Adidas global media director Simon Peel says ad fraud, transparency and data ownership are the top three areas of concern for him when it comes to programmatic trading.
Peel’s trio of industry issues will be familiar to many top marketers, but the London-based media boss tells AdNews there is still a long way to go when it comes to cleaning up the industry.
“Transparency, data ownership and ad fraud are areas that we are still looking at,” Peel says.
Peel says universal measurability, brand safety, viewability and transparency standards should be adopted by all ad tech providers, brands and agencies to make programmatic trading a more comfortable, profitable and efficient sector.
“If we all operate from a common understanding with a single set of rules, then that should make everyone feel more comfortable. However, the full programmatic supply chain and myriad ad tech vendors globally means that this space is still predominantly opaque,” he says.
“When you look holistically at the overall supply chain there is still a way to go for the industry to ensure it is perceived as transparent.”
Peeling back the layers
Peel says Adidas has been working towards a “holistic ad tech framework” for a few years, and that setting up its own DSP partnerships was a strategic choice, alongside programmatic media in general, with its media experts eyeing both areas for some time.
He says the business, which works with Adobe Advertising Cloud (formerly TubeMogul), focused on transparent contracts with clear data ownership rights.
Adidas looked at 12 potential DSP partnerships with its review assessing potential partners on a variety of parameters such as transparency in trading, flexibility in data ownership, measurability of digital spend and marketing effectiveness.
The global brand struck the DSP deal with TubeMogul before it was acquired by Adobe. On the question of how this impacted the relationship – going from a deal with fiercely independent firm to a global corporate giant, and if there were any concerns, Peel simply says as a global brand it needed a partner that could offer scale.
“The acquisition was a sign of the potential to enhance the robustness of TubeMogul’s market offering with the strong foundational enterprise solutions offered by Adobe,” Peel explains.
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