based on trusted data. We are excited to build and leverage these powerful and trusted new AI solutions to deliver a force multiplier for B2B marketing.”
Penry PrizeLinkedIn vice president, said: “To be successful in B2B, clients need to reach between 6 and 10 stakeholders, build relationships and ‘collective trust“Collaboration with the entire buyer group is essential. We look forward to working with WPP and IBM to explore how our unique buyer group insights can help inform WPP Open for B2B and help clients deliver more effective advertising campaigns.”
WPP and IBM used WatsonX to develop the platform’s features, including:
- AI-Powered Brain™ Buying Group – a WPP AI model that can more accurately identify target buyer groups within a B2B customer account, built with IBM watsonx.ai and trained on trusted data from the customer and third parties via IBM watsonx.data. It can also inform marketers on how to deliver personalized and consistent experiences across channels and over the duration of a long-term influencer campaign.
- Orchestration and optimization – using insights from WPP’s Buying Group Brain™ AI model to optimize engagement and opportunity progression for buying groups. This includes providing recommendations on channel mix and content to ensure buying groups receive consistent, coherent and relevant messaging. It can also help marketers track the effectiveness of marketing activities with a buying group and adjust messaging or influencer targeting on demand.
- Marketing Director Command Center – an AI assistant that serves as a command center for CMOs, bringing in data and insights and connecting underlying systems so senior marketers can plan and model scenarios, predict outcomes, make more data-driven decisions, and execute recommended actions.
These capabilities are supported by the IBM watsonx.governance toolkit to help clients transparently govern and track the performance of AI models.
Accelerating IBM’s AI-driven marketing and communications transformation
IBM has already started rolling out the new platform across its marketing and communications division. WPP’s creative and technology expertise, as well as joint innovation on the watsonx platform, are expected to support IBM’s goal of accelerating growth through AI-driven marketing.
An open approach with integrated governance
WPP Open for B2B powered by watsonx is designed for enterprise scale, security, governance and easy integration into clients’ existing systems, combining the open capabilities of WPP Open, IBM watsonx and Red Hat OpenShift1.
IBM Consulting is the primary change management consulting partner for the solution, helping clients customize and leverage the platform, integrate it into their marketing workflows, and build employee skills and platform adoption using the collaborative engagement model. IBM GarageIBM consultants can help clients select and deploy the right AI models for the platform based on their needs, including enterprise-grade models like IBM Granite, open source models, or other third-party models.
About WPP
WPP is a creative transformation company. We use the power of creativity to build a better future for our people, our planet, our clients and our communities. For more information, visit www.wpp.com.
WPP Open for B2B is part of WPP Open, WPP’s AI-powered intelligent marketing operating system. Building on WPP’s decades of experience serving enterprise clients, WPP Open is designed to integrate with any client, partner or technology provider to create optimized and automated marketing capabilities.
About IBM
IBM is a leading global provider of hybrid cloud and artificial intelligence services and consulting expertise. We help clients in more than 175 countries unlock insights from their data, streamline business processes, reduce costs, and gain a competitive advantage in their industries. Thousands of governments and enterprises in critical infrastructure areas such as financial services, telecommunications, and healthcare rely on IBM’s hybrid cloud platform and Red Hat OpenShift to digitally transform quickly, efficiently, and securely. IBM’s breakthrough innovations in artificial intelligence, quantum computing, industry cloud solutions, and consulting provide open and flexible options for our clients. All of this is underpinned by IBM’s longstanding commitment to trust, transparency, accountability, inclusion, and service.
1 Red Hat® and OpenShift® are trademarks or registered trademarks of Red Hat, Inc. or its subsidiaries in the United States. United States and other countries.
Media Contacts
WPP
Niken Wresniwiro, Senior Vice President of Global Communications
niken.wresniwiro@wpp.com
IBM
Michelle MattelsonIBM External Relations
morrison@us.ibm.com
SOURCE IBM
