Hasta La Creative!

Marketers in the U.S. will spend $11.5 billion on data and data-related services this year, up from an estimated $10.5 billion in 2010, according to a report from research consultancy Winterberry Group last month. In hopes of attracting those dollars, Acxiom and its other main competitors in the marketing data-services space — Experian Marketing Services, Alliance Data’s Epsilon and the smaller yet scrappier Merkle — have made all sorts of moves to remain hip in the eyes of the modern audience-data-obsessed marketer.

Primarily through acquisitions, they’ve patched on display-ad systems, social-media data services, mobile-targeting technologies — the slick clothes and cool tattoos of today’s marketing industry — and in some cases bolstered their creative and consultative agency services.

Some seem more comfortable in their new look than others, though. After speaking with industry insiders, partners and the firms themselves, here’s where Ad Age sees them fitting in.

Continue reading at AdAge.com