Early on in my tenure reporting on the digital advertising space, I was fascinated by the concept of audience futures—enabling publishers to guarantee sales of audience segments that could be transacted programmatically. This seemed to be an evolution of both digital direct guaranteed sales and TV-buying, but unfortunately the market hasn't…
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Times are changing as publishers cull demand partners in the hunt for unique demand. Increased supply path optimization (SPO) on both the buy and sell sides means that SSPs must better cater to premium publishers to ensure they’re part of the preferred supply chains. To become better strategic partners with…
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I'm used to the eye rolls whenever I ask ad tech veterans their feelings on the potential of blockchain. I'll be the first to admit the term is sullied following an audacious hype cycle (even for ad tech!) and some scam-tastic initial coin offerings (ICOs). But the technology does seem…
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In-housing—programmatic and creative—and social responsibility campaigns were the hottest brand issues at the 2019 Cannes Lions festival. Editorial Director Gavin Dunaway shares his discoveries in each category... While warning yacht-goers about rogue saxophonists.
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As the word “Addressable!” echoed from beach to yacht to luxury suite across La Croisette in Cannes, a solidly digital friend asked me, “What does that even mean?” I smirked and replied, “It’s a TV industry term for what digital people consider programmatic TV-buying, and it looks like digital is…
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As loath as I am to surrender to the “Year of” superlative in the digital advertising space, it’s quickly looking like 2019 is the year of connected TV. Talk at both AdMonsters Ops and Cannes Lions were dominated by the subject, and a new report from advanced video ad server…
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Marie Kondo will be at the Cannes Lions festival. That’s all you need to know. That’s all I care about. On Monday, Ms. Kondo—or MK Ultra, as I call her—will be on a panel called “Less Stuff, More Joy: Life-Changing Japanese Creativity.” She will deliver her message of reaching the…
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“The death of the cookie has been greatly exaggerated,” claimed Jason Bigler, Google Ad Manager Director of Product, near the beginning of the 2019 Ops event in New York. You could hear the sighs across the Metropolitan Pavilion, feel the collective shrug of acknowledgement pass through the gathered crowd. Yeah,…
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At the 2019 Ops conference, a somewhat unexpected word echoed throughout the sessions, from the morning keynote to the final talk: community. The idea of audience is out of date, and the term too limiting. Publishers and brands need to be thinking about their visitors, viewers, readers, users, consumers, and…
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During its short time bouncing around the ad-tech echoplex, blockchain has already run the full hype cycle: from "the next big thing" to "running joke" and now "potentially legit." Tech startups are finally deploying actionable and scalable solutions to a variety of problems, meaning you don't look hip at parties now when you scoff at blockchain. One…
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