The countless moving parts of the Targeting 2.0 dynamo finally are taking shape, but how is it performing? No, really! Demand side platforms, real-time bidding, supply side optimizers, verifiers, data layers – the costs and complexity just keep building – all in the interests of greater efficiency and targeting accuracy? The future of digital display advertising (perhaps even publishing itself) now seems to rest on these new technologies, business partnerships and marketing approaches working harmoniously to improve effectiveness and prove online media’s marketing value. But to adopt an old media tagline – where’s the beef?
The New York Ad will ask the industry to show the results. What is working? Are media buyers seeing those efficient, effective campaigns coming from these demand side platforms? Are new methods of targeting really outperforming the data pools and profiles the industry has already been building? Are the self-policing mechanisms the industry has put in place really addressing consumer concern over privacy and satisfying regulators? And overall, is this new targeting machine doing what it was designed to do – make the digital ad universe more safe, effective and transparent for brand advertisers?
Ad Nets puts the Targeting 2.0 machine through its paces.
Agenda:
9:00 am KEYNOTE: How Broken Is The Ad Network Business, Anyway?
Former long-time head of FOX Audience Network, Mark Papia reflects on the cacophony of complex issues facing ad networks and publishers today: from programmatic buying to audience targeting, leveraging the social graph to cross channel sales management. But Mark will also address what he considers to be some of the emerging challenges for the business: ad scarcity, campaign creative and content optimization. How broken is the ad network business, asks that man who helped build one of the largest branded media ad nets in the world and bring real time bidding and ad exchange models to major publishers.
Keynote Speaker: Mark Papia, Former SVP, Performance Marketing, Fox Interactive Media
9:45 am Agency Roundtable: Gut Check: Show Us the Performance
This is no longer a test. The ad network industry spent much of 2009 and 2010 erecting a new technical infrastructure that promised to bring search-like performance to display. Data layers, new optimization technologies, real-time bidding and audience-centric ‘demand-side’ buying of audiences rather than contexts were supposed to lift network CPMs, drive new efficiencies, deliver customers. Well? Our panel of media planners and buyers assess where they are (and aren’t) seeing the grand plan pay off thus far. Only a small share of online buys occur in this new complex net of demand side technologies, but what have we learned about its effectiveness? Time for a gut check.
Moderator:
Colin Gillis, Director of Research, Sr. Tech Analyst, BGC Financial
Panelists:
Jason Burnham, CEO, Burnham Marketing
Joe Kowan, Director, Media Systems & Technology, MediaCom US
Abigail Luther, Director of Search and AdNets, pHD
Donnie Williams, VP, Digital Strategy, Horizon Media, Inc.
Ben Winkler, SVP, Director of Digital, Initiative
10:30 am KEYNOTE: Performance is in the Eye of the Consumer
Cookies, RTBs, DSPs, trading desks, transparency and premium inventory. If you’re in the business of ad trading, these words have quickly become an important part of your repertoire. Everyone is buzzing about consumer privacy, leading technologies, efficient media buys, ad networks vs. ad exchanges, and more, but no one is really discussing the very thing that connects us all in this business: people. Our business needs to honor and respect humans. If this is at the core of our business model, we will succeed. Sean Kegelman, VivaKi senior vice president and global partnership lead, will discuss ways to keep the consumer at the center of this growing business and share best practices for success.
Keynote Speaker: Sean Kegelman, SVP Partnerships, Vivaki
11:30 am I’m With the Brand: Is Ad Net Inventory Ready to Lift the Right Metrics?
Ad networks have a long history of driving performance. And they have just as long a history of claiming or hoping that the major brands finally are ready to invest in their inventory. Now that an array of new technologies are promising more accurate audience aggregation and the kind of transparency cautious marketers require, is the ad net infrastructure really delivering the branded good? Most display ad buys continue to be site specific and tightly associated with branded content, and many publishers now argue that ad net buys are ineffective as branding strategies. We ask marketers and the ad nets to pony up their results. How do the ad nets really measure up to life the key brand metrics marketers want?
Moderator:
Samantha Skey, Chief Revenue Officer, RecycleBank
Panelists:
Linda Gridley, President and CEO, Gridley & Company, LLC
Josh Jacobs, SVP Brand Advertising Products and Global Marketing, Glam Media
Peter Platt, Chief Digital Officer, Catalyst
Ronald Shamah, Vice President, Sapient
12:15 pm Friend or Foe? Ad Nets in the Age of the DSP
The demand side platform is all the rage in the display world this year, even if a small share of spending occurs here. But the controversy rages over what the rise of the DSP means for the ad net technology value chain. Are the DSPs really driving significant sales yet? As the agency world partners up with this new model for buying audiences over context, DSPs and real-time bidding services are themselves both partnering with ad nets and looking for premium inventory direct from publishers. Are DSPs competing with partners and moving ultimately to disintermediate the traditional ad network from the value chain? And now the heat is on the ad nets themselves to demonstrate what value they actually bring to the “stack” of data and technologies that comprise ‘Targeting 2.0’ how is that industry going to be impacted by the demand side push?
