Companies like Criteo, have created a good business and are doing well in their niche but they got there through persuading publishers that they should sell to them quality impressions, in some instances first look, even above direct and brand channels at a low cpm vs those direct channels but high vs the RTB market. They deliver good business for them and everyone is happy.

Problem is that they buy a lot of it and need to get rid of it and so they want other people to buy it from them ie trading desks and potentially Ad networks / Managed DSPs. The demand in the exchanges has increased significantly since many of those deals were done and so cpms for quality inventory like this will likely create a higher cpm than they bought from the publishers. So that means then that trading desks are buying good inventory from Criteo rather than direct from the publisher? Is that what the publisher had in mind when they sold or agreed to the positioning of the sale?

I think it raises questions that publishers yet again have to face, is it better to sell at a flat cpm or find other channels to monetise. A lot of big names are doing this and for me makes no sense, if you want your inventory to be monetised, come see us rather than put us, your direct buyers second to someone who is re selling it to us? It is time to ditch the flat cpm and embrace the auctions and private market places.

We can also offer transparency to the publishers as to how well their inventory is performing and we can partner to create improvements for them and us. The alternative is sell and see no insights. In my view that era has ended. Publishers, come talk to us we can help you with that.

A brief video outlining Exchange Trading and Audience On Demand view of it, a basic outline only.

Post PublicisInvestorDay I speak with Andy at Beet.tv on Audience On Demand Video.

In the last two days I have had discussions about how to use Linkedin. When I say use I mean the etiquette of connections, why you connect and how you should behave once you have. You always assume everyone is in it for the same reason, but that is not necessarily true as I have found out.

Let me start by summarising my contacts:

Category A: People I know very well either personally or via work, or have worked with over the years pretty closely. Linkedin for me in those cases is a good contact directory as inevitably you lose people’s details over time.

Category B: People I have known, perhaps through work for a short period of time, but none the less they are people I could stop and have a chat with.

Category C: People I have met in a meeting, maybe just the once, but we met. I notice the US visitors have Linkedin before they have left the office many times!

Category D: People I have not met but have heard of along the way and so at least know someone they no and or their company, many times you know what they want before they ask it.

Category E: Randoms.

Of the 1141 contacts I have, I would say about 20-30% are in this camp. It is this category that recently caused some offence with a sensitive sales guy called Lee oh and Joanna and a couple of others. Lee felt that he should comment on his incredulity about the fact that people accept invitations on Linkedin and then don’t respond to emails he sends to that contact. Well a debate started along two lines.

The first was whether you should agree to a connection if you had no real ambition to do business with that person, the second was it was rude not to reply to someone who had written to you. I think the third will soon become how you see Linkedin vs say Facebook and Twitter, but for today I am going to leave that one.

Here was my view that I expressed to their disappointment. I accept Linkedin invitations to almost anyone because I have nothing to hide or keep private like say on Facebook, so as far as I can see, more the merrier, in fact more fool them as they will have to suffer my Twitter updates! In fact the most useful thing about Linkedin is the ability to track people down you don’t know and find out more. It could be an interview, a meeting, a new business pitch, whatever, if they are in your network you can see their details. Therefore the bigger the network, the more likelihood of being about to track them down. Apparently that is seen as being a little negative and cynical, I was surprised to discover this as I assumed everyone did it! Any thoughts?

As for the second debate about contact etiquette the general theme was that you should respond to every in bound email. Well on this I thought that yes in theory you should respond to every email out of politeness but then again, if it is a mass email with limited targeting and thought then absolutely no chance. There are other categories of in bound though that wont get a response. They normally start with ‘I just had a meeting with someone senior in your organisation (add in whoever) who I have know for years (read old school network and good old days club)  and thought we should meet for a coffee. Well you know what, for better or worse I don’t reply to the name dropping approach. Cant stand it. The other blank is anyone who starts with ‘I would like to take you for lunch this Friday type thing’ No. I don’t know you and just because I accepted your Linkedin invite does not mean we can start dating. Too pushy.

So you see there are many reasons for not replying, often the least of them is just straight too busy. It happens to all of us all of the time, people don’t return calls, don’t turn up for meetings and all that, so Lee in my opinion was being a little sensitive and had us all believing that he sends his 1000 copy and paste emails and then waits with bated breath for a reply. You wrote three lines and copied and pasted a couple of times and then pressed a button. Forgive me if I don’t send a carrier pigeon laden with chocolates explaining that I am unable to enter into business with you.  You can always remove me – I will never know!

Communication on Linkedin is the same as everywhere. Make it personalised, well thought out, relevant and well written. Even better find another way to contact me that shows you have put the slightest extra effort into the process if you are really serious. And just for clarity I am still talking Cat E types, the rest I am fine with.

