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Mindshare WPP Marketing

Inside Mindshare's new 'programmable' approach to media planning and execution

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By Ronan Shields, Digital Editor

September 7, 2017 | 4 min read

Mindshare is working with digital outfits AppNexus and Jivox to more effectively deliver relevant creative content to the myriad of third-party adtech partners on the market. Part of a new approach to media planning it has dubbed ‘ANNA’, which is now in beta.

In practice, ANNA is a process that will see media planners begin to use computer code to automate how they both conceptualize and conduct a client's media plan. This involves using the digital pairing’s respective software kits to automate how they assess what ads to deliver, where to place them, and at what price; then use machine learning to better execute this process in future.

It thus streamlines how Mindshare interfaces with multiple demand-side platforms (DSPs), as well as the decision process of what content to deliver to a specific consumer – known as dynamic creative optimization (DCO) – and saves time for media planners to better service clients.

Previously, digital media planning and campaign execution would have involved media planners setting up a multitude of targeting strategies for every campaign through a web-based DSP interface, ie setting variables such as audience types, bids, locations, times and contextual settings.

However, ANNA (not an acronym) will see Mindshare planners use the AppNexus Programmable Bidder, and Jivox’s IQ Digital Marketing Platform to perform these tasks, plus machine learning algorithms to then improve this automated decision making over time.

ANNA forms part of the Mindshare FAST program and has been dubbed ‘programmable advertising’, ie using software to help devise and implement a strategy, as opposed to just executing programmatic media buying as tool in an ad campaign.

Adam Ray, global chief innovation officer at Mindshare FAST, said this process of working can help brands improve how they engage with consumers, as well as identify potential new customers. This is because it frees up the human element, ie media agency planners, to spend more time uncovering insights, and in turn converting these into strategic actions.

“This one change from human-based DSP/DCO configuration to an integrated code-based DSP/DCO configuration will have profound implications for the industry,” he added.

Diaz Nesamoney, Jivox’s chairman and chief executive, said this approach will help streamline targeting and improve how brands deliver campaign creatives to audiences.

Meanwhile, Bobby Mohr, AppNexus, senior director, global accounts, underlined the AppNexus mantra of how this ‘programmable’ approach to marketing is fundamentally different to using software simply as a media buying tool to purchase cheap inventory.

An approach to the workflow process AppNexus has already experimented with alongside Mindshare’s GroupM stablemate Xaxis, as part of its Co-Pilate initiative.

ANNA has been developed to integrate with GroupM’s [m]Platform, with Mindshare set to showcase the new beta program at the DMEXCO trade show hosted in Cologne, Germany, in September 2017.

GroupM-parent WPP is an investor in adtech outfit AppNexus, as part of a strategy that has seen it take an interest in digital outfits addressing other areas of the marketing milieu, as evidenced by this week’s earlier investment in podcasting outfit Gimlet.

The Drum will be reporting from the floor at DMEXCO, click here for content from the event

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