The DAC Blog

Marketing teams today are feeling the squeeze from every direction. Budgets are under pressure, privacy rules are tightening, and the demand for growth hasn’t eased up. More than ever, you are being asked to deliver more—more precision, more personalization, more performance—while using less. At DAC, we see this constraint not as a roadblock, but as a strategic opportunity. These challenges have driven us to build IRIS, our generative AI-native platform that transforms noise into clarity. Powered by what we call generative marketing intelligence (GMI), IRIS helps brands turn complexity into confident decision-making—and ultimately, stronger, more scalable results. What is generative marketing intelligence? IRIS is more than a planning tool or analytics dashboard. It’s built on a foundational framework that combines four core inputs: data, context, DAC’s internal expertise, and AI-powered modeling. This combination—GMI—allows teams to surface strategic opportunities, validate direction, and make confident, insight-backed decisions in less time. The value lies not just in automation, but in orchestration. IRIS pulls together disparate datasets, business rules, historical insight, and marketing best practices to deliver media and content strategies that are tuned to real market conditions and audience behavior. The platform’s intelligence layer doesn’t just analyze the past; it actively informs what to do next. Simplifying complexity from start to finish As modern marketers, you are asked to connect dozens of dots: audience signals, media channels, creative assets, timelines, and budgets. IRIS simplifies that entire process. It begins with audience-first planning, allowing you to upload segmentation files that serve as a foundation for analysis. Those inputs are then mapped against a wide set of dimensions, including geographic, demographic, behavioral, psychographic, and more. Using GMI, IRIS identifies high-value combinations and recommends media channels and tactics to match. Suggestions are tailored to the specific needs of each audience group and built to deliver measurable results across both brand and performance KPIs. The output is a full-funnel strategy that’s rooted in reality: where your audience is, how they behave, and what will actually resonate. From data to decision: One platform, many roles One of the platform’s biggest advantages is its ability to integrate—and interpret—data across systems. IRIS ingests audience insights, CRM signals, media performance metrics, and trusted third-party datasets to create an informed, centralized view. Then, it distills that complexity into channel and tactic recommendations you can act on right away. Instead of jumping between platforms or making decisions in silos, you get an integrated planning environment that reflects the full picture. Whether you’re planning a national launch, a hyper-local campaign, or an always-on program, IRIS gives you the visibility and structure to execute with confidence. The journey stages screen in IRIS provides a clear view of audience engagement across key touchpoints. That kind of adaptability is essential in today’s landscape, where the pace of change outpaces traditional planning cycles. IRIS is designed to be nimble; new data sources can be onboarded quickly, and insights are delivered in formats that are intuitive and easy to socialize across teams. Upcoming features like knowledge cards will take this further, surfacing bite-sized, relevant takeaways at just the right moment, making marketing intelligence even more accessible. Unlocking speed without sacrificing strategy IRIS also changes how teams work. Repetitive tasks—like mapping targeting criteria to channel tactics or formatting multi-market budget plans—are automated. This frees up strategists, planners, and creatives to focus on what matters most: innovation, refinement, and long-term brand growth. And it’s not just about speed. It’s about creating conditions for better thinking. As SVP of Client Strategy Nasser Sahlool puts it: “It allows people to move beyond the functions they’ve historically been limited to. It lets us be smarter because it frees up the space and time for people to actually think.” When you are empowered to step back from the churn of execution, you’re able to see the broader picture and make more impactful moves. How a telecom brand transformed its media strategy To see this in action, look no further than a regional telecom provider. The brand had been investing broadly across major markets without the insights needed to optimize. With IRIS, DAC integrated subscriber data and census inputs to evaluate opportunities at the postal-code level. Custom allocations in IRIS help you fine-tune media investments at a hyper-local level. This granular view allowed the team to develop a highly localized media strategy that prioritized high-value areas without increasing the overall budget. The client gained precision and efficiency in equal measure, transforming a static media plan into a flexible, performance-focused framework. In the past, this level of insight would have required costly research or external consultants. With IRIS, it happened within days and within budget. The future of intelligent marketing You aren’t looking for more dashboards or more data. You’re looking for clarity. You’re looking for partners who can help you make smarter, faster decisions across every touchpoint. That’s where IRIS shines. The platform was designed with magnetic utility at its core: if something genuinely makes your work easier, it doesn’t need a sales pitch—it just works. And that’s the impact IRIS delivers every day: less friction, sharper thinking, and clearer paths to measurable growth. Or, as Nasser put it, “In a budget-constrained world, we’re finally able to deliver better, faster, and more affordably—all at the same time.” IRIS represents a shift not just in how marketing intelligence is delivered, but in how it’s used. It’s not about adding complexity. It’s about clearing the path forward.