Grupo OPSA in Honduras launched its first Web site in 1996 for its brand La Prensa. Now, the company is leveraging AI, machine learning, and natural language processing with MIDRI, its first-party data platform.

MIDRI allows Grupo OPSA to track visitors in real time and is more precise than cookies, Ana Maria Reyes, director of digital strategy, told INMA members during the recent Latin American News Media Summit.

Reyes shared how the platform is powering the company’s data strategy.

“MIDRI offers more audience, connects the message that certain brands have with the audience through data targeting, and improves optimisation in real time with the client,” Reyes said.

One key advantage MIDRI offers is the ability to target users based on clusters identified by the platform. MIDRI helps compile clusters based around awareness, interest, and intention. Awareness is related to branding and performance, and interest is linked with frequency.

IBM Watson technology helps the company identify specific interests in all clusters. There are more than 600 clusters available to clients, Reyes said, and they go beyond surface-level categories. For example in the finances cluster, there could be a group specifically interested in a savings account.

Developing knowledge within the organisation is one challenge around the MIDRI platform, Reyes said. Having to train the IT team is one thing, but to fully take advantage of MIDRI meant a shift in the sales strategy and rethinking the sales speech. Previously, it was focused on volume, but now it is about the cohorts and tools offered by the platform.

In the first 12 months, 80 brands developing campaigns leveraged this new technology, and there has been a 77-point increase in click-though-rates.

Combining the power of MIDRI and the company’s brand studio has led to positive results for clients. A key factor of this success was brought on by the urgent need to change paradigms that arose in the COVID-19 pandemic. After conducting research and rigorous benchmarking, they were able to outline a three-year roadmap. Adding new talents in tech and commercial, developing new data team roles, and selecting a new data partner to launch MIDRI have also been critical aspects to this success.

Developing first-party data infrastructure, starting with data capture and storage, is the next focus for Grupo OPSA, Reyes said: “Data has to flow through the molecules in this ecosystem so we can enable MIDRI or any of our technologies.”

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