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By Jessica Davies, News Editor

September 18, 2014 | 3 min read

Programmatic ad trading has a “bad reputation” with many marketers perceiving it as a cost-saving effort, rather than the data opportunity it really represents, according to Mondelez’s VP of global media and consumer engagement.

Speaking to The Drum at Dmexco in Cologne, Bonin Bough said the ability to identify emerging technologies remains a major challenge for brands, but with the future accelerating areas such as the Internet of Things, the data opportunities in the programmatic environment can help brands to unlock its potential.

“When it comes to the element programmatic is playing in that ecosystem – I think it has a bad rep. A lot of people see it as a cost-saving effort, but from our point of view it’s very much a data opportunity and we think there is a data arms race in front of us.

“The more data we can begin to capture and analyse the better opportunities we have to accelerate growth. When you look at the ecosystem of the technology players, underlying almost all of them is a data strength – an understanding and analysis of data and a wealth of it. And the world will be made up of more and more data, whether it’s sensor data or geography data – you name it.

“So in some respects organisations will look even more like tech companies. So we see programmatic as a way of taking a massive investment that we have – which is media – and pull data from that investment so it’s no longer just a dumb investment but actually gives us a great feedback loop."

Meanwhile Bough described the future potential of the Internet of Things as “hugely influential” but added that organisations such as Mondelez still have a way to go before they can boast internal structures that reflect the pace of technological change.

“As a company that sells billions of products a month – conceptually we could become the largest tech company in the world. What frightens me is that we don’t look like the largest tech company today – we don’t look like Cisco, don’t think like Facebook, or [have] the speed of Twitter, or operate like Snapchat.

“So to prepare ourselves for the Internet of Things and the value it will unlock and growth evaluation it will drive, we must think how are we reinventing the talent inside our organisations – building the capabilities and inspiring and transforming marketers to be marketers of this next generation,” he said.

Bough added that a large part of his current remit involves designing processes which can pave the way to “systematically change” the culture of the organisation.