The rise of digital advertising consultancies is definitely a threat and something GroupM are taking seriously, according to Brian Lesser, the company's North America CEO. Opening ExchangeWire Live in New York city in a fireside chat with ExchangeWire CEO Ciaran O’Kane, Lesser said, however, that they don’t cross paths with these consultancies as often as the industry would have you believe.

He doesn’t hold their strategies of wanting to offer additional value at the top of the chain (and help clients in-house things such as trading desks) in particularly high regard and claimed they don’t how difficult audience-driven, programmatic execution is – so a warning from Lesser to these consultancies is to leave it to the experts.

The experts in the house certainly had plenty to say on the day, across a wide range of topics, from the fragmentation of TV buying, to the relevance of ad tech in a duopolistic digital environment, and making brand safety work in programmatic.

Josh Martin, EVP, Performics, stressed the challenge of proving the value of programmatic TV when scale is limited and how this puts a premium on pricing, which prevents market entrants, where clients feel too much risk is involved. ‘Apples to apples’ was a phrase uttered multiple times in the panel discussion ‘Why the fragmented media world is changing TV buying’, with all panelists highlighting the fact that it’s not productive to compare linear TV and OTT. In fact, the digital-first brands, and even brands investing more heavily into DRTV, are the ones to tempt with moving over to addressable TV, as they are already in a similar mindset. From a measurement perspective, Erica Schmidt, managing director, North America, Cadreon, believes we are all getting in our own way, as we are trying to define things from a channel-by-channel perspective: “We should find a commonality on measurement. Ultimately, we’re all just trying to find a consumer.” When looking at new market entrants in the ad-funded TV space, the consensus appeared to be that the likes of Netflix and Amazon could easily go in that direction, with Adam Heimlich, SVP programmatic, MD HX, Horizon Media, commenting that it could certainly drive down prices in OTT.

Ari Paparo, CEO, Beeswax, doesn’t believe Netflix will launch an ad-funded model to rival the duopoly of Facebook and Google. Paparo made the comment on the ‘Surviving the duopoly: how ad tech remains relevant’ panel, when ExchangeWire CEO and moderator, Ciaran O’Kane asked if the duopoly could turn into a triopoly with Netflix. The panel, one of the most contentious discussions of the day, also featured Yieldbot co-founder and CEO, and Google and Facebook advocate, Jonathan Mendez, disagreeing with Jason Kint, CEO of Digital Content Next, that we are operating in a zero sum game, as Google and Facebook are gaining 100% of the growth: “There’s a lot more money coming into digital. [Google and Facebook] get most of it, there’s no question, but there’s nothing wrong with Facebook and Google bringing dollars to digital.”

ExchangeWire CEO Ciaran O’Kane quipped that there is a problem when they keep all of it and don’t share the wealth, asking how we keep the duopoly muzzled. Paparo responded that if they’re genuinely providing better performance, then they should take more money, but we must keep an eye on them when they start crossing the line in grey areas, like measurement: “The mobile app ecosystem is almost entirely click-based attribution, except Facebook. Facebook insists on view-through and takes credit for view-through, because they pressured all providers to give them view-through-based data, so apples to apples, they always look better than everybody else at a CPI level.” Speaking of mobile, Kint believes this is where the open web is most at threat, thanks to all of the data lying inside a closed Facebook/Snapchat platform, or quasi-open AMP Google solution: “Mobile paints the opportunity to do it differently; but I don’t know how, without the threats of Google or Facebook.”

Google came under fire again in the ‘Making viewability and brand safety work in programmatic’ panel; which was a timely discussion with more and more brands and agencies halting spend on Google’s YouTube and Display Networks. Mitch Weinstein, SVP, ad operations, IPG Mediabrands, was firm on the challenges faced by agencies and advertisers, with Google not making tracking brand safety on their platforms very easy: “It’s a big part of the issue and the industry is saying, 'Yes, you’re Google, but you have to open up to third-party, independent verification.' It’s hard to get a straight answer, with them not being open and forthcoming and now it’s all coming to a head.”

Steve Indich, general manager, US, Beamly, and Susan Schiekofer, chief digital investment officer, GroupM, both agreed that all platforms have to open up to third-party verification. Schiekofer stressed the responsibility that exists across the entire ecosystem to really look at what we’re monetising. Indich pointed out that, while in many cases we are talking about under 10 impressions, one impression can be too much sometimes. It doesn’t matter how few times it happened, it shouldn’t have happened at all.

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