Programmatic market must earn more trust from publishers & advertisers before they can trade the 'precious metals' - former BBC Worldwide exec VP Chris Dobson

He told attendees that the industry must work harder to resolve the current image it has with the majority of publishers and brands if it is to achieve the place it “deserves” on the media plan.

“Right now we are what I refer to as ‘downstream’ – where search started in 2002 – where we want to be is upstream,” he said.

He likened the programmatic ad trading ecosystem to the finance trading system, the main difference being that the former is currently stuck trading “non-precious metals” - remnant inventory - rather than the “precious metals” - premium inventory.

Despite the numerous benefits and opportunities programmatic trading opens up for publishers and brands, its reputation has been shaky for some time, and will continue to be so, unless certain issues are rectified, according to Dobson.

Publishers have resisted relinquishing their premium inventory to programmatic trading because it is where the majority of their revenues are derived. Addressing the companies from all different parts of the ad tech supply chain, including agency trading desks at the briefing, Dobson, who was appointed chairman of global programmatic digital marketplace The Exchange Lab’s board of directors this February, referred back to his time at BBC Worldwide, by asking: “Would we let you anywhere near that [premium inventory]?

"The answer was and largely still is – no we wouldn’t. And why wouldn’t we? Partly because we didn’t trust you to maintain yield, because the reality was that as soon as you put something into programmatic it became a race to the bottom.”

BBC Worldwide ran around 30 per cent of its US site inventory through programmatic inventory, but drew the line there for that reason.

“The big test for our industry is going to be – can we prove that in a supply-constrained, more precious end of the market, that we can drive the prices up? We have been very good at driving the prices down, but until we can start to create that yield view for tier-one publishers, they are not going to give their gold inventory to us,” he said.

However, it is not plummeting yields alone that will prevent publishers from fully embracing programmatic for their premium inventory. Brand safety remains a critical barrier to entry for many, according to Dobson.

“You only need to make one mistake to see an inappropriate brand on your home page next to your brand or brands you have sold to – and that’s out there and impossible to get back. I had experiences with two companies during my time at BBC Worldwide, both of which made massive errors – promising things they could do but couldn’t deliver, and they had to be cut at the knees – gone – no second chance. We couldn’t risk it.”

Meanwhile another area which lacked trust between ad tech suppliers, publishers and agencies was the use of data, according to Dobson.

“The other thing we couldn’t trust you with was our data – because you stole it. Then you retargeted our audience somewhere else so they could be captured on the cheap. That’s probably quite good from a marketer’s point of view, but not so good for those that have spent the time building those audiences in the first place. And ultimately we need those publishers to be building the audience – they are not going to last if we just cut them off from the revenue that sustains all the investment in their products.

“We had lots of interesting times with cookies appearing that we didn’t expect – we had to start cleaning cookies out almost on an hourly basis to stop the retargeting. And all that gave us a really bad taste in the mouth about this industry – it felt like the Wild West with no sheriff,” he said.

Meanwhile marketers are also reluctant to trust their first-party data or “mother-load of intelligence” to the programmatic ecosystem. Do they trust us with their data? No of course they don’t – we have not proven we are trustworthy,” he added.

His comments were aimed at giving a sharp reminder of the repercussions if the programmatic industry doesn’t rectify some of its shortfalls and reputation. If all these issues can be altered, then the future of programmatic will be very bright. "I've previously been asked to give a definition of this form of ad serving, and I replied 'when we never have to talk about it again. We will become extremely functional and great at what we do, but we won’t be analysed in the way we are today because we will just be trusted to get on with it."

The Digital Trading Awards , sponsored by Brightroll, Essence, IgnitionOne, Improve Digital, Integral Ad Science, MediaMath, Millennial Media, Propel, Quantcast, Strike Ad, TubeMogul, Unanimis and Xaxis, will take place on 24 April in the Marriott Grosvenor Square in London.