#dpaa2013 Programmatic Buying A Controversial Topic For DPb
Whoever decided on the final agenda for the DPAA Summit – Video Everywhere made a smart move in putting a ‘hot topic’ as the last item of the day, so rather than half-falling asleep or leaving early, the audience was alert and the room still pretty full when a panel moderated by Jim Harris, CEO of The Wall Street Journal Office Network, tackled the topic of programmatic buying.
Global ad revenue from programmatic ad buys is expected to reach $12 billion this year. And global ad revenue from real time bidding is expected to grow from $2.7 billion in 2012 to $20.8 billion in 2017, we were told.
Where does digital place-based media fit in the picture?
Well, there were a lot of different ideas presented. The one we’ve heard time and time again is that agencies and advertisers are looking for scale, and digital-place based is not there yet. It’s not big enough – we’re not sure that argument will be holding water much longer as we see mergers and growth in certain verticals, Ed
However, direct selling is still strong for many in the place-based sector, so programmatic may not be the way to go yet, we heard. Also, agencies want solid reports with proof of play.
What will it take to start seeing more dollars flowing into the place-based sector, the panel was asked. The answers: metrics; third party audits; the need to think interactivity; and education so that buyers understand what’s possible in the space.
The fact that networks are run by, maybe 300 different software platforms hasn’t helped the space. This has added to the difficulty for scaling globally. (Pierre Richer, president of NEC Display Solutions and a member on the panel, said that that problem was what his company has worked to solve but was cut short before he could mention VUKUNET and its capabilities.)
‘Real time’ drew a number of different comments:
“Real time is probably not as needed with place-based.”
“Programmatic is not exactly real time.”
“Real time is part of programmatic.”
“”Programmatic buying doesn’t necessarily need real time by place-based.
“We can actually do real time, but it’s not quite there today.”
Left confused? Yes, we were.
In any case, the last question of the day was: what percentage of place-based dollars will be programmatic in 2014 and in 2017?
The answers for 2014 ranged from .5% to a high of 10%. And for 2017: from 15% to as high as 50%. The general thought, though, was between 20% to 25%.
An interesting panel, indeed! At least it wasn’t a panel of yes-men.
Categories: DailyDOOH Update
The nomenclature around real-time and programmatic can be confusing, but with respect to DOOH the central point remains: you cannot do real-time ad insertions without a real-time audience measurement system. As long as you use a “place-based” audience measurement system (read: historical) your media schedule will be fixed at the beginning of the day and ads are not changed in real time according to the changing audience.
DOOH will not participate in the real-time and programmatic buying opportunities in any meaningful way until the audience measurement method changes.
by Brent McKay on Oct 23, 2013 at 22:29 @978