The Marketing Club of New York (MCNY) celebrates each of our Silver Apple honorees with a profile that dives into their career and goals. We spoke with honoree Adstra prior to the Awards Gala in November 2022. This is their story.

Ken Kraetzer:

And this Ken Kraetzer, for the Marketing Club of New York and also CBSI Talking Business. We have a chance to talk to one of the winners for the Silver Apples Award from the Marketing Club of New York, the 38th edition. Receiving the corporate award will be Adstra, an identity and data solutions provider. We have a chance to talk to their chief executive officer, Rick Erwin. Rick, good to see you and congratulations on this award.

Rick Erwin:

Thanks, Ken. Great to be with you this morning.

Ken Kraetzer:

Rick, tell us a little bit about your company in the data field, some of the markets that you serve, some of those solutions that you provide.

Rick Erwin:

I would be happy to. Adstra is more than a 40 year old company, we’ll actually be 44 years old this year. We do a number of things for our clients that are distinct and different from one another. The Heritage, the original business of Adstra when it was founded in 1978 as ALC, American List Counsel, was all about helping brands to acquire customers and to optimize their customer acquisition efforts.

And at the same time, as you probably remember back then, the sister business to customer acquisition was list management or what we call data monetization, which is helping those same brands to effectively monetize their own customer data and we’re still in that business and that business for Adstra is bigger than it ever was before. And, it’s really centered around the non-profit industry and the retail industry.

And in retail, we have a particular focus on what we call digitally native retail brands, companies that never had a store and only started with e-commerce. We help them do the same thing, optimize their customer acquisition, particularly using channels like direct mail in addition to E-com. But, the newest and fastest growing part of Adstra is really around enterprise identity management.

And, what we mean by that is as more and more sectors of the consumer economy become direct to consumer, the brands who serve consumers in those sectors need to own their own definition of consumer identity for both customer marketing and for prospecting. Technology makes it very easy today for brands to do that themselves with the help of a company like Adstra.

And so, we built really the only true omnichannel identity platform for brands to serve consumers and we call it Connexa. It’s the only identity platform that can operate behind the brand’s firewall, allowing the brand to have a precise and accurate definition of who their consumer is, to actually activate marketing campaigns across any channel of any media channel that they might use. And, it’s all provided to them on a subscription basis. It turns out that was much in demand. And so, it’s really propelled the growth of the company in recent years.

Ken Kraetzer:

Well, when you talk about ALC and its history and list brokerage, list management, computer services, that was sort of a model when I was early in my career of a lot of firms here in the New York area that have grown into very sophisticated data solutions companies like your own. Now, one of the things that you’ve identified as a fundamental change in consumer behavior, consumer expectations, certainly mobile is a huge part of that and all of the apps that we now have available. What do you see as the fundamental change that consumers are acting on?

Rick Erwin:

Well, consumers… of course, we all are consumers. So, we know that this amazing technology that we hold in our hands that sometimes people equate it to the computing power of every computer available to the US government 50 years ago, that gives us the ability to interact with any brand we choose in any way that we choose whenever we choose in a way that simply wasn’t possible before.

The marketing equivalent of that is meeting the consumer where they are. That’s what we do as marketers is we know to meet the consumer where they are and how they want to be interacted with. And to be able to do that, the brand needs to be able to physically and technologically speak to the consumer regardless of the manner in which the consumer is interacting with the brand. And in the past, that required a very complicated network of providers to work through and it might have involved an agency and it might have involved a demand side platform partner and it might have required an onboarder and it may have required somebody to host a database for you and many, many, many more categories.

Increasingly, as we’ve seen always happens with business technology, technology migrates closer and closer to the end user and that’s happening in our world now where marketers, brands are now able to in source a lot of what used to be a complicated supply chain. And, we’re happy to be a part of that because we believe it gives brands more control and frankly a much more economical way and technologically superior way to serve their customers.

