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15 take outs from the Real Time Advertising Summit

By David Ellison, Marketing Services Manager

November 26, 2014 | 5 min read

David Ellison, marketing services manager and facilitator of ISBA’s Digital Action Group, provides his 15 key take outs from the Real Time Advertising Summit that took place last week in London.

David Ellison

David Ellison

1. Simplification needed

The advertising industry needs to focus on clarification and simplification. No more acronyms. Will the Programmatic ecosystem become even more complex before we see consolidation? Opinion was divided. Khurram Hamid, global head digital media at GlaxoSmithKline pointed out that advertisers aren't keen on dealing with up to 25 separate partners within the Programmatic ecosystem. Advertisers must be prepared to retool, revise and re-organise.

2. Education, education, education!

Advertisers need to take responsibility for finding out how programmatic works. With all due respect they have to educate themselves rather than relying on their media agency. If advertisers don't know which questions to ask their media agency they won't be able to ask any relevant questions!

3. Don’t forget the creative

Programmatic simply provides a platform to buy inventory efficiently. Don't forget that you need creative ads relevant to the sectors you reach. Advertisers need to take the type of magic generated by the John Lewis TV ad and use it for targeted engagement with individuals.

4. Consumers have numerous options

According to recent surveys people are falling out of love with brands and are being spoilt by having too many options. As users are saying that not many brands enrich their lives, advertisers are going to have to work harder to gain and retain newly empowered customers.

5. Start with data management

Sammy Austin, head of programmatic at MoneySuperMarket, suggests that advertisers looking to get involved in Programmatic should start with data management. One person needs to take responsibility and needs to keep up with developments in the dynamic ecosystem.

6. Publishers trading more premium inventory programmatically

Publishers are gaining confidence in trading via Programmatic, adding to the pool of quality inventory available.

7. Viewability

ABC announced the first UK industry report into online ad viewability at the event, with four viewability measurement products having been successfully certified: comScore, DoubleVerify, Integral AdScience and Moat.

8. Making it easier

It should be remembered that Programmatic is simply the tech that takes away the heavy lifting.

9. Death of the cookies

With the anticipated death of cookie data Facebook’s new Atlas Ad Platform will be able to rely on anonymised Facebook log in data to identify, track and target users across the web using who are using different devices and platforms. The trend is going towards targeting ‘humans’ rather than cookies.

Although Atlas is privacy compliant, consumers and regulators might push back against users being targeted across the entire web environment. This development will aid attribution, however advertisers won't necessarily welcome a new closed ecosystem and the inevitable development of an arms race.

10. Driverless cars

Delegates were shown a car screen full of information on your speed, the weather, your Twitter feed,a list of restaurants in your vicinity and other relevant information. All very well, but it could distract you from driving your car safely. However, we were reassured that this wouldn't be a problem as the car would drive itself.

11. Transparency

As far as transparency is concerned, advertisers are like investors - they want guarantees. Years ago John Wanamaker famously claimed that half of his ad spend was being wasted the problem was that he didn't know which half. The same could be said about Programmatic, where it is generally accepted that 50 per cent of online media spend ends up within the media agency and its associated agency trading desk.

12. Who owns the data?

With all the consolidation going on advertisers need to ensure that their data partner maintains data accessibility and safety after they have been taken on. Advertisers need to protect their data via a comprehensive contract.

13. Programmatic establishes inventory’s true value

The Programmatic trading model mirrors the financial futures market. In fact you could argue that Programmatic is producing a commodities market, whereby premium inventory rises to the top and remnant inventory disappears. Programmatic simply establishes inventory's true value. And don’t forget that when bidding on an impression in an open auction the Agency Trading Desks don't necessarily have any advantage over a smaller player.

14. Flexible technology is key

Advertisers should be aware that a number of media agencies and ad tech companies are simply offering advertisers the same piece of technology. As most advertisers won't be able to afford to invest in technology themselves they need to examine what each piece of technology can offer. The watchword is to invest in flexible technology bearing in mind how dynamic things are.

15. Programmatic isn’t going to go away!

A number of advertisers might not be too concerned about the lack of transparency in Programmatic whilst they only spend a couple of percent of their ad spend on Digital. However, once this figure increases questions will be asked!

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