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P WHAT’S DRIVING PROGRAMMATIC?
Everyone’s talking about programmatic,
but what is it? And what does it mean for
brands, agencies and media owners?
During Advertising Week Europe 2015, we
set out to answer some of those questions
by asking a cross-section of specialists to
join us for our panel ‘What’s Driving
Programmatic?’
The panel took place on the YouTube
stage at the BAFTA headquarters on
Piccadilly in central London, in front of a
packed audience of 180 delegates from
across the industry.
PANEL
Wayne Blodwell - Head of Programmatic,
iProspect
Rebecca Muir - Head of Research,
ExchangeWire
Andy Mihalop - Head of Network
Agencies, DoubleClick at Google
James Harris - Head of International
Agency Relationships, AOL
MODERATOR
Arif Durrani - Media Editor, Campaign
and Editor, Media Week
DEFINING
PROGRAMMATIC
AD: ‘Programmatic’ can mean
different things to different people.
What’s your take on it?
WB: For me, programmatic means using
data plus technology to drive cross
channel marketing effectiveness.
RM: I agree. Putting it simply,
programmatic is a way of using real-time
data to sell and buy impressions
automatically. It traditionally refers to
online, so it tends to get confusing when
people use it for non-digital channels like
video.
A NEW PARADIGM IN
MARKETING
AD: What effect has the advent of
programmatic had on your business?
WB: Last year, we launched a separate
programmatic division which will soon
have between 25 and 30 people. That’s a
considerable investment, but our clients
need that service to help them navigate
the complexities of the programmatic
space. Actually, it’s two services - a
consultancy that helps clients choose the
right technologies, and a management
service that helps them run things. Once
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a client has chosen and implemented the
right technology, it’s hard to find good
people to operate it well. That’s why we’re
building our service in that area.
Over the last six months, we’ve seen a
massive culture shift. Traditionally
agencies had paid social, paid search,
affiliates teams, and so on. Programmatic
goes right in the centre of all that. We’ve
worked really hard to align with other
channels, asking ourselves how we provide
data for the search team, or the paid
social team. Good programmatic is all
about servicing data into all those
channels to improve marketing
effectiveness. It’s an area that’s growing
rapidly and I expect we’ll see that trend
continuing for many years.
“OVER THE LAST SIX
MONTHS, WE’VE SEEN
A MASSIVE CULTURE
SHIFT.”
RM: At Exchange Wire, we conduct
research to help technology companies,
brands and agencies understand the
landscape of programmatic, adtech and
martech. Programmatic has vastly
expanded the different areas we’re being
asked to do research into. People need
data and research to understand best
practice, what trends are in different
markets, and what to prioritise.
Programmatic also opens up discussions
around attribution, verification and
transparency.
AM: The DoubleClick view really is to
develop an integrated platform, a unified
platform that enables customers, and our
agency partners, to leverage a single
customer view, to segment and buy
audiences at scale, across channels and
across devices. It’s one of the fastest
growing parts of Google. In Q4 last year
we were growing at around 170%. It’s a
great time to be in that part
of Google.
“PEOPLE AREN’T
COOKIES,
THEY’RE
STILL PEOPLE.”
JH: There were a lot of
people who said that
programmatic would be
disruptive or devalue the
currency. But if you embrace
that disruption, it can be a
really positive thing. When
we talk about culture and
code at AOL, it’s how the
culture drives through to the
code. The ad tech allows
us to scale it, but fundamentally we’re still
talking to the same people. I heard a great
phrase yesterday, ‘People are not cookies,
they’re still people.’ Connecting data to
the real world is our mission. Programmatic
shouldn’t be the strategy, it should
empower the strategy.
WHAT’S DRIVING PROGRAMMATIC?
“
“
Andy Mihalop
“It’s one of the
fastest-growing parts
of Google. In Q4 last
year we were growing at
around 170%.”
Head of Network Agencies
DoubleClick at Google
2
“
“
Andy Mihalop,
“It’s one of the
fastest-growing parts
of Google. In Q4 last
year we were growing at
around 170%.”
Head of Network Agencies
DoubleClick at Google
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HOW ARE MEDIA
OWNERS KEEPING UP?
AD: Do you think media owners are
moving fast enough? Do they
understand programmatic? Are
agencies and media owners
collaborating well together?
WB: Some are, like AOL and Channel 4.
Channel 4 are working with Dentsu Aegis
and have allowed their video on demand
to be 100% accessed programmatically
which is a huge step. Yahoo! is another
business working with Dentsu Aegis
programmatically. Having these
relationships with the media owners allows
you to have these conversations. It’s about
overlaying advertising data on a media
owner’s format.
