COLOGNE \u2013 As the number of ad tech providers ballooned from 350 in 2012 to 3,500 in 2016, so did advertiser concerns about digital media transparency. \u201cIt became so complex and messy that we needed to push the envelope,\u201d says Dominique Delport, Global MD of Havas Group.<\/p>\n
To provide more clarity and faith in the programmatic transaction process, Havas started with \u201ca very simple statement\u201d about demand-side platforms. \u201cA DSP is not neutral,\u201d Delport explains in this interview with Beet.TV at the 2017 DMEXCO<\/a> advertising and trade show.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you put an amount of money with some KPI\u2019s, whatever the DSP you will have very different results. You need to manage and optimize money to different DSP\u2019s in parallel with your campaign if you want have the best result for your clients.\u201d<\/p>\n Havas had 30 developers writing in excess of 100,000 lines of code to build a trading solution for its clients. The result is the global communications group\u2019s Client Trading Solution<\/a> (CTS), a fully transparent control tower displaying all programmatic trading that allows clients to track and monitor their programmatic buying in one place.<\/p>\n \u201cWe saw that there was only one way to restore trust, with an open platform. A platform that everyone can connect with,\u201d Delport says.<\/p>\n Along with its ability to improve programmatic transaction transparency, CTS is touted as a better alternative to some brand marketers taking their programmatic efforts in-house.<\/p>\n \u201cBut you don\u2019t have to manage people, you don\u2019t have to manage the ever-changing tech, you don\u2019t have to manage research and development,\u201d says Delport. \u201cYou pay just a premium to see everything. And to have the total transparency and tranquility of knowing where the money goes.\u201d<\/p>\n He still believes more needs to be done, because people who commit fraudulent digital media practices are usually one step ahead of the industry\u2019s \u201cdetectives.\u201d<\/p>\n Havas is applying CTS to brand safety as well, \u201cto ensure that every inventory is absolutely clean. I think that we can say that we have under three percent of fraudulent inventory in our engine. It\u2019s too much, but it\u2019s much lower than the industry standard.\u201d Another industry standard, this one impacting Europe, is looming over the advertising industry. Between now and May 28, 2018 there is be \u201ca new frontier\u201d in the form of the General Data Protection Regulation<\/a>, the European Union\u2019s biggest change in privacy regulation in 20 years.<\/p>\n \u201cEvery company needs to rethink the way they\u2019re collecting first party data, to rethink the way they are collecting user ID\u2019s on their social networks or their different online interfaces,\u201d says Delport.<\/p>\n