If those are the three Ps of the practice known as supply path optimization (SPO), then here is another framework.
In this video interview with Beet.TV, Ashwini Karandikar, EVP, Media, Technology, Data of the American Association of Advertising Agencies (4As), sets out what she calls a “clean supply framework”.
“Cleaning up suppliers is not just a function of adding a tag to your brand safety tag or what-have-you,” she says. “It takes all parties to participate to ensure that what you are curating is suitable and clean for your brand.
In fact, Karandikar sets out four “pillars”:
SPO has risen as more ad buyers have wanted a better handle on the kinds of inventory they are really buying, and how.
It has also grown in importance as ethics and responsible behavior have risen on the agendas of not only publishers but, crucially, ad buyers.
In the past, Karandikar says, the notion of cleaning up supply was mainly restricted to programmatic media.
But now that more media have become digital media, applying SPO principles – in terms of how advertisers can plan, buy, optimise, analyse and go back and feed all this data back into their next planning cycle – is possible for all media types, Karandikar says.
A growing number of marketers are coming to that conclusion.
In Beet.tv’s Responsible Media Global Forum with GroupM and the 4As, plus with IBM Watson Advertising, MediaMath, Nielsen and Pubmatic, a series of guest speakers wrestled with balancing the new capabilities with a drive for simplicity.
ANA CEO Bob Liodice said a major problem is “information asymmetry”, the “increasing level of opacity” over advertising data.
“This is very different from where we were 10 years ago, when we had such a relatively simple landscape,” he said.
“Marketers are receiving relatively less and less information for which to be able to make responsible media investment decisions. We have less to make those calls and less to be able to analyse the impact of those results.”
4A’s EVP for government relations Alison Pepper said agencies are having to live with the new regulated environment – but they deserve a consistent approach.
“I think we’re no longer in an environment where we can really truly rely on self-regulation to do what needs to happen to keep our industry thriving and vibrant,” she said. “I think we are at an inflexion point.
“We’re really going to have to regulate … at a national level so that we don’t see this bifurcation of different privacy regimes happen at the state level. Agencies have so many touchpoints into how they’re getting data and how they’re using data that I think agencies increasingly have a really strong interest in seeing one national standard. They really need uniformity.”
IBM Watson Advertising revenue head Jeremy Hlavacek said improvements are coming.
“It’s clearly time for improvement and reinvention. I’m encouraged by the increased transparency that we’re demonstrating on our platforms,” he said.
“And I’m encouraged by how we can take this ecosystem to the next level and have it be both data-driven and intelligent, but also consumer-friendly and privacy-safe.”
GroupM global head of programmatic Max Jaffe said agencies are also having to ensure responsible media buying in this complex environment.
“The idea of inclusion in the social responsibility and understanding what properties our clients in GroupM is really supporting is really at the forefront of our minds and has been for a bit,” Jaffe said.
“Understanding how (players’) alignment and what their focus is on these types of issues and topics is really important.”
The considerations keep coming, however, as 4A’s chief operating officer Ashwini Karandikar says the drive to guarantee the provenance of ad inventory remains important.
“In the past, the notion of cleaning up supply was mainly restricted to programmatic media,” Karandikar said.
“At this point, there is so much programmatic guaranteed buyers that are already in place across all media types, across television, across audio, across just standard digital properties that are applying these same principles in terms of how you plan, buy, optimise, analyse, and go back and feed all this data back into your next planning cycle is possible for all media types.”
It all boils down to a need to balance two key pillars – performance and responsibility – according to MediaMath chief partnerships officer Laurent Cordier.
“We should aim (to) make programmatic performing, make programmatic transparent, make programmatic valuable,” Cordier said.
“The second side is, ‘What’s your responsibility, how do you see your responsibility or your role in continuing to favour or flourishing an open ecosystem?'”