In an exclusive interaction with MediaBrief, Daeyoung Go (Dean), Chief Business Officer of INNOCEAN, speaks about how AI is accelerating media optimisation and creative production, why brands need outcome-led measurement instead of fragmented platform metrics, and the capabilities agencies must build to remain competitive in the years ahead. Read on.
AI has rapidly evolved from an experimental technology to a core business tool across the marketing ecosystem. As agencies and brands increasingly integrate AI into day-to-day operations, its impact is being felt across areas ranging from media planning and optimisation to creative development and campaign execution. Against this backdrop, we asked Daeyoung Go (Dean) about the role AI is playing within INNOCEAN and the use cases that have delivered the most meaningful results.
“AI,” Dean says, “has genuinely moved off the innovation lab slide and into the daily workflow here. The clearest wins have been in three areas: media planning and optimization, where we’re using AI to process signals across channels in near real-time and reallocate spend far faster than any human team could; creative production, particularly for versioning and localization at scale, which used to take weeks and now takes days.”
He continues, “87% of marketers now use generative AI in at least one workflow, up from 51% in 2024. The biggest impact, honestly, hasn’t been in any single flashy use case it’s been in compressing the time between insight and action. Campaigns that used to take a quarter to optimize now iterate weekly. That speed is the real ROI story, more than any individual tool.”
Making measurement matter
As audiences fragment across a growing number of digital, social, streaming and commerce platforms, marketers have access to more data than ever before. Yet, despite the abundance of metrics and dashboards, many brands continue to struggle with connecting these signals to meaningful business outcomes.
“87% of marketers now use generative AI in at least one workflow, up from 51% in 2024. Campaigns that used to take a quarter to optimize now iterate weekly. That speed is the real ROI story, more than any individual tool” – Daeyoung Go (Dean)
Speaking about what needs to change for measurement to become more effective, actionable and aligned with real business performance, Dean says, “We need to stop chasing every platform’s proprietary metric and get back to a shared definition of value that sits above the channel level. Right now, brands are drowning in dashboards that don’t talk to each other, impressions here, engagement there, attention scores somewhere else and none of it rolls up into a single answer to ‘did this work?’,”
He adds, “One in three CMOs uses between 5 and 15 separate tools to measure ROI, and only 37% have a centralized data repository accessible to all stakeholders. What’s needed is a measurement framework anchored in business outcomes first, with platform-level metrics feeding into that as inputs rather than being treated as ends in themselves.
“That means investing in unified data infrastructure, yes, but more importantly it means agencies and clients agreeing upfront on what success looks like before the campaign launches, not reverse-engineering a narrative from whichever metric looks best afterward. It is important to clearly note that, since the consumer purchase journey varies depending on the product’s characteristics, the KPIs tracked and managed by each brand will also differ,” adds Dean.
Given that customer journey design differs between high-involvement and low-involvement products, and that distribution strategies vary across brands, Dean says this area requires a customized approach grounded in a thorough understanding of the brand.
“We need to stop chasing every platform’s proprietary metric and get back to a shared definition of value that sits above the channel level. Right now, brands are drowning in dashboards that don’t talk to each other, impressions here, engagement there, attention scores somewhere else and none of it rolls up into a single answer to ‘did this work?’” – Daeyoung Go (Dean)
The shift to integrated agency teams
As client challenges become increasingly complex and interconnected, many agencies are moving towards more integrated operating models. Speaking about the structural changes that have made the biggest difference at INNOCEAN, the CBO says, “The single biggest shift has been moving away from channel based teams, a media team, a creative team, a data team, each with their own P&L and incentives, toward pods built around the client’s business problem.
“When creative, media, and analytics sit in the same room from day one, you stop getting creative that gets ‘adapted’ for media performance after the fact, and you start getting work that’s built for performance from the brief onward.”
“The second change, less talked about but just as important, has been flattening how insight travels,” says Dean. “We pushed data and analytics talent out of a centralized back office function and embedded them directly into client teams. That single change did more for collaboration than any reorg chart could. From the perspective of the surrounding agency ecosystem, this is also INNOCEAN’s greatest strength.”