JH: Absolutely. It’s all well and good
creating something that’s wonderful and
a great brand experience, but I’m sure
everyone else would agree, it’s when you
can scale it that you have a real win.
RELEVANCE MEANS
RETURNS
AM: It’s about relevancy in real time.
Delivering the right data-led message at
the right time, on the right device, is
having a real impact on revenue and
profitability. Large brands, like GSK or
Nestlé are now investing heavily in
video to drive engagement or recall. That’s
working very well in achieving their brand
objectives. What’s really encouraging to
me is seeing big brands investing quite
heavily in programmatic.
RM: It’s about personalisation. One brand
that’s doing this really well at the moment
is British Airways. BA use visual buttons on
mobile - perhaps a deserted beach, a glass
of wine or a hot air balloon.
In ads the consumer sees later online and
in the e-mail follow ups, BA use the
images that you’ve already picked out.
They’re taking a piece of very simple data
- the image that person is drawn to, and
then using their personal preferences to
communicate to them. That’s a very
advanced use of data, insight, audience
targeting, programmatic buying and
creative.
“IT’S STILL ABOUT THAT
HUMAN CONNECTION
AND SIMPLICITY.”
JH: There’s a ‘so what’ test about why you
do it. There’s a huge amount of
emperor’s new clothes, or as I call it,
emperor’s new technology, in this space
sometimes. What’s great about that
example is that ultimately, it’s about the
person, the device in their hand, and what
you can do with that. It’s still about that
human connection, and simplicity at the
WHAT’S DRIVING PROGRAMMATIC?
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end of the day.
AM: Actually now, what smart brands are
starting to do is capture and leverage all
of these audience signals. This is actual
consumer behaviour. Real-time behaviour
is incredibly useful and powerful.
THE TALENT SHORTAGE
WB: It’s amazing we have all this real-time
data coming in, but we need people to
interpret it. We need highly skilled people
who can create audience taxonomies and
granular segments that make sense. Those
folk are pretty hard to find. That’s why it’s
become such an important part of our
service.
WHOSE DATA IS IT
ANYWAY?
AD: Let’s talk about data. Client-side
marketers are worried about who’s
holding it, and what you guys are do-
ing with it. Are agencies like a black
box?
WB: The Dentsu Aegis stance is very clear.
It’s the client’s data, not ours. At any point
they could move that data to wherever
they want. But there’s a gulf between the
expectations of what programmatic can
deliver and what it is currently delivering.
into the same room to manage the
conversation.
“IT’S A BIG SHIFT TO
THINK ABOUT DATA
FIRST, RATHER THAN
MEDIA CHANNELS
FIRST.”
Programmatic trading isn’t just a line on
a plan, a black box. It’s a hundred
lines. It’s individual audience
segments. It’s scale. It’s
forecasting. The classic ques-
tion I get is, ‘We want to do
some programmatic.’ But
what do they mean? They
think it’s a line on the display
plan. Actually display should
be a line on the
programmatic plan. It’s a big
shift to think about data first,
rather than media channels
first.
Changing the whole planning process
around that is time consuming. It’s not
easy. It can’t be done overnight. But the
most forward-thinking clients we speak to
are moving that way.
JH: I absolutely believe the role of the
agency in programmatic is hugely
important. This stuff is not easy. It
generates lots of data, and it’s not going
to analyse itself.
“
“
– James Harris,
“I absolutely believe the
role of the agency in
programmatic is hugely
important. This stuff is
not easy. It generates lots
of data, which is not
going to analyse itself.”
Head of International Agency
Relationships at AOL
WHAT’S DRIVING PROGRAMMATIC?
“
“
– James Harris,
I absolutely believe the
role of the agency in
programmatic is hugely
important. This stuff is
not easy. It generates lots
of data, which is not
going to analyse itself.
Head of International Agency
Relationships at AOL
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AM: The agency has a huge role to play.
However, it’s not one size fits all. For some
companies, if they have that expertise and
that’s the culture they can take it in-house.
Look at Netflix. For other clients the
solution might lie in owning their
technology and their data but having their
agency operate the technology for them.
And there’ll be other hybrids I’m sure.
From a DoubleClick perspective we’d
want to support all those operating
models as they evolve.
DIFFERENT
PRIORITIES FOR
DIFFERENT GROUPS
RM: In a piece of research we did earli-
er this year, we asked people what their
number one priority for programmatic
was for the next 12 months. And when we
divide those people into brands, agencies,
publishers and tech companies, what you
see is, going back to the earlier point,
that publishers’ number one objective was
to achieve greater scale. Publishers were
putting their hands up saying, ‘We need
to get more inventories out, available to
brands or agencies or buyers
programmatically, in order to drive our
own revenues’.
