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Making Brand Advertising & Programmatic Work Together

Earlier this year, at ATS NYC three industry veterans formed a panel to discuss the disconnect between brand advertising and programmatic. The panel included:

– Anthony Rhind, CSO, AdForm
– Mark Egan, chief client officer, Maxus Americas
– Amanda Dean, Senior director programmatic strategy and partnerships, Rodale

At the centre of the discussion was the idea that programmatic is the distribution piece that is driving the growth in online advertising spend and creative is the heart and soul of the advertising industry and somehow we need to bring these two together to ensure the continued growth of online and maintain the creative integrity that drives brand advertising.

Rhind proposed that “programmatic has an image problem – it is not perceived as exciting by the people who need to engage. We do not make it easy to engage with three letter acronyms and jargon”. Essentially what he is saying is that it’s no wonder brand budgets are not flowing through programmatic in the same way that direct response budgets are because brand marketers perceive programmatic to be something it’s not.

All panellists agreed that the industry needs to make it easier to talk about what technology can do. Too many times the vision of a connected journey that feeds into a connected experience is lovely in PowerPoint and excites brand marketers However, it’s been proven time and time again to be difficult to implement in the real world. None of that is very interesting to a creative marketer. Thus, programmatic has an image problem when it comes to reaching creative marketers.

Egan moved the discussion forward by pointing out that good advertising is “not being creative for the sake of being different but expressing your brand in a unique way that only your brand has permission to do” he cites movie advertisers as being particularly good at doing this.

The question is, how do you do that in programmatic? One way to achieve uniqueness is through a private exchange; the other way is to use existing ad tech to create ‘moments’ – times when there is great consequence for someone. Finding these moments requires creative data.

Dean put forward the admission that “on the programmatic side of things we have not given brands the creatives canvas to operate in – banners are standardised”. Dean continued “[we] need to offer more rich media experiences where brands can have a bigger presence”.

Watch this TraderTalk TV to hear the panel continue their discussions about creative and programmatic including:

– How relevance can help overcome ad blindness
– KPIs that will drive the evolution of programmatic brand advertising
– Whether it is possible to achieve scale with custom creative formats
– Making the most of engagement
– How programmatic marketers can communicate with creative
– How the industry can move on from retargeting
– Reducing the complexity in media planning
– The need to create a connected ecosystem hybrid where inventory Is collaboratively optimised