Ana Milicevic Tells Us About AdWeek’s Nextech Conference
Summary:
In the Sensei’s Corner this week, we welcome the Khaleesi of DMPs, Ana Milicevic from SparrowAdvisors.
This week, we dive into the highlights and lowlights of AdWeek’s inaugural Nextech conference. She gave us the rundown on the panel she participated in and explained why Brands Could ‘Kneecap’ Themselves Without the Right Talent on In-House Programmatic Teams. We discussed the transparency challenges we face and How Advertisers Are Untangling the Programmatic Supply Chain. We reviewed How Google Is Thinking About Its Upcoming Changes for User Privacy and Milicevic really helped us decrypt where we stand as an industry. Finally, what does the Beyhive and Marshmallows have in common? Why a Surprise Drop Can Be a Great Marketing Ploy for Brands?
Ana is an accomplished entrepreneur, versatile executive, and digital technology innovator. As principal and co-founder of Sparrow Advisers, Ana helps marketers and C-suite executives build effective data products and operationalize data assets to drive more value in a customer-centric, cross-channel environment. Ms. Milicevic was responsible for the development of the Demdex platform (now Adobe Audience Manager) from its early days through its successful integration into the Adobe Digital Marketing suite, She’s a pioneer of digital data management, the Mother and ultimate OG of DMP’s
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Article #1: Brands Could ‘Kneecap’ Themselves Without the Right Talent on In-House Programmatic Teams By Minda Smiley
The article was a recap based on the panel “David vs. Goliath” panel where you were on with Sloan Boderck from Accenture Interactive and Matt Prohaska from Prohaska Consulting moderated by Adweek’s Patrick Coffee.
The panel addressed the challenges regarding bringing the programmatic in-house. You pointed out that in order to fulfill some of these positions, the talent would have to have some level of experience, direct applicable experience in the programmatic world. Also mentioned is how some marketers or brands are considering outsourcing, what do you think of outsourcing with freelancer’s networks such as We are Rosie – who is, in my opinion slowly but surely disrupting the industry. Stephanie Nadi Olson founder believes in bringing the right talent for marketing agencies and brands while ushering in the future of work.
Article #2: How Advertisers Are Untangling the Programmatic Supply Chain by Shoshana Wodinsky
Another hot topic from the conference was where Adweek reporter Patrick Kulp discussed supply-chain management techniques, including some of the latest clean-up efforts. This panel included Jamie Byrum, Nationwide Insurance; Chris Kane, Jounce Media; Amanda Martin; Goodway Group.
The article covers how marketers are becoming selective with the Ad-tech partners they choose. Panelist Amanda Martin, vp of enterprise partnerships at Goodway Group said and I’m quoting: “Three years ago, it used to be about cutting out fraud; now it’s about looking at the intermediary positions that players like SSPs [supply-side platforms] are playing,”
“This isn’t about looking for something obfuscated, but it’s about taking a magnifying glass to bids once they leave the DSP,” Martin added. “There’s a lot happening beyond that top reporting layer that you should know about; there’s wrappers, exchanges and validations.”
Chris Kane said: “This isn’t about buyers outmaneuvering publishers; this is about working together more efficiently. We need to reframe the conversation around that.”
Article #3: How Google Is Thinking About Its Upcoming Changes for User Privacy By Marty Swant
Ronan Shield, Adweek Staff writer had a one on one panel with Chetna Bindra, Google’s senior product manager focused on privacy issues.
Bindra confirmed that chrome users will have better visibility and control over how their own data is accessed by programmatic ninjas while balancing the need to keep this sector commercially viable.
Chetna Bindra said and I quote: “There is a natural tendency as the ad-tech industry has evolved to say let’s collect as much data as we can, And there’s sort of this shift almost to how does one make sure we are collecting, in a transparency fashion, the minimal amount of data needed to make an experience relevant to the user.”
The Washington Post is building a platform they call Zeus, which they are predicting it will be a cookie-less option. So Zeus is as I understand hyper-contextual targeting on steroids.
Do you think there is a silver lining to collecting minimal data and hyper-targetability?
Article #4: Why a Surprise Drop Can Be a Great Marketing Ploy for Brands By Sara Jerde
Peter Naylor, svp of advertising sales at Hulu spoke with Adweek’s Kelsey Sutton at Nextech and explained how a surprise drop/ release can be a marketing ploy for brands, artists, and companies to stand out from the crowded content marketplace. Hulu just dropped the new Veronica Mars season starring Kristen Bell, a week before fans were expecting it. They did something similar as well with the Fyre Festival documentary a week before Netflix’ released there.
Beyoncé is the queen of surprises especially with latest live album The Homecoming.
