But the reality so far is a little different, a panel of advertising tech execs discussed at a retreat convened by Beet.TV:
Merkle programmatic head Mac Delaney
MediaLink data and technology SVP Matt Spiegel
Coull CEO Irfon Watkins
Furious Corp CEO Ashley J. Swartz
“Big-brand marketers are still struggling with getting a lot smarter and more sophisticated with currencies and the metrics available to them,” consulting firm MediaLink’s Spiegel claimed. “We’re still in the early days.”
What’s the hold-up? Spiegel explained: “The technology is there, the ability to look at the data exists. What has not changed is the budgeting process. That’s why attribution has not taken off as many of us thought it would have. It is a process problem at the marketers’ side.”
Ad planning software provider Furious’ Swartz completely agreed. She said marketers are still budgeting on fiscal calendars whilst decisions on ad optimisation at happening at the ad impression level.
She said marketers should heed “kaizen“, the Japanese discipline of “continuous improvement”: “Continually ingesting data an making systems and efficiency greater and greater over time.”
The panel agreed that marketers, amid high degrees of disruption, are clinging to familiar metrics.
“We’re talking about all these transformative things,” said video analytics startup Coull’s Watkins. “But, in the end, it all comes back to knowns – we want safety. We want the revolution – but actually we want a safe one.”
That adds up to what panel moderator Joanna O’Connell has called “the bloodless revolution“, a change which seems profound but which ends up looking a lot like the TV industry in the end.
This video was produced at the Beet.TV executive retreat presented by Videology. You can find more videos from the session here.
]]>At the start, ad agencies tended to concentrate their programmatic specialism in distinct corporate units, run as a service for sibling departments.
But, as the techniques have gained adoption, some have been tempted to make the function available across the group. Case in point: last year, Publicis’ VivaKi unit moved from a centralized offering to threading the discipline throughout sibling agency departments.
So, are we about to see programmatic go large, by disappearing as a separate off-shoot? The man who led VivaKi’s reorganisation advises caution.
Mac Delaney, formerly the programmatic head at Publicis’ SMG and now programmatic head at performance marketing agency Merkle, says: “The assumption is that this is a skillset, like ‘digital’, that can be decentralised quickly. The reality is that no one stack can do it all, you have multiple layers of complexity.”
Delaney says agencies have been “centralising in order to refine the skill set”, and says: “You need to have a concentrated team that can refine best-in-class processes and realise ‘we’ve got to move slowly’. Don’t decentralise all at once.”
According to a two-year-old Digiday write-up of Delaney’s thoughts on decentralisation, the practice is preferable from a client perspective but: “It will be ‘years, not quarters’, before agency teams are able to effectively use programmatic planning and forecasting tools to implement, optimize, analyze and report campaigns without error.”
Delaney says an added challenge comes from the fact that many of the staff required by programmatic technology, decentralised or not, are attracted to top tech firms – and perks.
“That team of experts represents the future employees of Google, Twitter and Facebook,” he says. “When they leave, they’re going to get equity and a bonus they can bank on.”
This video was produced at the Beet.TV executive retreat presented by Videology. You can find more videos from the session here.
]]>His group is growing quickly, he says in this Beet.TV interview — and adds that two big client wins will be announced later this month.
We spoke with him about the agency, its roots in search and display, its management of DMP’s for many big companies and the roadmap for its programmatic operations.
We interviewed him during CES at the MediaLink opening night party.
Beet.TV’s coverage of CES 2016 is sponsored by Adobe.
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“VivaKi still lives on,” says SMG programmatic SVP Mac Delaney in this video interview. “It operates the SkyScraper platform, the database for all of the group’s campaign reporting. You still have VivaKi employees dedicated to the AOD operating system. AOD is just one component of VivaKi.”
As reported earlier this year, VivaKi unit is rethinking the way it delivers programmatic services, moving from a centralized offering to threading the new discipline throughout sibling agency departments.
“They’re spending several days per week embedded within those teams,” Delaney says. “We’re bringing them further up the chain in strategy and planning.”
]]>In this video interview, SMG programmatic SVP Mac Delaney tells Beet.TV the move mirrors the way digital has always been centralized first, distributed later.
“My team is rolling into the individual SMG agencies, which is about a 60-person team, which is a pretty significant transformation from what was solely at the center going out into the agencies. Finally, (it) will be at the table with the strategists and the planners.
“The operators and programmatics within AOD (will be) there to help inform what an audience strategist should be, before an RFP is even created. In a very good way, it’s going to disrupt the way the staffing and resourcing, the skillsets of those resources, have been aligned to agencies’ account teams.
“On digital, when innovation occurs … the skill and the efficiencies have to be centered first, within a hub, and then over time they spread.”
He was interviewed at Beet.TV’s annual executive retreat by Nielsen digital MD Andrew Feigenson.
The Beet Retreat ’15 was sponsored by AOL and Videology. Please find additional videos from the event here.
]]>“You may have disruption. You can have a band of publishers that has had direct sales, and that might change,” he says. For example, the type of packaging might become more data-driven, he says. “If publishers don’t pivot quickly — maybe it’s changing your sales force, it might mean missing a quarter — but that will put them in a better position with marketers.”
Delaney was interviewed by Gian Fulgoni, Chairman Emeritus and co-founder of comScore.
The Beet Retreat ’15 was sponsored by AOL and Videology. Please find additional videos from the event here.
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The Drum reports on the changes here.
“The largest group within AOD – the client services group … those individuals are a 60-person group, being folded in to individual SMG agencies,” VivaKi programmatic SVP Mac Delaney tells Beet.TV in this video interview.
“When Audience On Demand was created, it follows the same story of digital – when there’s a new innovation, things happen at the center first until the dust settles.
“The same is happening now – we’re moving proactively to do so ahead of the marketplace, to push that know-how, skillset and ability out in to the hands of the individuals managing the client relationships.”
Delaney was interviewed at Beet.TV’s annual executive retreat.
The Beet Retreat ’15 was sponsored by AOL and Videology. Please find additional videos from the event here.
]]>He added that VivaKi is implementing a number new programs and expansion plans, notably the alliance with Adobe and the acquisition of RUN.
VivaKi media unit has been split into divisions: VivaKi Exchange, under CEO Simon Pardon and VivaKi Data, which will be run by Stephan Beringer. Both report to SMG global chief Laura Desmond, Delaney explains.
We are pleased that Delaney will be a participant in the week’s Beet.TV executive retreat in Florida.
Beet.TV coverage of CES 2015 is sponsored by Adobe Primetime. Please find all the coverage here.
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