Rubicon Project's Transparency Call to Arms: Exclusive Interview with CEO Michael Barrett

Michael Barrett39s greatest surprise since joining Rubicon Project as Chief Executive Officer in early 2017 was the need for a calltoarms to agencies about the urgency to become more involved in the supply side of the business in addition to the emphasis on building out their demandside platformsamp160 quotAgency involvement in digital programming has been around for 15 years and agencies worked with their DSP partners but they didn39t get terribly involved in the SSP side of the businessquot he saysamp160 quotThey took for granted that DSPs would figure out which publishers to work withamp160 When ad creative appeared in dubious content and PampampG voiced its calltoarms it was a call to both agencies and other brand marketersamp160 We began to see deeper involvement with our agency partners and it39s accelerated along with more direct brand involvementamp160 They39re aware of content issues and focused on reducing their partners in the digital ecosystemquotBarrett who joined Rubicon after leadership stints at AOL Yahoo Fox Interactive Mediaamp160and Millennial Media has continued to be surprised by how quickly the drive toward transparency in digital and programmatic has been adopted by agencies and brand marketersamp160 quotIt39s an integral part of the ecosystem and the change has happened faster than I expectedquot he explainsamp160 quotPrior to brands getting directly involved they were comfortable with agencies making decisions where ads would ultimately runamp160 There was a rush to find the perfectly targeted person at the cheapest price and that led to an inappropriate content environmentamp160 A push to quality content and narrowing the aperture with fewer platforms has been driven by marketers and is bringing back a sense of the value of brandsafe contentamp160 When brands and agencies focus on transparency of content there are fewer platforms engagedamp160and business moves to those who have direct relationships with top tier content publishersquotExplaining how quickly the industry dynamic has changed Barrett points out that quottwo years ago maybe seven brand marketers had large enough inhouse digital budgets to justify calling on themamp160 Today it39s closer to fiftyamp160 There39s a trend to inhousing digital and programmatic although it works best when the marketer still works in concert with their agencyamp160 The challenge of inhouse is they need to have control and transparency as well as cost efficiencies and they39re not pooling their spend with others to drive down their costsquotTransparency involves more than knowing whose content the ads are running on Barrett adds quotThere are cost implications amp8211 the 39ad tax39 that covers multiple middlemen before the publisher sees the revenueamp160 The system is bringing more transparency and enabling brands agencies and publishers to reduce this taxquotA Focus on TransparencyBarrett claims Rubicon39s Demand Manager software tool for publishers is other than Google the leading servertoserver process for publishers to advance monetization of their assets empowering unified quotauction header biddingquotamp160 Header bidding helps publishers generate multiple bids for ad inventory simultaneously rather than sequentially and enables multiple advertisers to have equal bidding opportunitiesamp160 While increasing publishers39 margins and eliminating middlemen it gives advertisers access to high quality transparent inventory before it39s sold in a quotfreefallquot marketplaceBarrett points out that quotnot too long ago every adtech company39s software was proprietaryamp160 Publishers had to make bets on which would winamp160 amp160Demand Manager is open source with the whole community contributing codeamp160 The market now has an alternative to Google which is the mainstay backend because no one could competequotNow the industry is pooling together to build features be completely transparentamp160and eliminate the ad taxquot he continuesamp160 quotDemand Manager puts a spotlight on the inner workings of programmatic what percent of a brand39s budget is going to the publishers how effective it isamp160and why they39re losing auctions now when they weren39t previouslyamp160 Marketers can bring their own data to the party and be in control of identifying the content that39s best for their brandsamp160 It39s a new era of transparency with the system working the way it shouldquotIn the next step he adds quotthe software will illuminate who in the process is getting paid whatamp160 Marketers and agencies are desperately asking for thisquotBuilding for Future GrowthMore video programmatic content is on the nearterm radar Barrett believesamp160 Video is currently 20 of Rubicon39s overall revenueamp160 He envisions a video marketplace that will quotplay out similarly to the mobile market before it became mainstreamquotamp160 Mobile now represents more than 50 of Rubicon39s businessamp160 quotMobile specialists emerged but over time publishing platforms preferred one vendorquot he explainsamp160 quotWe see the same evolution in connected TVamp160 When it comes time for CTV to be more mainstream in programmatic we expect to be a leaderamp160 The community will contribute inventory in an open source header bidding platform with the ability to build custom analytics and configuration toolsamp160 TV networks are going to maintain complete control over who 39sees39 their inventory and what is paid for itamp160 They39ll prioritize more efficient ways to manage the workflow process and to bring more data to their targetingamp160 The rules of network TV will be applied to programmatic and the networks will still retain control over inventory while brands and agencies will have complete transparency into the content and how their money is allocatedamp160 There39ll be more innovation as the roadmap plays out in CTV and in mobile appsquotRubicon Project39s Cannes Panel quotWe Must Evolve The Next Generation Media Supply Chainquot in association with Dentsu Aegis and MediaMath will be held at MediaLink Beach on Monday June 17thamp160 Join them to discover their mission to create an accountable and addressable supply chain that aligns incentives through agencies brands tech companiesamp160and publishersClick the social buttons above or below to share this story with your friends and colleaguesThe opinions and points of view expressed in this content are exclusively the views of the author andor subjects and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaVillagecomMyersBizNet Inc management or associated writers

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Rubicon Project's Transparency Call to Arms: Exclusive Interview with CEO Michael Barrett

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