Nerissa MacDonald, Director of Trading, EMEA at MediaMind gives her overview on last week's ATS Paris event.

Last week saw the inaugural launch of ATS Paris, a first of its kind for the French market. With an attendance of over 200 of France’s most influential and senior ad trading specialists the event certainly delivered what had been billed.

The atmosphere was charged from the moment I arrived with a mix of agencies, trading desks and several advertisers/publishers. We entered armed with our French translation devices and took up our seats in the decadent underground bunker room.

The opening address - delivered in French - by ExchangeWire Editor, Ciaran O'Kane, set the tone for what was to become a memorable and informative day.

The “quant revolution” was the theme of Keynote speak, Erich Wasserman . His speech touched upon the interoperability of DSPs and how they helped deliver constant innovation in the space. He announced a call to arms amongst companies in the space to avoid inertia, claiming it to be the enemy of the revolution. Certainly this resonated with some of agencies in the room, in particular the independents.

His departure from stage, left the way open for the day’s first panel, the buy side. I had been looking forward to this as we had an eclectic mix on stage from Appnexus, Vivaki, Next Performance and Matiro. The non-French speaking contingent donned their translation devices and we were off.

The overriding topic of discussion seemed to form around the opportunity in France to redefine the business model for ad trading. Following on from the mistakes of the US market, France and Europe had the opportunity to rectify these errors and grow a more mature market offering quickly. Key facts pointed to only 2-3 companies in France who are receiving 50% of all the retargeting budgets. This underlined the need for agencies to reassess their consolidation plans in this area. The panel highlighted the need for transparency in France and that despite the growth of private marketplace exchanges in the US and the UK; it still was not a reality in the French market yet. The liquidity of the available exchange based industry was brought into question in particular the prices being traded.

Three years ago the prices were much lower for publishers, today they are being relied upon to add value to their inventory by assessing the value of their data for example. The panel pleaded to publishers to begin packaging up their data/inventory to circumnavigate the transparency issue. Concluding the panel Mike Nolet from Appnexus, stated that “Technology, Expertise and Data” were all key to being successful in the space. Being both a generalist and a specialist was now a requirement to succeed.

Clearly the buy side panel’s objective was to place the solution to their problems squarely at the publisher’s door. Fundamentally I would agree that some publishers need to start packaging by channel and start segmenting their data in order to give the buy side a better quality offering. With the level of competition in exchanges now, the need to make your inventory stand out coupled with the justification of value/price is greater than ever. Publishers need to realise that there is a new revenue line available to them; they just need to work with the buy side to build trust and confidence in building it.

We were then presented to by Google who spoke at length about the need to complete the entire tech stack. Key to remaining competitive in the space from a buy side standpoint was to secure the audience, the RTB and the dynamic creative tools to deliver highly targeted and relevant campaigns. The presentation was full of stats, including the fact that 79% of publishers leverage growth through direct selling. This seemed to contradict the earlier claim from the buy side panel that private exchanges were not a reality in France. Clearly the buyers are leading the revolution we’re seeing in France with 74% buying audience and prepared to pay more for it. Jerome Grateau from Google provided the evidence that publishers were indeed scared that they may lose their data with 48% saying their data needed protection.

Next up and after a swift strong espresso and some pastries, we had the data panel. The translation team were doing a great job keeping up with the day, but certainly the context of the subject being discussed was lost a little. This was more evident with the data panel and the sometimes complex terminology utilised in this space.

The tough laws in France around data and the usage of it were a key component as we opened up discussion with the likes of Weborama, Exelate, Turn and Acxiom. As a result the level of data collection was low in France up until May of this year. Alain Sanjaume, Exelate said “publishers were slow to migrate their data because they were waiting for the regulation to be released”. Mattheu Roche from Weborama was quick to talk about their coverage in 6 markets and to state that it was most important for publishers to analyse their data. A common theme seemed to be developing from both the buy side and data panels here. The need for RTB data in the French market was a great opportunity for both publishers and the buy side as there currently is none. Perhaps a publisher trading desk solution? But will the publishers be confident enough to play ball?

Publishers are facing multiple channels for distribution as opposed to 3 years ago when there were just 2 definable channels; direct and ad network. Undoubtedly education about the new channels is needed to build trust and confidence in the space.

The day rolled on after a splendid display of hors d'oeuvres and the obligatory Vin Rouge, straight into the presentation from Improve digital and their release of the new eco system map. The new map demonstrating that there has indeed been some consolidation in the space, but that there needs to be more.

The highlight of the day for me was certainly the publisher panel, with representation form Rubicon, Alenty, Amoury Medias and Horyzon media. They echoed the earlier opinions from Improve that the market had indeed become too complicated and there was a shift to a new eco system. Evolution however was not revolution and in order to allow more growth in the French market it was clear that training and investment in talent was required as the market is still young and experts in the space are few and far between. The all too familiar subject of the attribution issues with display were touched upon. This was more prevalent when discussing the need to get more brand budgets into the exchanges. The problems with display ads not being seen and the need for broader content on websites were heated topics of discussion. However, as usual, there were no solutions offered, perhaps leading the audience to believe that the solution for this is squarely in the hands of agencies?

With more presentations from Weborama’s Alain Levy and his trading places theme, he showcased 3 case studies and how the use of data clusters had significantly improved the performance of Banque Postal and more, providing clear evidence of the benefits of utilising 3rd party data.

We also had another panel looking at the move to automated ad trading and the future of media buying. Joelle Frijters, was present on stage discussing and representing the view of Improve Digital, along with, Mexad, Datvantage, Microsoft and Gamned. The key takeaway for me being that RTB has clearly put performance back in focus and that you clearly need a local knowledge and local support to be successful. This opinion expressed in response to the moderator, Ciaran O’Kane’s question “will the revolution be localised or European-ised?” Optimisation is plainly needed at a local level in a global market. Scale is not easy, especially when it comes to dealing with local regulation and relationships. However the panel agreed that there was no need for a local media buyer as automation was a key component of DSPs.

Concluding the day was Hi-Media's Cyril Zimmerman. Hi-Media recently announced at ATS London in September that it had become the 7th global ad exchange. With their new micro payment system and 50 million uniques , Hi-Media was positioned as a leading monetization engine in the EU. A clear concentration on the back office support was identified as a key element, as RTB leads the change of a paradigm.
Unfortunately the eager audience were not afforded the opportunity to ask questions, but in hindsight so much was covered on the day anyway. It was great to see the discussion flip from both the agency/advertiser side to publisher. I would have liked to see more marketers/brands on stage however talking about the problems from their perspective and how they are overcoming them.

The overriding conclusion of the day is that the commonality of data usage and the availability of quality inventory in the French market - along with the rest of Europe - continues to persist. This only gives hope that when these issues are resolved the solution can really power this market. However it will take a leap of faith by publishers coupled, with an educational drive from the industry as a whole, to achieve these goals.

A thoroughly enjoyable event with clearly a huge opportunity for the vibrant data-driven display French market. Looking forward to the next Paris event already.