A round-up of things seen and heard at the OMMA Ad Nets event in L.A.
Yesterday, OMMA hosted its second Ad Nets program in Los Angeles (sponsored by Yahoo!), and the conversations certainly mirrored the ad network space itself: a lot of opinions, and subject matter that was somewhat confusing at times.
Jarvis Coffin from Burst Media summed up the persistent theme of the day during the vertical ad network panel with the line, “How horizontal is your vertical?” As an example, vertical ad networks were developed to target specific interests, but now they need a broad toolset to fully service their partners. Each panel seemed to mention new needs, tools and services now needed by advertisers.
There’s been a profound shift in digital buying to audience that has opened up a lot of opportunity; today Aggregate Knowledge just announced their own audience optimization product. Add in the agencies and their proprietary networks, and it is looking like we are in store for a renaissance in network growth. Correct me if I’m wrong, but don’t you usually see a consolidation of assets in a recession? I guess we’re not in a recession after all.
OMMA AdNets was full of content, covering macro and micro trends with no shortage of new buzzwords. Panelists talked about “private exchanges,” “audience verification,” “real-time creative optimization” and even “secondary premium inventory.” Non-guaranteed inventory turned into “unreserved” inventory (is that like standing room only or general admission inventory?). At this rate, OMMA will need to add a glossary to their program just so the audience can follow along. The term “network” itself still has a negative stereotype apparently, leading QuandrantOne and Disney to call their networks a “platform” or “portfolio” instead.
Regardless of the differences in toolbox and terminology, ad networks are some of the best innovators in the space. There are hundreds of networks because there was, and still are, market opportunities for new solution sets, like campaign and audience verification.
Jordan Rohan from Clearmeadow Partners summed up four key factors to be a successful network: Get big (70% reach is now table stakes for a network), get niched (be different, have a story to tell, and tell it well), get data (an agency panelist repeated that client data is the secret sauce), and get good salespeople (good salespeople don’t stay at poor networks).
I quietly laughed when I heard a panelist say that we still are in the “early times,” but after listening to the whole program, that might just be true. Two topics that were mentioned but saved for the next OMMA event was measurement and attribution. Quentin George, Chief Digital Officer at IPG Mediabrands, talked about it during his keynote, saying that the Atlas Institute had done some good things, but that there was a lot more to be done.
For more scuttlebutt from OMMA Ad Nets, check out #Ommanets on Twitter.
— Christopher Murphy, Director, Business Development