Are we making a meal of demand side platforms?
In this guest post, Lachlan Brae picks out the problems with online trading platforms.
Some of my best strategic planning has been accomplished over publisher lunches. Occasionally I’d even come back to the office and write up my ideas. Spending a good amount of my time in agencies pouring over menus in fancy restaurants got me to thinking of the fine dining industry as an appropriate parallel for media trading, particularly in the programmatic media space that is beginning to characterize most trading of online video.
Would you tolerate a media transaction like this?…..Imagine going to a restaurant, placing your order, the chef runs down the road to another restaurant and gets them to prepare the meal, brings it back to you, serves it with a flourish and wishes you bon appetite, charging you a tidy mark up on what is available elsewhere at lower cost and with equal value. What value is added to this transaction? Ambience? Choice? The better restaurants add most value to the already premium raw ingredients to create an outstanding dining experience.
Two things need to occur to make programmatic buying a three hat experience for all concerned:
good points well made
Nice angle Lach!
Made me hungry.
But what if the chef knew exactly what meals the customer wanted (and at a cheaper cost)? And the restaurant saved on overheads because it wouldn’t have to hire waiters?
Welcome to the world of the DSP/Trading Desk and why we’re all going this way in the US and UK…winning all round. Results have never been better.
Not only is the new meal significantly cheaper (as the client no longer needs to, in affect, pay for the agency/publisher lunch) but instead of the chef dictating the menu, the patron now has complete discretion on what they order and how it’s prepared.
I’m hungry too.
lets talk about this over lunch Lach!