• by Tony Jarvis , Op-Ed Contributor, September 19, 2024

An Advertising Research Foundation (ARF) “Town Hall” Wednesday presented intriguing viewpoints from panelists regarding “premium content” and its role as a quality filter for placing ads in media relative to the prices charged by premium media suppliers.  It was stimulated by The Trade Desk, which published a top 100 list of suppliers it deems as the “premium open internet.”  

The list includes the most popular and engaging publishers across all digital channels (web, CTV, digital audio, etc.) and was developed in partnership with Sincera.

Hulu topped the list at No.1 with France’s Le Figaro rounding it out at No. 100.

Speakers included: The Trade Desk Vice President-Inventory Development Will Doherty, Adelaide CEO Marc Guldimann, General Mills Senior Manager of Ad Tech Thomas Donovan, and moderator and ARF CEO Scott MacDonald (who spent much of his career in magazine publishing where credible quality journalism and photography was, and still is, king).

Any discussion of “premium content” raises fundamental questions for media buyers and sellers about digital advertising beyond programmatic execution and the sheer impact of the creativity of the brand message, whatever the platform or media environment.  

Considerations include audiences, ads (and their ratio to editorial content), the editorial environment itself, refresh rates, attention and emotional engagement measurement, and media pricing relative to quality, as wells as the effect on brand campaign outcomes.

Added to these questions are concerns about the transparency of the process, procedures, technologies and techniques used by today’s media data/tech suppliers, including the digital “death stars” (Meta, Google, Apple, Nvidia, Microsoft and Amazon) programmatic players, the special metrics (attention) providers, etc. plus the attribution and marketing mix modeling companies.  

When was the last time your team was able to execute a thorough assessment of a media data/tech company based on a transparent detailed technical description of their entire service?  

As I asked the speakers, “No transparency, no trust?”  

Based on the recent “Advertising: Who Cares? Movement” summit in London, the prevalence of current ad tech black boxes are a cornerstone to killing the trust, equity and value across the ad industry.  

Adelaide’s Guldimann expressed concerns over the potential for gaming any analytic or data collection system if it was fully transparent which I respectfully suggested is a cop out.  He also implied that if a media placement generates outcomes at the “right price” it’s okay.  However, what about potential long-term damage to brand equity as a result of being continually advertised in toxic environments?  

The positions of the panelists were insightful, albeit raising further questions.  

General Mills’ Donovan reminded us about the importance of continual testing for all brands.  

Guldimann posited that attention underpins our understanding of quality and therefore a media’s contribution to outcomes beyond the sheer power of the creative message’s impact and its relevance.  

The Trade Desk’s Doherty underlined the importance of securing trust throughout the media supply chain, adding that quality content will drive growth for all players long-term.  Consequently, genuine publishers will earn their fair share of ad budgets.  He also reminded us that premium digital inventory is finite while total inventory is infinite.  

The ultimate buy/sell question for digital media and especially programmatic is execution?  “Is chasing low CPMs (even based on attention metrics rather than the nebulous device-based viewable impression counts) via the continuous gutter of misinformation and much worse content on social media okay, at least for certain brands for certain kinds of ad campaigns?  

Based on The Trade Desk’s Top 100 perhaps we have an answer?