Cannes Conversations: Anne Frisbie of InMobi

The “Cannes Conversations” will continue at the 1st Annual Publisher Automation Panel on the Rubicon Project Yacht (the Antisan) on Wednesday, June 18, 2014 from 6:00-10:00 pm. Guests must RSVP here.

Your Name: Anne Frisbie

Your Company: InMobi

Your Title: VP & GM, Global Alliances

JAY SEARS: What’s your favorite candy bar?

ANNE FRISBIE: 100 Grand

SEARS: On average -- out of each $1.00 of advertising revenue received by your company, how much today is from automated or programmatic channels?

FRISBIE: InMobi generates a small but growing percent of its business from programmatic buying today. With the launch of InMobi Exchange which was announced a few weeks ago and is being provided in partnership with Rubicon Project, the percent of our business from programmatic buying will grow.

SEARS: What was this number in 2012?

FRISBIE: Zero

SEARS: What will this number in 2016?

FRISBIE: It has a great potential to be large.

SEARS: Describe how most media (all media, digital + non-digital, non-programmatic media) is sold by your company today.

FRISBIE: InMobi sells most of its media as an advertising network -- full service including a full creative services team, campaign management, consultative approach and strategic partnerships. Buyers can also buy InMobi Network via its self-service tools. As for programmatic, in many cases buyers weren’t ready to buy mobile programmatically due to cookie-less user identification, new requirements for tracking and attribution, new audience models, and new ad experiences and less expertise in buying mobile compared to desktop. As advertisers are becoming more sophisticated in their mobile buying, more pieces of it can be sold programmatically.

SEARS: Tell us about InMobi:

FRISBIE: Every function at InMobi including marketing, product, engineering, sales, business development, human resources, finance and creative services are managed globally. Client services and support are provided locally. InMobi has 17 offices around the world (including Beijing, Seoul, Tokyo, London, Paris, Dubai, Singapore, etc.) and over 850 employees globally to ensure that we can develop strategic partnerships and provide local support and expertise to agencies, advertisers and developers. With that local support, though, we make sure to function as if the world is completely flat, and ensure that we can meet our clients' increasingly global needs.

SEARS: Please Tell Us:

SEARS: Overall advertising revenue via automated systems, 2013 GLOBAL:
FRISBIE: Close to zero
SEARS: Percentage increase, advertising revenue via automated systems expected in 2014 vs. 2013:
FRISBIE: Growing significantly in 2014. The percentage growth will be very high as we only launched RTB buying in August 2013 on a limited amount of the InMobi network. With the launch of the InMobi Exchange, programmatic buyers will be able to access a vast majority of the InMobi network.

SEARS: How many employees do you have globally?

FRISBIE: InMobi has around 850 employees with around 100 in North America, 100 in EMEA and close to 150 covering Japan, Australia, China and Southeast Asia. In addition, the company has over 500 in our headquarters in India where our product and technology teams are based.

SEARS: What are InMobi’s three biggest initiatives for 2014?

FRISBIE:
1. Native Advertising
2. InMobi Audience Personas
3. InMobi Exchange

SEARS: To reach a higher adoption of direct order automation (also known as programmatic premium) and use of the programmatic channel, what are the major impediments to overcome? Rank these in numerical order:

___ Operational or workforce issues inside the holding companies or operating agencies
___ Premium (direct deal) inventory availability via programmatic
___ Lack of proper ad technology
___ Alignment of agency compensation models
___ Alignment of publisher compensation models
_X_ Other: Support for Mobile Native Advertising specifications, Support for Mobile App Differences (New Audience Identifiers, and New Audience Signals)

FRISBIE: I always like the choice “Other” when it comes to multiple choice. Generally, we would identify the need to support mobile native advertising specifications and increased focus on device ID pools (rather than cookie pools) for audience identification.

SEARS: Tell us about your first party data strategy—do you currently have a DMP (data management platform) for your first party data?

