• by Joe Mandese  @mp_joemandese, October 1, 2014

When it comes to audience targeting, television represents a paradox for agencies and TV suppliers alike, Catherine Warburton, Chief Investment Officer of MDC Partners’ Assembly, indicated during a panel discussion at OMMA Audience Targeting in New York Wednesday.

Warburton said some advertisers have begun “testing” programmatic audience targeting platforms, but television is still a “one to many” media buy, making it difficult to benchmark the impact of highly refined audience targeting techniques.

“We have to figure out a way to bring this into the mainstream of our investments,” she said, “rather than on the fringes.”

One of the problems she said, is that many clients feel compelled to do something with “programmatic,” because of all the industry attention around the subject, sometimes without fully understanding what programmatic actually means for them.

“It’s important to separate the ability to target from automation,” she said, adding that the real reason marketers and agencies should be interested in it is to get “an outcome.”