Taking the advice that CIOs and CMOs should be better friends (presumably from Marketing) Telstra are set to throw as much as $60 million behind data marketing activity over the next 18 months, almost doubling its data-driven activity.

The telco has also created what is being dubbed the ‘Virtual Marketing Technology Unit’  that brings the IT and the marketing departments together.

IBM has reportedly been working with Telstra to apply analytics and data-driven marketing techniques more widely across the business. IBM itself has invested $16 billion to build its digital and data marketing services platforms globally over the past five years to keep up with the growing demand for analytical marketing data.

The Australian is also reporting this morning that the company has already increased its data marketing spend to 20% of its marketing budget, estimated at $300 million, up from just 3% two years ago.

This is one of the first instances of what we predict will be many big companies working to unify their marketing and IT departments to better install, operate and assess data-driven marketing services.