FRISBIE: InMobi has built its own big data business intelligence and learning platform that utilizes its first party data. The inferences from this system are used for InMobi Audience Personas and are available for advertisers to buy against. This provides InMobi control and the ability to optimize data more frequently as opposed to working with an external DMP. InMobi works with Bluekai as a DMP as well to offer third party audience segments if that is what buyers are interested in. We will make both InMobi Audience Personas and segments via Bluekai available on InMobi Exchange.

SEARS: Salesforce compensation. Do you compensate your salespeople for every dollar [or local currency equivalent] sold, regardless if the media is sold via insertion order (IO) manually or via an automated channel?

FRISBIE: Our salespeople are compensated on every dollar sold -- manual, direct order automation and auction. The InMobi regional sales teams around the world are compensated for both manual, direct order automation as well as open auction buying. The programmatic team has a shadow goal and acts as an overlay sales team only.

SEARS: Direct sold inventory is often sold three to 12 months in advance. What best describes how you use direct order automation:

FRISBIE: For our technology, we work with Rubicon Project as our exclusive automation platform provider for InMobi Exchange. InMobi does have its own bidder technology for buying inventory. InMobi Exchange powered by Rubicon Project enables programmatic buyers to participate in the largest mobile-first programmatic marketplace. We use direct orders to enable buyers to have access to premium inventory such as InMobi Audience Personas.

SEARS: What advertising opportunities will never be sold via advertising automation?

FRISBIE: Many premium features are being made available via InMobi Exchange. InMobi is making its high-impact mobile native advertising experiences available programmatically, and the ability to buy those will depend on whether a buyer’s DSP has added support for buying them. Additionally, InMobi is making its proprietary InMobi Audience Personas available via the InMobi Exchange through direct order automation. In addition, InMobi will make Bluekai third party segments available via InMobi Exchange.

InMobi has a full-service creative team globally. With the complexity of some creative executions and the fast pace of ad experience innovations, some creative options will be best executed via InMobi Network to ensure the highest level of performance. Additionally, InMobi for Commerce (which offers data feed-driven smarts ads that are optimized at the user level) is provided as a full service offering. Some custom audience integrations may only be available via InMobi Network depending on what type of data onboarding or integration is required.

SEARS: Have you received “Programmatic RFPs” for your inventory? What do these look like and how are they different than traditional RFPs?

FRISBIE: Yes, we are receiving programmatic RFPs. They are strategic in nature and combine elements of inventory/first-look, data and research.

SEARS: What should top publisher chief revenue officers (CROs) do to build their direct order automation (also known as programmatic premium) and programmatic selling business with trading desks and operating agencies?

FRISBIE: Compensate your direct sales team (not just the programmatic specialist team) for these buys. Ensure that premium opportunities such as audience segments built from first-party data are available for direct orders, and for us that mobile native advertising experiences are also available.

SEARS: Why is direct deal automation (also known as programmatic premium) so important? Is it important?

FRISBIE: Some buyers require access to more premium features like audience personas, unique inventory or data signals.

SEARS: What global markets are the leaders and laggards in programmatic?

FRISBIE: Mobile consumer activity is much more global than the Internet ever was. I really believe that mobile will provide substantial global momentum for programmatic buying. We already have programmatic buyers in China, Korea, Argentina, Brazil and India -- and many of these countries did not participate in programmatic buying much on the desktop side.

Tell us a bit more about you:

SEARS: Who was one of your first mentors as a child?

FRISBIE: Mac Reeves -- a headmaster of a private high school which I never attended but with whom I had the great fortune to meet in my youth. He encouraged me to travel to China when I was eleven as a part of the first group of American youth who were allowed to visit China after its re-opening in 1979. This trip had profound impact in my life.

SEARS: What’s your favorite movie?

FRISBIE: “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind”

SEARS: Money is not a concern. You no longer work in advertising or technology. What would you choose to do for work?

FRISBIE: Become a professional roadie for one of my favorite bands.

Thanks Anne!