COLOGNE \u2013 Despite the many innovations birthed by the advent of digital marketing, there\u2019s still much to be done to deliver ads to people that don\u2019t annoy them. This is why IBM and its Watson artificial intelligence assets are teaming up with demand-side platform pioneer MediaMath to create an infrastructure that supports cognitive bidding.<\/p>\n
The partnership is designed to provide marketers with a neutral, security-rich computing environment along with the ability to maintain ownership of their data through the IBM Cloud.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s about bringing the power of Watson AI into the bidding process, essentially creating real, cognitive bidding in an advertising environment,\u201d MediaMath<\/a> Chief Marketing Officer Joanna O\u2019Connell explains in this interview with Beet.TV at the 2017 DMEXCO<\/a> advertising and trade show.<\/p>\n A longtime veteran of the digital space, O\u2019Connell ticks off the many attributes of digital marketing\u2014from omni-channel touch points to real-time decisioning, machine learning from ad impressions to changing the way that siloed organizations can be customer-centric.<\/p>\n \u201cBut we have to be honest about the fact that there\u2019s still so much more to do and it\u2019s still not really what we want it to be,\u201d O\u2019Connell says. \u201cIt hasn\u2019t fully realized the promise.\u201d<\/p>\n Shortcomings include such infrastructure features as \u201cpixals, header tags, waterfalls\u201d and the like. \u201cWould we have built it that way if we knew how big this industry was going to become, how material, how important? Probably not,\u201d O\u2019Connell says.<\/p>\n IBM and MediaMath say they have a shared worldview and the desire to take the next evolutionary steps together. Under the partnership<\/a>, those steps are:<\/p>\n O\u2019Connell talks about an infrastructure that\u2019s open and extensible, totally secure and safe. And one that provides ad experiences that don\u2019t alienate consumers.<\/p>\n \u201cImagine if a consumer didn\u2019t only tolerate it but actually loved it. We want to be able to do that. So that\u2019s really what we\u2019re working on.\u201d<\/p>\n\n