• by Richard Whitman , Columnist, September 8, 2016

We've seen inklings of this before. Well here's another entry into the robots-make-creative arena. 

Ad management company Sizmek has released a self-serve programmatic creative offering that is said to include rich media and dynamic creative, ostensibly making it super easy build out and delivery through DSPs and trading desks.

Called Sizmek Programmatic Creative, the offering uses dynamic creative technology (whatever that is) to take the guesswork out of data strategies and quickly deploy personalized creative across channels. The new suite includes solutions to streamline workflow, centralize data, visualize campaign strategy and to collaborate with media and brand teams to deliver data driven creative. In addition, the suite's authoring tool and templates are said to ease the rollout of cookie cutter creative en masse. OK so they didn't say cookie cutter but, really, what other kind of creative would emanate from a computer?

Lauding the offering, Mike Molnar, managing partner of New York-based digital marketing agency Glow, said: "It has never been more possible to roll-out highly efficient and highly optimized digital ad campaigns at scale. One of the big challenges that remains is scaling creative in a programmatic environment. It's clear that Sizmek is a leader in the movement of custom, dynamic creative at scale. Today's introduction of its data-driven programmatic creative suite will further empower our clients to reach the right person, at the right time and with the most compelling creative."

The initial component of a the new offering, Rich Media for Programmatic Creative, bundles creative, audience and media expertise to deliver performance-driven campaigns and Sizmek has designed a selection of templates, including rich media, dynamic creative and targeting strategies for rapid deployment. 

Templates, people! Templates! For creative.

"Programmatic buying has clearly reached an inflection point in the marketplace," said Tim Bagwell, SVP at data-centric creative shop Xaxis Ad Labs. "Digital marketers are shifting budgets from traditional to programmatic because it creates buying efficiencies and more effectively targets brand audiences. Unfortunately many brands have missed the opportunity to combine programmatic buying with programmatic creative. This miss is due to the limited creative tools in the ecosystem that put programmatic creative at the reach of digital creatives. Today's launch by Sizmek is a big step forward in filling that gap."

Is creative really ready to be automated? Will it ever be? Should it be?