MC

Joe Mandese , Editor-in-Chief, MediaPost

Steve Smith , Columnist, MediaPost

A year after benchmarking the programmatic marketplace, Magna Global Managing Partner Brian Monahan offers a look-back, and update and a look forward on the key drivers -- and impediments -- to RTB's growth.

Keynote

Brian Monahan , Managing Partner, Intelligence Practice, MAGNA GLOBAL

Media buyers have had two or more years to incorporate RTB approaches to their plans based on a growing track record. We open OMMA RTB with the buy side’s gut check on how the model is evolving within their own mix. Are there any real signs here that RTB is or really will evolving beyond its DR roots, despite the usual promise that brands really are on their way? The overwhelming majority of units are stock banners. Clickthroughs are still the much-derided but standard metric. And even though a number of major brands are buying into these systems, they are filling RTB with classic DR calls to action. What role does RTB have, if any, in the marketer’s larger brand goals? Could it? Should it? Will it?

Moderator

Ryan Polley , VP, Corporate Development, comScore

Panelist

Brendan Moorcroft , CEO, Mediabrands Audience Platform

Marcus Pratt , Director of Insights & Technologies, Mediasmith

Alan Smith , Head of Media, NA, Essence Digital

Ad budgets are on the move, and real-time bidding will represent the fastest growing segment of the online ad market in coming years. But what is driving this market? What gains are agency executives seeing from these platforms, and where do they expect to find more value? As the buying and planning world embrace the efficiencies of programmatic buying, will RTB transform the mobile and video ad markets as quickly? IDC’s chief ad tech forecaster Karsten Weide reports on the RTB’s next growth spurt and rapid expansion.

Presenter

Karsten Weide , Program Vice President, Digital Media and Entertainment, IDC

In its first six months on the market the Facebook Exchange has already made its mark. FBX at once legitimizes and explodes the scale of RTB by bringing onto the market massive quantities of inventory of debatable quality and performance. But it also brings to the market a formidable challenger to Google, other inventory sources and an unpredictable effect on overall pricing. The biggest questions surround does it work and for whom and with what goals? We gather some of the early platforms given access to FBX inventory and their buyers to share their first lessons in what FBX means to the market and to their clients.

Moderator

James Green , CEO, Magnetic

Panelist

Christina Beaumier , Vice President, Product Development, Xaxis

Adam Berke , President, AdRoll

Brian Quinn , Senior Director, Advertising Partnerships, Kenshoo

John Tuchtenhagen , VP, Group Director, Media, Digitas

Struggling to follow their buyers into the ad exchange economy without losing their data and CPMs, premium publishers continue to embrace the private exchange model. Forbes, Weather Channel, Hearst, WSJ, USA Today and others every week sign onto a model. But are there cases of real success? Are these companies really convincing buyers that they have the inventory at scale that is any different from what they get elsewhere? Are agencies getting deflected by multiple business rules, blacklists, and dancing around each publisher’s fear of channel conflict? Are there any real efficiencies in this for them? We bring buyers and sellers on the private exchanges together to see if here is a there there.

Moderator

Esco Strong , Director, Display Marketplaces Strategy, Microsoft

Panelist

Dong Kim , Group Communication Strategy Director, Goodby, Silverstein & Partners

Walter Knapp , EVP and GM, Federated Media

Jeff Matisoff , SVP, Group Director, PHD

Christopher Murphy , VP of Product and Marketing, Accuen

Rolan Reichel , VP Publisher Solutions Group, Alphabird

RTB is just the beginning. Automated systems are not a trend so much as a necessity as digital platforms underpin all marketing. From addressable TV advertising to the checkout coupon, OOH to call centers and geo-located mobile offers, the demands of personalized, contextually relevant messaging across so many channels defies manual control. Programmatic buying, real-time reporting, bidding for placements, buying audience rather than media – are techniques that likely will infiltrate all aspects of the future agency. But is this more than mere automation and instead a real change in culture? Does it promise a transformation of agencies into tech companies and platforms? Does it require a re-thinking about the role and value agencies and their relationship to clients? Or does it promise a new focus on the most creative functions in marketing that cannot be automated…yet?

Moderator

Cory Treffiletti , SVP, Marketing, bluekai

Panelist

Adam Kleinberg , CEO, Traction

Marcus Pratt , Director of Insights & Technologies, Mediasmith

Nicole Rawski , Manager, Analytics, JWT's Digitaria

In order for automated platforms to move to the next level of market penetration and brand adoption, there are persistent problems waiting for solutions. Inventory quality continues to struggle against its reputation as a bargain basement of remnants. The value chain is so complex and multi-layered that too many players take too much of the price, often escalating a publisher’s true cost of sale. And many media brands, the holders of the best inventory and user data, remain suspicious of the entire RTB and data re-selling enterprise. Industry pundits and metrics providers promise that a new “viewable impression” metric will bring welcome scarcity, trust and price support into the ecosystem, but disagreement remains over its implementation and real effect. Despite the velocity of RTB growth, the marketplace has critical hurdles to vault in order to convince the core constituencies, brands and publishers, that RTB really is ready for prime time.

Panelist

Doug Chavez , Vice President, Marketing, RadiumOne

Jag Duggal , Senior Vice President, Product Management, Quantcast

Jarvis Mak , SVP of Customer Success, Rocket Fuel

Neal Richter , Chief Scientist, The Rubicon Project

The biggest load of ad inventory since the rise of social media is just waiting to fill ad exchanges as the digital wave moves to devices. Not so fast. Fundamentals of online RTB and demand side technologies are missing, namely cookies, and ad delivery and measurement must contend with multiple operating systems, mobile Web and app inventory, countless form factors and a mobile ad economy that generates a fraction of online eCPMS. Is there a there there to ‘mobile RTB?’ We ask some of the major exchanges and DSPs in the space to fess up to what targeting and tracking really is possible in these early systems. What proof at what scale is there that mobile RTB is effective yet? And will this new infrastructure just become an extension of desktop ad buying and serving systems in the end?

Moderator

Kevin Joyce , Media Director, Liquid Advertising

Panelist

Mark Balabanian , Senior Director, Business Development, Turn

Peter Baldwin , General Manager, Americas, Smaato

Joy Cavanagh , Head of RTB & Agency Development, Pubmatic

Paul Gelb , Head of Strategy, MoPub

Krishna Subramanian , Co-founder of Mobclix & CMO, Velti