What does everyone else think? Am I being too black and white? Make sure everyone of you replies or I will cry like a baby and post how upset I am that you follow my blog and don’t comment!

The only session in Adweek Europe event on the future of trading and Data driven display. We even talk transparency. It’s longish but if you like this stuff!

A great turn out for the event and we coved Programmatic premium, the future of the agency role, transparency and some interesting word association.

I listen to advertisers talking about their business all the time, more jargon than you can shake a stick at! RTB – you want me to say Real time bidding every time? CTR? CPA? Life is too short to say that every time. No where we all go wrong is using them at the wrong time. Conferences, advertiser presentations, these mixed audience scenarios we need to all tread more carefully and explain what we mean.

The ability to explain a complex notion to a crowd that has less experience of your topic is where the art comes into its own. The programmatic buying business is technology obsessed and too focused upon it. It is this that we need to cut out, less the jargon. We should have learned from the past that technology is not the subject, it is what it can create for our advertisers. I met with an advertiser recently outside of our group and he seemed positively relieved as I focused on a more simplified approach to the business and a less techie pitch. As he put his algorithm back to basics manual away he seemed positively lifted.

And this is where Trading Desks can add value, the value of cutting through the jargon and the bullshit. As an advertiser with limited resources focused on this complex marketplace, they are pitched by everyone, each with their own shiny optimisation and algo (shorthand for algorithm) and it is daunting. Our job is to help navigate this world and design strategies that link up all of these marketplaces and technologies. We should focus on the outcomes of jargon, not the jargon itself and slowly for many the jargon will turn into normal day to day shorthand.

Well it is EOD so maybe a G&T?

Google glasses will be on sale. It will sell. People will wear them. But does anyone think that Google is planning to compete with Samsung shipping numbers or iPhone sales figures? Do they think their self drive car will be a top seller? No. No.

They are a technology and innovation company, they have people who innovate and they have started with Glasses. Already people are protesting about the fact they may be recorded mid conversation. Perhaps they be used inappropriately, maybe they will be but at a minimum of 1500 dollars they won’t be owned by some delinquent. Even if they were, this is not about Glasses this is about the evolution of technology. It is here, it is happening. It would be like saying that we don’t want the Internet because kids will look at porn. Well if the adults didn’t watch it then it would not be there in the first place.

Whether it is uncomfortable, whether it comes in the form of Google Glasses is neither here nor there. It is technology and you can’t stop it. An analogy was used about a guy on a bus filming stuff on Glasses and then transferring it to text and tagging it to a person and how that was the end of the world. Come on, whatever you do on Glasses you can do on a Nexus 4. I can film on a bus, I don’t need Glasses to do it.

Let’s all stop taking Glasses seriously but take the technology and brains behind it seriously because it is the heady cocktail of those two that will show you up as totally missing the point.

Since the dawn of advertising and media our business has been evolving and adapting to the changing consumer landscape. Rishad Tobaccowala, our own Chief Strategy Officer described agencies as cockroaches for their ability to survive against the odds. It is not just agencies though, publishers, tech firms, Ad Nets have all pivoted to some extent or another, it is in our DNA.

We have been focused on our own internals and what the consumer has been up to but the advertisers we work with have more or less stayed the same. Yes they have embraced new ways of reaching their target audiences and moved at varying paces to use digital and so on, but give or take they have the same or similar teams, structures and demands.

It strikes me that we as agencies don’t do enough to challenge that, we are happy making sure our own businesses are future proofed but how much time do we spend telling the clients that they need to change fundamentally? Why are we restructuring, creating new businesses, skills sets and yet we don’t spend much time explaining to the client that they should be future proofing. Would we suggest a new structure to their media team, propose that they need new skill sets or a new unit? I am not sure we do and it is not our fault in many cases. Everyone has heard of the jumping flee story, if you keep putting the lid on eventually they stop jumping and I think we are all a little like that at times, we have ambition to change things with our advertisers but often it is rejected as too difficult or their incentives are not aligned.

In this new world of RTB, programmatic buying and data where all our businesses have evolved to a greater or lesser extent, in some cases creating new businesses and structures, what are we telling our clients? Are we suggesting they carry on the same or should we be telling them to think differently? Do they need a centre of excellence in this space, how can we get established and sometimes entrenched brand managers to adopt these new philosophies quicker? 

If we are all future proofing – what are we asking our advertisers to do other than buy media differently? We need to think bigger and challenge our very important customers to do the same.

After a few gruelling days in Las Vegas for CES, Microsoft asked me to comment on a few issues around the role of technology and how Microsoft are placed both from a platform and data perspective.