Media buyers have made it clear that they are now in the business of finding and buying audiences rather than using media as a proxy. Data, targeting and programmatic technologies now make this possible. But this represents a tectonic shift in the way both advertising and publishing, buyer and supplier, have built an industry over a century. How does this shift impact the entire media ecosystem. How has it changed the job of media buying itself? Do these models and technologies ultimately commoditize all media? Will we soon see an “audience upfront?” Does this reliance on data, mysterious algorithms and automation have unanticipated consequences? Does it elevate the power of a few key digital players? We open OMMA Audience Buying with the big question: how big a change is this?  

The entire audience buying infrastructure relies on a single but inscrutable fuel – data. But who is minding for quality? As third party data becomes commoditized, marketers are struggling to build their own or find reliable sources from others. Whose data do you trust? How are companies vetting for reliability, assessing value? In a market awash in data, how can marketers and agencies tell the good from the bad?