• by Toby Gabriner , February 14, 2012

We don’t use travel agents to book flights anymore, we can do all of our banking digitally, there’s no need for record stores since our music is just a mouse click away and our friends all stay in touch through social networks. Virtually every facet of life has experienced a transformation from an old, manual process to a newer, more automated way. If we value the conveniences offered and the capabilities afforded to us by self-service and automation, why are we still trading advertising like it’s the 1960s?

If you haven’t noticed, there is a significant shift occurring beneath the feet of those involved in television and video advertising. The old way of buying the advertising space for television, which was grandfathered into the digital media business, is dying out. What was once a logical way to buy video real estate has become time-consuming and costly in today’s digital world. While there are many similarities between TV and digital, the fluidity of online purchasing capabilities renders that traditional process inefficient to a fault and anything but complementary to bottom lines. The traditional method for media buying simply takes too much time and labor to be valuable to video advertisers. In short, modern media requires a modern way of trading.

The time has come to usher in a new and improved way to buy and sell video advertising and effectively destroy the old practices that have caused many headaches.

As we’ve seen in the recent comScore rankings, there has been an influx in the volume of video ads traded using self-service and automated buying tools. This proves that the industry is moving towards a more programmatic way of buying and selling media. But what exactly is “programmatic buying”? Michael Greene, senior analyst at Forrester defines it best, as a process that “is largely about creating workflow efficiencies through increased automation -- both within and outside of auction environments.”

Finally someone is speaking the language of 21^st-century marketers! Programmatic buying and selling will triumph over inefficiencies such as the tedious and time-taxing RFP. A more automated and efficient approach to carrying out media transactions will deliver greater returns for agencies and publishers. Nothing instigates change like dollars and cents.

As the traditional distinctions between television and digital video continue to blur, so does the model for how to transact. Programmatic buying has already seen tremendous adoption and is likely not only to transform how video is bought and sold, but the scatter television market as well. Just as Amazon removed the need for a storefront by offering a better shopping experience online, programmatic buying removes the constraints of a physical ad buy. The only question that remains: How long until the RFP is dead?