Can Automation Co-Exist With Customization? Turns Out, We're Moving To Automated Customization

Or maybe it's customized automation. In either case, a panel during Friday's Video Insider Summit in Montauk, Long Island, more or less agreed: It's not an either/or proposition, because we are simultaneously moving toward greater automation and customization, thanks in large part to technology and the ability of people to do more things because of it.

One of those things the panelists agreed on was more customized video user advertising experiences based on data enabling agencies and brands to understand what forms of content are most relevant to them, and the ability of technology to create "dynamic" versions of them and serve them up, usually in real-time.

The big question wasn't whether brands should be doing that, but who should be doing it on behalf of brands. Needless to say, the agency panelists -- including RAPP's Mandana Mellano and DigitasLBI's Eric Korsh -- felt that is more or less the domain of ad agencies.

While not explicitly suggesting they were supplanting that role, the supplier panelists -- including Yahoo's Joe Licari and Accordant's Art Muldoon -- felt they could, at the very least, help the agencies leverage technology to create more customized user experiences for brands.

Muldoon cited examples of Accordant's programmatic media trading platform that are beginning to enable customized creative content fed on the basis of very nuanced user needs tied to things like weather conditions.

Yahoo's Licari, meanwhile, suggested that agencies can benefit from leveraging the creative services organization inside publishers like Yahoo to supplement the creative executions they craft.

In that scenario, he said the agencies would continue to develop "the big idea," and the look and feel of campaigns, but the creative services teams of publishers can skin it in ways that make it easier for user to customize on the publishers' sites.

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