Causality Is the New Attribution: How Alembic Distills Data

Hitesh Wadhwani newly appointed GM of Alembic arrived with a confidence booster from a deep background in measurement including 12 years at Google where he helped lead development of global measurement products including Meridian As part of a series I recorded during the POSSIBLE Conference in Miami for amp8220Insider Interviewsamp8221 he explained causality how to escape attribution frustration and how better measurement could help CMOs make a more convincing business case internallyA favorite line from Wadhwaniamp8217s amp8220new job postamp8221 on LinkedIn candidly cautioned amp8220you cannot hallucinate your way through a multimilliondollar strategic budgeting decisionamp8221 Now when generative AI is being inserted into nearly every marketing workflow imaginable that distinction matters Large language models are remarkably effective at language prediction and summarization But he says enterprise measurement requires something fundamentally different numerical reasoning causal inference and an understanding of how multiple business variables influence one another over timeWhat Causal AI Actually Does DifferentlyThen thereamp8217s correlation versus causation Just because two things happen at the same time does not necessarily mean one caused the other In marketing that becomes incredibly difficult to untangle once media spend promotions pricing seasonality consumer behavior and outside events are all moving simultaneouslyAlembicamp8217s approach is designed to look across those variables together rather than measuring channels separately The goal is to help companies better understand what actually appears to be influencing business outcomes and by how much and exactly when or the amp8220momentsamp8221 that matter Their aim is to show the relationships between variables more directly so teams can better understand what may actually be driving performance what may not be contributing much at all and where assumptions may simply be wrongThat becomes really relevant inside large organizations where marketing finance analytics and operations teams are often working from different methodologies and different definitions of success Thatamp8217s where one of the more practical parts of our discussion could pay off solving the disconnect between marketing and financeWhy the CMOCFO Conversation Gets ComplicatedBrand marketers performance teams analytics groups and finance departments can walk into the same meeting with entirely different ways of measuring impact Each set of numbers may make sense independently but together they often fail to create a clear investment story With tighter budgets CFOs want greater accountability tied to business outcomes without multiple methodologies Wadhwani says causal AI can be there to help close some of that gap by evaluating brand performance and operational variables within the same framework rather than through disconnected reporting systemsThe Winning Olympics Example The winning example Wadhwani shared involved a major airline running campaigns tied to the Paris Olympics The business question was straightforward enough did the investment drive bookingsUsing its broader modeling approach Alembic analyzed booking behavior against multiple business and marketing variables happening simultaneously throughout the campaign Surprisingly even for the client the strongest driver of bookings was not a traditional ad placement or search activation It was the airlineamp8217s logo visibility during medal ceremonies right on the ribbons Those moments of pride and appreciation carry unusually high emotional engagement and attention Even casual viewers tend to stop what theyamp8217re doing and watch It amp8216s very different from a commercial breakThey saw the biggest uptick in purchases of flights to Paris thanks to the ceremonyWadhwani also noted that the same type of modeling can identify the opposite effect and offer insights for sales strategies based on moments or environments that may hurt performance instead of helping it Alembic can identify nodes that reveal a negative impactamp8220You might have changes in your pricing strategy as an exampleamp8221 Wadhwani says amp8220and create a negative effect suddenly on your sales Maybe you started adding discounts and over time that impacted on the value of your brand itself from a consumer perspective because in their mind theyamp8217re always expecting a discounted rate That might lead to lower revenue in the long term Thatamp8217s a very common example which we see through dataamp8221Companies can begin to understand not only what drove results but what may have worked against them whether that involves timing placement surrounding content or even promotional discounting that unintentionally weakens longterm valueamp8220That level of granularity does not come through from any other measurement tool Iamp8217ve seen in the marketamp8221 Wadhwani told meThe example reinforced something marketers sometimes forget amid all the conversations about automation and AI context and emotion still matter enormously in advertisingBeyond MarketingWadhwani described organizations using similar approaches to think about inventory management demand forecasting and operational planning He also said that creator and influencer marketing can be incorporated into the same framework when the data exists to support it which could become increasingly important as more marketers shift spending toward creators while facing continued pressure to prove business impactWith Wadhwani on board NVIDIA as a compute partner and continued investment in infrastructure Alembic is clearly betting that causal reasoning will play a larger role as organizations try to make better sense of increasingly complicated data environmentsPosted at MediaVillage through the Thought Leadership selfpublishing platformClick the social buttons to share this story with colleagues and friendsThe opinions expressed here are the author39s views and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaVillageorgMyersBizNet

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Causality Is the New Attribution: How Alembic Distills Data

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