Last week, I discussed how Brand advertising benefits from RTB. Very quick refresher: a $200B online display ad market (i) of which 35% has Brand KPIs and (ii) with 50% of the inventory in RTB. Big money opportunity. We’re on it: our ad platform MFP on Demand extends our full suite of guarantees (reach, frequency, audience composition, delivery, etc.) to RTB-enabled inventory. Google is starting down the path with its GDN Reserve. But even as we early adopters go forth, lack of standards in three key elements of the ad stack inhibit the full realization of the opportunity. Standards are boring – but the money they free up is fantastic. So:
- Rich Media must be standardized to keep up with, and take advantage of, the new world of RTB. Brand advertising is all about a high impact high quality user experience. The proverbial creative pillars of TV brand advertising – sight, sound and motion – are powerful drivers of that experience. Online, we’ve used rich media to achieve that. But, to quote Ari Paparo of AppNexus, “rich media is a poster child of dysfunction and lack of scale”. And, Ari wasn’t even addressing RTB. ClickZ reports that “the popularity of ad exchanges and adoption of real-time bidding through exchanges are creating challenges for rich media ad firms and advertisers.” When exchanges offer expandable inventory, the reported default-rate (i.e., showing non-expandable Flash creative) is 30% – yikes! (Apparently, those dreaded iframes are to be blamed.) It certainly puts to shame our claims we are the media powered by technology and innovation. Those of us who’ve dealt with rich media campaigns know what that means – we will ignore RTB for any rich media campaigns. Net result? Brand dollars will stay in TV. Who’s positioned to address this: Rich Media vendors (PointRoll, MediaMind, et al)? Exchanges? Are they working together?
- Video Advertising must get VAST Fast: Video is an even deeper sight, sound and motion experience than Rich Media, and Brand advertisers love it. With display, we are 10+ years into standards that enable advertisers (through their creative) and media buying agencies to advertise at tremendous scale. Video was a mess of a format before RTB emerged. The IAB created VAST – and pushes adoption – but it is too slow going. VAST is a promising standard – it doesn’t suffer the dysfunction of proprietary rich media. However, unlike standards such as IEEE 802.11 for networking, VAST is SINO (not Chinese but Standard In Name Only). Compliance to the standard is spotty and there is NO enforcement. Again, Video has to be standardized to keep up with and take advantage of the RTB opportunity. Who’s positioned to address this: Publishers. It has to be the publishers. While intermediaries (ad networks, exchanges, etc.) can facilitate scalable monetization, owners of the video inventory are critical to getting VAST compliance right. (Speaking of publishers in the RTB context, it is great to see Yahoo! and NBCU entering the RTB game with private marketplaces – a good first step.) What will catalyze the transition? A few big publishers getting it going – and taking lion’s share of the spend – and by default forcing everyone else to get into the 21st century. I am really looking forward to Google with AdX and YouTube inventory to demonstrate how VAST should be done on RTB.
- Standardized RTB: For all the talk of RTB and efficiencies, the one thing that gets glossed over is that every RTB source has created its own proprietary RTB protocol. (Personally, the RTB protocol is the last place where I’d expect the providers to innovate and differentiate their offering.) For the agency trading desk or a media buyer that is using “manual RTB” via a DSP or Exchange UI, this may not matter. However, if we want to scale, the lack of a standard RTB protocol creates unnecessary hassles. Whether it is the on-the-wire protocol or the creative / brand approval or even something as basic as pricing metric, there’s no consistency. Here’s a proposal – one RTB standard (to rule them all?)! Who is going to step up? IAB? Open RTB Alliance?
As an ad-geek, I have not been as excited about any new technology as I am about RTB. (I have to admit Real-time Data comes in a close second.) Money is moving while standards are stalling. Will we see a few more leaders lead and innovators innovate to speed that along?
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