Ken Kraetzer:

Very good. We’ve all seen tremendous new technology implemented in our careers from all the internet capabilities, mobile. I always cite fiber optic cable as being a difference maker in worldwide communications. Where do you see the business heading? Certainly privacy is an issue, giving customers control of their own data and what they want to share, but also being able to personalize service delivery. We see so much going to streaming now with some of the baseball playoff games going to be streamed instead of broadcast. Where do you see some of the… Where’s the business heading, some of the change you see coming?

Rick Erwin:

Well, I think you put your finger on the single most important thing is that consumers want to take full advantage of the technology that is available to them. They need marketers to define for them the next best way to do that. And then, the brands that they choose to work with, whether those are media brands or platforms that they stream programming on or brands that they choose to purchase products from need to communicate to them in those ways.

And so, where the industry is going is first and foremost, I don’t think there will be a single sector of consumer spending that isn’t primarily conducted direct to consumer. And, we know a direct to consumer relationship confers a certain increased responsibility on the brand and an increased level of intimacy. So, that’s where consumer marketing is heading fully toward direct to consumer and everything that comes along with that, including, as you mentioned, the ubiquitous issue of privacy, which has always been a part of the direct to consumer marketing industry and always will, where the table stakes, as you know, are notice and choice, giving consumers the ability to choose what information to share with brands. That will continue to be at the center of what all of us need to do in our industry.

Ken Kraetzer:

We’re talking with Rick Erwin, who’s the CEO of Adstra. It’s going to be the corporate Silver Apple Award recipient at our dinner in New York City on November 10th. Rick, maybe just a thought, tell us a little bit about the path of your career, some of the places you’ve been, some of the things that you worked on.

Rick Erwin:

When I got out of graduate school in the early ’90s, I thought I would do what a third of my classmates were doing. It was a third, a third, and a third basically, consumer package goods marketing, investment banking and consulting. I was sure I was going to go in consumer package goods marketing and I was a long time intern, brand intern at Quaker Oats. Serendipity intervened and I ended up going to work for the world’s largest commercial printer, R.R. Donnelley, but in their direct marketing unit where I fell in love with this business that I had no idea really even existed before.

And then, that led me to the business that R.R. Donnelley owned, at the time called Metro Mail, which they sold. I went to go work to run that company inside of Experian who ended up buying Metro Mail and that led me later on to trade up and go run the equivalent business at Acxiom, which was much bigger, which we sold to Interpublic Group in 2018.

And then, my team and I, who’ve been together for many years thought what we really wanted to do was create the data and identity company that we always knew customers wanted but which was hard to create inside of a big behemoth like Experian or Acxiom, and that’s what led us to Adstra and where we are today, helping to disrupt and chart the future for data driven marketing for brands and their partners.

Ken Kraetzer:

Well, those are some great names in the field of direct marketing, R.R. Donnelley, Metro Mail, Experian, now Acxiom.

Rick Erwin:

Yeah.

Ken Kraetzer:

Some of the great brands in the field that you’ve been a part of and now as CEO of Adstra. A final thought for us today before you head to New York on November 10 for the Silver Apples Awards Center?

Rick Erwin:

Well, my final thought is just how grateful I am to be part of such a great industry and a great tradition in our industry of the Silver Apples, and we’re just really thrilled to share that room with all of our colleagues and we’re looking forward to it.

Ken Kraetzer:

Well, it’ll be a great night. Again, November 10, the Edison Ballroom in New York City, a very festive gala event. The team’s been working on all year to put together a 38th edition representing a 96-year-old organization. Some great names in the field have been part of the organization over the years. But Rick Erwin, we will look forward to seeing you and your colleagues and friends at the dinner November 10 and should be a great evening.

Rick Erwin:

Likewise. We’ll see you there, Ken.

Ken Kraetzer:

Thank you, Rick. It’s Ken Kraetzer for the Marketing Club of New York and CBSI Talking Business. Have a great day.