Moderator:
Joe Mandese, Editor in Chief, MediaPost
Panelists:
Jarvis Coffin, Co-founder and CEO, Burst Media
Eric Franchi, Co-Founder and SVP, Business Development, Undertone Networks
Ed Montes, CEO, Adnetik
Brendan Moorcroft, SVP, Director Global Digital Strategy, Universal McCann
Michael Rubenstein, President, AppNexus
2:00 pm RESEARCH: Prove It! A Look at Key Performance Metrics for Ad Networks
After a year of increased complexity, and countless new players and tech coming to market, it is time to ask – What’s working? What’s not? And, what metrics can ad networks and other players use to prove their unique value to the market? Anne Hunter, comScore’s Vice President of Advertising Effectiveness shares a first look at comScore AdEffx™ norms focused specifically on ad networks. From audience verification to branding effectiveness, we will explore a variety of campaigns utilizing various targeting techniques and placement strategies. What can we learn from recent campaigns about how these technologies are (and aren’t) working and what needs to be done in the year ahead?
Presenter:
Anne Hunter, Vice President, Advertising Effectiveness Products, comScore
2:30 pm Valuing the Data: How Can Agencies Evaluate and Economize on the New Data Layer
Data is the new media. Everyone wants the good stuff. But at what cost and effectiveness? The market is awash in promises about the data points that will get a media buyer closest to their targets, and the costs are rising. How valuable, reliable and cost-efficient is that data layer? How are agencies evaluating price and quality and wringing ROI from the new complex cost structures of ad technology? Ever larger percentages of your agency’s ad buy is going to overhead, including the various targeting parameters and data points the new ad economy makes available. Almost everyone agrees the process needs to get cleaner, clearer and more efficient. In this panel of agency executives and data providers we tackle the next big issue facing the ad net system – streamlining.
Moderator:
Steve Ennen, Managing Director, Wharton Interactive Media Initiative
Panelists:
Tousanna Durgan, Associate Media Director, med:interaction
Loren Grossman, Global Chief Strategy Officer, RAPP
Anurag Harsh, SVP Strategy and Business Development, Ziff Davis, Inc.,
Jeff Hirsch, CEO, AudienceScience
Michael Lampert, VP Group Director, Media, Digitas
3:30 pm Beyond Behavior: Mining New Veins of Semantic, Social, and Contextual Data
It is all about the data, now. Who has it? Who owns it? And how do consumers feel about theirs being used? While much of the data powering the new digital ad machine involves past user behaviors, some marketers are looking outside the usual data pools for ways to target customers, perhaps even more effectively. Semantic content analysis, social media analysis and contextual targeting introduce new targeting techniques that can be used apart from or in concert with the behavioral approaches that dominate current ad technologies. But do they work – to target different segments more effectively and to shield marketers from more controversial data gathering?
Moderator:
Paul Knegten, Head of Marketing, Dapper
Panelists:
Christopher Hansen, VP, Performance Marketing, 360i
Joanna O’Connell, Senior Analyst, Forrester
Tom Phillips, President and CEO, Media6Degrees
Amiad Solomon, President, Peer39
Chris Stevens, Sr. Director of Online Marketing, Orbitz.com
4:15 pm Grilling the Mall Cops: Does Privacy Self-Regulation Have a Chance?
The ad and media industry have turned to their own cops to ‘self-police’ privacy. A collection of groups including a coalition of ad and business associations, BetterAdvertising, NAI, Truste, Future of Privacy Forum and PrivacyChoice.org are offering a range of tools to advertisers, publishers and consumers. All of these efforts are trying to fend off formal regulation by the FTC. But will they work? In the process of crafting user-friendly notifications and opt-outs around data collection, what have these groups learned about communicating the complexities of the technologies that target consumers? Are the new approaches truly transparent for all parties? Could they even help make ad targeting a collaboration among marketer, ad net, publisher and consumer? Or will privacy activist and legislators continue to press for more. Now that the self-regulatory apparatus is taking shape, we call in some of the principals for the traditional Mediapost ‘grilling’ of hard questions.
Moderator:
Wendy Davis, Senior Writer, MediaPost Communications
Panelists:
Justin Brookman, Senior Resident Fellow, Center for Democracy and Technology
Fran Maier, President and Chair, TRUSTe
Scott Meyer, CEO, Better Advertising
George Pappachen, Chief Privacy Officer, Kantar/WPP
For more information, contact Ron Shamah
at rshamah@sapient.com