“When creative, media, and analytics sit in the same room from day one, you stop getting creative that gets ‘adapted’ for media performance after the fact, and you start getting work that’s built for performance from the brief onward” – Daeyoung Go (Dean)
Where technology and creativity meet
As data, automation and AI become increasingly embedded in marketing operations, agencies are under growing pressure to deliver greater efficiency without losing the creative thinking that sets brands apart. Speaking about the relationship between technology-led efficiency and human creativity, Dean argues that the two should work in tandem rather than in opposition, saying, “It’s worth pushing back gently on the framing that it’s a balance to be struck, as if the two are in tension.
“In practice, the agencies getting this right are using technology to buy back time for creativity, not to replace it. AI can produce ten variations of an asset in the time it used to take to produce one but a human still has to decide which idea deserves those ten variations, and why.”
“The concern,” Dean says, “arises when efficiency becomes the goal itself rather than the means. The moment a client asks what AI made for them and can’t get a clear answer about what a human strategist or creative director contributed, the thing that actually differentiates an agency from a production vendor has been lost. So the balance, if it can even be called that, comes down to this: automate the execution, protect the judgment.”
“The agencies getting AI right are using technology to buy back time for creativity, not to replace it. AI can produce ten variations of an asset in the time it used to take to produce one but a human still has to decide which idea deserves those ten variations, and why” – Daeyoung Go (Dean)
Lessons in leading organisational change
The agency business has undergone significant change in recent years, driven by the rapid adoption of AI, evolving client expectations and the growing demand for more agile ways of working. Reflecting on the lessons that have shaped his approach to leading change at INNOCEAN, Dean says, “The key point is that AI itself should be used not as a tool in and of itself, but ultimately as a supplementary means for building customized solutions.
“I believe that the true value of AI lies in an agency that understands the brand best, using technology to quickly resolve long-standing bottlenecks and build systems, based on its understanding of the consumer journey flow it has defined and the predefined tasks required to achieve it.”
He adds, “We have also observed numerous instances where clients lower their barriers to adopting AI not because a specific AI is superior, but because it is proven to directly benefit their workflow. Therefore, we need to focus on utilizing AI from the perspective of customized solutions rather than simply as a tool.
“In line with this perspective,” Dean says, “I believe that creating an internal environment where employees can clearly diagnose issues and explore applicable solution models is one of the key challenges we face.”
Investing for the next phase of growth
As the agency landscape evolves, firms are being challenged to keep pace with changing consumer behaviour, AI advancements and growing demands for accountability. When asked about the capabilities agencies need to invest in to stay competitive and where he sees the industry’s biggest opportunities, Dean says, “The real advantage starts with data. As third party signals keep eroding, agencies with genuine first party data relationships, and the technical ability to actually activate that data, will hold a structural edge that’s hard to copy overnight. Companies using first-party data see up to 2.9x higher revenue growth and up to 50% lower acquisition costs than competitors.”
“As AI takes on more of the work behind a campaign, clients will expect real transparency into how decisions are made. Agencies that can’t answer that clearly will lose deals, regardless of how strong the output looks” – Daeyoung Go (Dean)
“Alongside that is AI fluency, but the strategic kind, not just the operational one everyone’s already chasing,” says Dean. “What’s needed are planners and creative leads who understand these tools well enough to direct them with judgment, not just operate them. That’s what separates agencies using AI well from those simply using it a lot.”
He continues, “Then there’s trust and governance, often overlooked. As AI takes on more of the work behind a campaign, clients will expect real transparency into how decisions are made. Agencies that can’t answer that clearly will lose deals, regardless of how strong the output looks.”
Dean sums up by saying, “The biggest opportunity is reclaiming ground lost to consultancies and in house teams over the last decade, not through price or headcount, but by being the partner that understands both creative and technology well enough to move fast without putting the brand at risk.”
