Programmatic still suffers from the perception that it is a race to the bottom. With automation starting to move into media other than digital – out of home in particular – one way to dispel this view is to get creatives involved earlier on in the process, according to Robert Manning, CEO of media buying platform Brandscreen.
In a creative sense, programmatic builds in the ability to use the medium in a more targeted way, with day-parting, temperature controls, beacons and near field technology chips.
If media owners can line up the technology, creatives are on board, but there’s already an issue that not all creative agencies are aware of the advances.
MJW executive creative director Luke Chess said: “We have a very strong understanding of how digital works when we’re talking about mobile screens, but when we talk about bigger screens we might intuitively know what might be possible but we haven’t really familiarised ourselves with what is possible.”
AnalogFolk MD Matt Robinson told AdNews the creative opportunities in DOOH, particularly when programmatic is involved, are huge given that “outdoor is one of the few media where you can still get mass reach at scale”.
“Programmatic as a whole is really interesting and I don’t necessarily believe it is a race to the bottom.
“There are huge creative opportunities with special builds, but it’s been a fairly expensive exercise to date and it’s hard to scale it. If the outdoor companies are now building technology like connectivity, sensors and the like into the rest of their assets it will deliver that scale - and the medium will become incredibly powerful."
Brandscreen has started to address the issue and is pushing the message in the market that programmatic is good for both an agency’s bottom line and better creative.
The company has started meeting directly with creative agencies, who have been historically left out of the process by other companies as programmatic seems more a better fit with media agencies, said Manning.
Core to Brandscreen meeting with agencies is to “evangelise” DOOH and push programmatic outdoor further up the chain, so it is less of a campaign add-on.
“If creative agencies aren’t aware of that flexibility from the concept phase then they can’t plan or create the execution to take advantage of it,” Manning said, adding that he expects significant interest in programmatic to boom from the creative landscape.
Have something to say on this? Share your views in the comments section below. Or if you have a news story or tip-off, drop us a line at adnews@yaffa.com.au
Sign up to the AdNews newsletter, like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter for breaking stories and campaigns throughout the day.