Darren Herman

To preface, this post was inspired by a conversation I was having with Greg Hills, a colleague of mine at Varick Media Management.

When looking at the impact that the web/Internet had on advertising, I think that one could easily argue that from the 90s through today, technological innovation led where marketing/advertising dollars would follow.   Let me rephrase this more simply:  the geeks determined where advertisements would show up as they were the ones building the websites.   A byproduct of this has been the types of ad units and opportunities available to marketers and their respective agencies.  Love them or hate them, technologists paved the path for marketers.

I think there is a major shift happening and fortunately, I’ve had a seat at the table.  Marketers and their agencies are getting more involved in technologies both at an infrastructure and placement level and are influencing the future of digital marketing greater than ever before.

There are two examples of this:

• DBO (dynamic media buying optimization) as written in a recent report by Forrester that I’ve made available for anyone to download here as a PDF
• P&G Productions (PGP) as a production company owned by guess, P&G, and their creation of digital properties following their similar model to their TV show offerings of years back.  This isn’t new, but we’ve been seeing an increase in the volume of these types of opportunities.  If interested, follow my friend Dave Knox on Twitter.

The area that I’ve spent the past 2 years exploring is the former – DBO – as I believe that the current buying landscape is changing and as more media becomes digital (television, print, radio, OOH), dynamic media buying infrastructure, training, and execution is going to be extremely important for agencies and brands to understand and harness.

So, the next decade or two will be about how agencies and marketers are applying themselves closer to the technologies and while it (tech) may not all be built internally, the marketers/agencies will have a seat at the table.

The net result of all of this is going to be change and with change, there is significant push back, screaming, and fallout.  Agencies are going to have to change their approaches and marketers are going to have to understand the implications of this for their businesses.  It’s not going to be easy nor fast, but it’s definitely on its way.

I’m personally fascinated by the shift that’s happening and look forward to continuing the conversation.