• by Gavin O'Malley , Staff Writer @mp_gavin, August 18, 2015

Bigger brands are still unlikely to invest a ton of energy and money into programmatic models, says Chris Schroeder, Senior Manager of Analytics Centers of Excellence at Nestle Purina North America. “They don’t see a lot of programmatic,” Schroeder just told attendees of MediaPost’s Programmatic Insider Summit, on Tuesday. “They have some programmatic,” he said. “It’s still early in the game.”

That said, ad spending is “greatly increasing towards programmatic,” Schroeder said. In particular, “smaller brands trying to build reach and scale” are big on automated ad technology.

More broadly, Schroeder said he and his colleagues at Nestle Purina look at programmatic more like a “tactic,” rather than a “strategy.”