“PUBLISHERS’ NUMBER
ONE OBJECTIVE WAS
TO ACHIEVE GREATER
SCALE.”
For tech companies and agencies, the
number one priority was data integration.
They know that in order to keep driving
performance, you need to integrate more
data so you’re making smarter decisions
based on better insights.
For brands, the number one concern was
transparency and control.Which goes back
to Wayne’s point about brands not
necessarily having had the right people in
the right room having the right
conversations. And also the
scaremongering that’s around in the
media; that programmatic’s not
necessarily brand-safe and there’s loads of
fraud around.
“FOR BRANDS, THE
NUMBER ONE CONCERN
WAS TRANSPARENCY
AND CONTROL.”
They’re not drawing on their agency teams
to help them to understand what that is.
We’re never going to get to a point where
you’ll have 100% viewability through
programmatic unless publishers
completely change the structure of their
websites and just fill the top part of their
pages with advertising, which completely
breaks the role of a publisher.
Overall, those four groups all want to work
with programmatic. They all
recognise there’s an opportunity there.
WHAT’S DRIVING PROGRAMMATIC?
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But their priorities are slightly different.
And the way they’re trying to get to that
goal is down a slightly different path. It’s
the role of the agency, a lot of the time,
to bring those objectives together, in one
room, to discuss how you can bring them
to life.
“IT’S THE ROLE OF THE
AGENCY, A LOT OF THE
TIME, TO BRING THOSE
OBJECTIVES
TOGETHER.”
WB: I agree. Clients get sold in different
things from different people that are
going to ‘reinvent their business.’ They
just want someone they can go to and say,
‘Can you help me make sense of all this
data we have, all this technology, but in
an impartial way?’ That’s why we launched
the consultancy arm of the programmatic
offering at iProspect. To help solve their
business problems. As an agency, that’s
what we’ve always done.
There are a lot of different approaches
out there. Some agency networks have
created a programmatic trading desk to
serve the whole group, in some cases each
agency has their own team. Other groups
are simply offering training to help media
planners develop their skills with regard to
data, audiences and signals. The challenge
is finding the best-in-class talent in a really
competitive industry.
You need mathematicians and those who
can explain things well to a client and
make things simple.
AD: Let’s take this out to the
audience. Do you have any questions
for the panel?
“When you’re combining different
data sources - particularly around
social - what’s the best way to use
those sets?”
- Audience question
WB: The biggest challenge is
the walled gardens. Large so-
cial networking sites don’t
necessarily allow you to plug
in data management
platforms comfortably into
their APIs. That may change
over the next year, or two.
One of the things we try and
do is prioritise data usage.
There’s no point capturing all the
data straight away, incurring huge
cost and only being able to use five
percent. You need to try and ramp it up
over time. Think about the low-hanging
fruit of data. This comes from having good
conversations with clients and client teams.
It’s usually a roadmap approach that suits.
You set six months, one year and two years
as milestones and focus on good planning
along the way.
“
“
– James Harris,
“I absolutely believe the
role of the agency in
programmatic is hugely
important. This stuff is
not easy. It generates lots
of data, which is not
going to analyse itself.”
Head of International Agency
Relationships at AOL
WHAT’S DRIVING PROGRAMMATIC?
“
“
– Wayne Blodwell,
(Clients) just want someone
to go to, to talk to, to say,
‘Can you help me make sense
of all this data we have, all
this technology, but in an
impartial way?’ That’s why we
launched the consultancy arm
of the programmatic offering
at iProspect.
Head of Programmatic
at iProspect
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JH: You need the right data skills for the
field to progress. An open ecosystem is
essential.
WHAT’S POSSIBLE VS.
WHAT’S USEFUL
RM: There’s a real balancing act between
what’s technologically possible and where
the opportunity lies for your brand. For
example, it’s possible to take your own
first party data - what consumers have
done on your site - and create, let’s
say, three groups: loyal customers who
buy from you regularly, people who’ve
shopped with you a few times and those
who’ve been on your site but never
bought anything. Once you have those
three segments, you can feed them into
Twitter, or other social networks, and the
technology can then match the accounts
using the cookies of people who’ve been
on your website.
“YOU ALWAYS HAVE TO
MAKE SURE YOU’RE
BALANCING WHAT’S
POSSIBLE… WITH
WHERE YOUR
CUSTOMERS
REALLY ARE.”
