Commentary

Mobile Passion Is Priceless For Programmatic

In the 20-year-old-plus search and display digital media industry today, video has raised all boats. Yet mobile promises the most disruption, new customer experiences and deeper engagement.  And in mobile’s rise to the top, innovation will fall to the “digital dogs” to lead the advertising industry television “fat cats” in dollars, mindshare and attention.  

Mobile also trumps the obsession we’ve had in recent years with anything video, as mobile video is coming of age due to flat and cheaper monthly billing, and amazing quality. In large part due to YouTube’s growth, content channel and multichannel network  investment and premium publisher’s video offerings have catalyzed new mobile video developments.

Digital’s Big 5 (Google, Facebook Yahoo, AOL and Microsoft) are all battling to be the first to conquer mobile.  As they move more mobile, their respective mobile programmatic offerings are being developed, strengthened and scaled, with, for example, AOL’s Q1 results revealing 100% growth YOY in programmatic mobile.  At Facebook’s f8 conference, the company launched its Facebook mobile ad network. Its plan is to get more than app-installs and big brands through mobile programmatic direct and automated buying . How will Facebook try to achieve this? The plan is to offer mobile standard banners that perform better than the competition --  Twitter’s MoPub and Google’s Admob -- through developer monetization, growth and programmatic sales. 

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In response to this mobile programmatic investment and development, the top four agency holding companies are installing more mobile and cross-platform talent & technology, as well working to develop the best measurement metrics and launching new programmatic exchanges.  The agencies are selecting their mobile partners to capture and service the brands now requiring mobile programmatic spending.  OMD’s chief digital & creative innovation officer is investing in RTB and in mobile exchanges for brands.  Publicis’s Audience on Demand (AOD) is gathering more mobile impressions for its exchange, as evidenced by the recent addition of Kiip to its nearly hundreds of sources of mobile inventory to the VivaKi exchange as it scales mobile in more than 16 countries.

Top performance digital advertising companies are no strangers to thinking mobile for retargeting and increasing ROI based results for their clients.  Their mobile networks are getting as large as their traditional web-based display impressions and performance networks. It is clear that key players are strategically positioning themselves to scale to mobile and cross-platform  through fostering bigger partnerships.

Leading video ad platforms and networks are being right-sized, retrofitted or rebuilt to accommodate the need for mobile content and inventory for brand building and product launch reach campaigns.   The fastest growing companies today are mobile video ad networks and exchanges. In Europe, 1/3 of the UK digital ad spending in 2015 will be mobile, with automated buying capturing the largest portion of this mobile spend.

Another innovative area that is maturing and making programmatic mobile simpler is mobile brand measurement, with companies coming together to provide advertisers with deeper insights beyond the click.

The collective passion of consumers, advertisers, agencies and start-ups for a better mobile programmatic marketplace is being realized. More time and product development is being devoted to the new programmatic mobile ecosystem, which will learn from many of the past platforms to demonstrate that mobile performs. For sales this means more brand-building and the creation of  new value exchanges for the customer.

Everyone should jump in with both feet into the mobile waters this summer. But splashing around in the waters does not mean we are swimming. That being said, we continue to discover that in mobile, “passion performs.”

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