Yahoo!’s Bill Wise talks trash, tackles publishing problems at Digiday
You know it’s a great panel when quips are tweeted:
Yahoo!’s Bill Wise: “I’m smarter than you.”
Time Inc. Media Group’s Kirk McDonald: “You work for Yahoo—how could you be?”
The ribbing was all in good fun, livening up Bill and Kirk’s panel at the Digiday targeting conference’s “The Publisher Roundtable.” But Bill, our GM of Global Exchanges, got the last laugh when the audience caught Kirk apparently stretching his experience in the industry by checking his LinkedIn profile.
In addition to providing a ton of laughs, the conference also tackled some big questions around the industry’s use of data and where the market is moving.
What data is a proxy to valuable customers?
There was no argument that the industry felt that they need to use data to enable accuracy, efficiency and scale. There was also no argument that this is HARD! (Well, duh.) Making data actionable and figuring out which data to use is why hundreds of networks and service providers specialize in only this.
What I didn’t hear enough of was taking into account the consumer consideration cycle and user intent. One panelist did make a great analogy: If there is a 25+ male, high-income, investor on a slide with his kids on a playground, you probably don’t want to choose that time to talk to him about 401ks. The same thing goes for online advertising: you want to target him with a 401k ad when he is in research mode.
Where do we need to go?
What was clear throughout all the panels is that everyone is an intermediary— networks, agencies, and publishers. Networks and publishers increasingly offer agency-like services: Time discussed its branded network, and one of White Pages’ core service offerings is behavioral targeting. We are entering a world of “co-opetition.” Publishers need to focus on syndication to aggregate similar individuals and will likely start selling audiences rather than placements.
—Megan Pagliuca, Director of Consulting, Professional Services