Each of those three groups can easily be
served a different, more personalised,
message. So you can say to your loya
lcustomers, ‘Thank you for being a loyal
customer, here’s a money-off voucher’. To
those who have never bought, ‘Here’s 50%
off your first shop.’ And that’s
great. It’s personalised marketing. It’s
taking advantage of data. It’s real time. It’s
programmatic. It’s everything we’ve been
talking about. But, if only 3% of your
customers have a Twitter account, it’s
completely pointless. You always have to
make sure you’re balancing what’s
possible, what the technology companies
are telling you to do, what’s cutting edge
and exciting - with where your customers
really are.
WHAT ABOUT
PUBLISHER ALLIANCES?
AD: What do you think about media
alliances, for example The Guardian
joining up with CNN and Reuters? Do
you think publishers are increasingly
going to start banding together to
create private marketplaces for you
guys to operate in?
WB: Yes. I’m surprised we haven’t seen
more of it already.
JH: We have a content exchange platform
we use - an open ecosystem that
ultimately works to the benefit of
everybody. There’s definitely a bit of a
battle royal going on with things getting
closed off. It’ll be interesting to see where
that ends up.
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AM: For programmatic to scale, everyone
has to win. How do we empower
publishers with technology solutions to
allow them to better monetise their
inventory?
AD: Perhaps publishers may still feel they
are giving away their inventory for less
than they would like?
WB: We’re seeing some new standards
that are beginning to help with that issue.
How we’re measuring the quality of the
imagery is improving. Attribution is
changing. It’s not just about last click
anymore. Auditing is improving.
JH: Technology has changed what we do,
but not why we’re doing it. Rather than
getting obsessed about the technology,
content and context are still massively
important. Our business is still fifty
percent focused on how we build that
culture. People are still, dare I say it,
analogue at heart.
How can publishers and agencies
improve the way they work together,
especially around viewability?
- Audience question
WB: I would always recommend a
collaborative approach, with expectations
that everyone’s happy with.
JH: Yes. The term ‘viewability’ can also
be misleading when you’re talking about
fraud as the two are not mutually
exclusive.
What do you think of the recent IAB
standards of ‘half an ad for half a
second’?
- Audience question
WB: It’s potentially quite limiting, for
audiences as well as advertisers. Once
people understand programmatic better,
hopefully we’ll see a better framework.
AM: I agree.
JH: We need to have guidelines, but
they need to be matched to the
format and people’s behaviour in
a practical way.
RM: That’s our view too.
AD: That’s all we have time
for. Thanks to the panel and
to everyone in the audience
for joining us today. It’s a
programmatic future. It’s
going to be fascinating seeing
that future take shape.
WHAT’S DRIVING PROGRAMMATIC?
“
“
Rebecca Muir
“So you have got to
always make sure you are
balancing what is
possible, what the
technology companies
are telling you to do,
what is cutting edge and
exciting with where your
customers are.”
Head of Research at
ExchangeWire
8
“
“
Rebecca Muir,
“So you have got to
always make sure you are
balancing what is
possible, what the
technology companies
are telling you to do,
what is cutting edge and
exciting with where your
customers are.”
Head of Research at
ExchangeWire
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We hope you enjoyed the panel
even if you couldn’t be there in
person.
It was quite a far-ranging
conversation so we distilled the
hour down into our top eight
ideas to take away:
1. Programmatic is the use of data and
technology to drive cross-channel
marketing effectiveness. Programmatic is
about data first and media channels
second.
2. Programmatic isn’t the strategy, it
empowers the strategy.
3. Agencies, research companies,
technology companies and advertisers are
all embracing programmatic but at
differing speeds.
4. Relationships and collaboration
across the ecosystem (particularly between
buyers and sellers) are still incredibly
important to drive campaign success.
5. Advertisers are starting to value the
data they are generating within their
marketing. However, understanding and
utilising this data comes with many.
6. There is a talent shortage in the
industry. This is an area future-facing
companies are investing in now.
7. There are several different models
for programmatic. Brands might consider
an in-house team, a hybrid team run by a
partner or having their work fully managed
by an external vendor. An informed and
impartial partner can help with this
decision. A robust business case and
careful selection is crucial.
8. Expectations in programmatic need
to be managed. Technology can be
utilised in myriad new ways, but unless
doing so delivers core business value, it is
redundant.
WHAT’S DRIVING PROGRAMMATIC?
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11. NEED A
HAND WITH
PROGRAMMATIC?
Smart, data-driven marketing can transform the way
you do business. To find out more, talk to
Emmaclare Huntriss, Business Development
Director at iProspect. Get in touch today.
Emmaclare.Huntriss@iProspect.com
Tel: +44(0)207 492 2800
Mob: +44(0)7525 223 881
