No other moment in history has produced such remarkable times in a rapidly changing world and programmatic marketing is the future. That said CMOs don’t wish for their brand showing up against dicey or low quality content due to automated placement, but more CMOs and their agency partners need to take advantage of emergent programmatic.
Programmatic will enable CMOs to embolden their brand’s reputation with more effective targeting, increased brand association with relevant content and enhanced brand loyalty by being everywhere customers are. Just think about the average 18-34 year old views 15-17 2 minute videos a day!
The Opportunity
Programmatic’s focus is narrow and it’s reach is wide from research and strategy, pre¬production planning and production through
to trafficking, team communication, media, social monitoring influencer management, reporting and analysis are all integrated in programmaticto show the effect of offline, online, owned, paid and earned media. Programmatic is a factotum that’s more productive than people because there are just too many channels and sites for media planners to review simultaneously.
Harnessing programmatic has five key benefits:
Spend media dollars only when they will be most effective
Identify the true target audience in real time
Build effective cross-device campaigns
Automate mundane tasks
Increase marketing resources without increasing overhead
or agency budget
How It Works
To achieve these benefits programmatic needs to be understood 
as a greater opportunity for CMOs who currently see programmatic as real time bidding. It’s far more than that, it’s about selling car accessories to car owners. Programmatic is where ads are bought similar to how products are purchased on Amazon. Only this time RTB is buying targeted audiences using a ton of consumer data and analytics to calculate the best ad that’s on brand, on target and on time.
On The Front Foot
Programmatic’s real time capabilities are unique and can create efficiencies in planning and buying, but it’s only as good as the content and targeting that’s employed. The main hurdle for programmatic is that a lot of marketing folks perceive that it’s about buying cheap, second-rate inventory and hell has no fury than the second rate.
Everyone agrees more transparency into the quality of inventory is urgent, but this is a canard, as there already exists an increasing amount of premium programmatic that’s sold with higher CPMs.
Programmatic is the major disruptor in the media marketplace. In addition to providing more effective targeting and transparency when it comes to buying media programmatic enables CMOs and agencies to optimize operational efficiency and reduce headcount. That means more dollars can be reinvested into marketing; typically you need only a handful of people utilizing programmatic effectively as opposed to a small army working on non-programmatic.
Get With The Program
Planners and creative teams need to be comfortable with the complexity and must be willing to charter a new course in this programmatic world with an open mind, strategy and distinctive content. Instead of just targeting an ad, powerful creativity needs to generate content that’s relevant with the use of real time data to drive traffic. Nestle, McDonald’s and Starbucks are great examples of major brands that have effectively implemented creativity into their programmatic programs.
The Future
Programmatic’s growth is not imperceptible. It‘s bold, arrogant, 
cocksure and portentously a game changer that’s going to be hard to avoid. CMOs and agencies need to focus on other priority areas like buying cross-platform and cross-device targeting.
Currently programmatic handles $15B of US digital media ($58B). By the end of next year programmatic could be managing $20B according to industry pundits.
Albert Einstein said, “Not everything that can be counted counts and not everything that counts can be counted”.
Ultimately, programmatic’s not just RTB, it’s about making advertising more affordable and effective for any brand that can implement it. Perceiving programmatic as having baleful consequences is a huge mistake. In the dark everything is possible and CMOs need to see the light and transform their outlook for a programmatic future or else.
PUNCH & KISS 