Former Madison Avenue economic guru and current Wall Street analyst Brian Wieser has given a pretty good history lesson on the evolution of the modern day ad agency leading up to Madison Avenue's current quagmire, but he says the notion that digital media has been facilitating the "disintermediation" of ad agencies is way overblown, and probably plain wrong.

Actually, Monahan, the opening keynoter at OMMA RTB, explained what's really going on with the movement toward redefining the meaning of ad impressions. You know, the whole push toward things like "viewable impressions" and "attentiveness."

Monahan believe big issues still exist. The industry must resolve problems around transparency vs. margin pressure, privacy vs. user experience, creativity vs. production efficiency, bundling insertion vs. simultaneous consumption, and audience vs. outcome.

Programmatic buying, or "real-time bidding" in the display advertising market this year will hit $2.4 billion, or about 17% of the total online display ad marketplace, according to the first ever data on the subject released by Mediabrands' Magna Global unit.

Programmatic buying accounts for 17.5% today, rising to 43% in 2017, according to Brian Monahan, Managing Partner, Magna Global Intelligence Practice, who opened the OMMA RTB conf. in Los Angeles on Thursday

OMMA RTB programming chair got today's event in Los Angeles off on a depressing note. He cited the Great Depression. Specifically, he struck analogies between some of the industrial changes that took place as a result of the Great Depression, and likened them to some of the changes taking place now because of things like RTB and programmatic trading, especially the rise of automation.

Third party data for TV direct marketer and infomercial proponent Guthy-Renker isn't all that good -- some times 50% wrong. "Third party data is an interesting challenge," says Colette Dill-Lerner, vp of internet marketing of Guthy-Renker, speaking at the OMMA Data & Targeting event. "Discrepancy can beipretty dramatic... We look at data files where 50% of the gender is wrong. We used we use third party data to augment our buys." But Dill-Lerner is not all that convinced. "We are not 100% sure where we are going to use it." She adds:"Big data is not really big to …

The growth of so-called free media to marketers could traditional hurt agencies, says Dan Salmon, equity research analyst of advertising and marketing services, BMO Capital Markets. For years, Salmon says, executives who ran the TV-media departments at media agencies "ruled the roost". But there is some change. Smaller agencies are working hard to integrated earned with paid media. Some like Goodby Silverstein are doing this to good success, Salmon says.  

You know that old saw about certain media not getting their fair share of ad dollars relative to the amount of time consumers spend with the medium - you know the kind Wall Street's Mary Meeker likes to present? Well, it cuts to other way too, Dan Salmon, equity research analyst at BMO Capital Markets pointed out to OMMA Data & Targeting in Los Angeles.

"We're seeing the massive growth of cheap or free ad impressions," according to Dan Salmon of BMO Capital Marketers, who noted the surge in "owned" and "earned" media.  The former category includes, for example, mobile apps from brands.