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Tom Denford and David Indo from ID Comms: where does programmatic go now?

Despite all the noise and negativity around programmatic, the narrative is slowly changing. Advertisers are starting to understand that programmatic is a marketing technique not a technology. In this week’s #MediaSnack Tom and David discuss three thoughts on the next steps for programmatic:

1. It is not going away. Marketers need to start getting excited about the opportunity of programmatic and believe that it will become simpler, easier and more empowering and inspiring. They need to stop being fearful of the noise and complexity, lean-in and be prepared to take some control.

2.
Start refining a simple strategy now which will prepare you for success in a simpler programmatic future. ID Comms works on a four-part framework (Data, Knowledge, KPIs & Culture) but this is still a nascent industry, everyone is still in a test and learn loop of continuous improvement and nobody should consider themselves “behind the curve.”

3. Consider the barriers and silos internally that are going to hinder your success in programmatic. These could be fundamental, such as aligning marketing and sales. In a programmatic future, both sales and marketing need to influence and guide together. The closer these disciplines are aligned, the easier it will be to succeed. Continued silo thinking will lead to disadvantage and this needs to be addressed.

In many ways, today’s programmatic sub-industry is like the early PC market, complex and technical, obsessed with features rather than benefits, layered, commoditized selling, vendor-driven and price-focused.

Tom and David argue that marketers should prepare themselves for the “Apple Mac of programmatic,” a future market which is simple, intuitive, plug-and-play, trusted, focused on the ‘what not the how’ and is empowering for marketers, to inspire and facilitate better marketing.

When programmatic is as easy as plug-and-play, advertisers will be ready to self-serve, self-buy, self-manage. That doesn’t mean everyone will in-house it all, but it will be far easier for advertisers to take increasing control of media buying. This, in turn, will change the shape of the industry and the role that agencies, vendors, ad-tech and others will play.

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