Jon Mandel of Dogsled Enterprises -- The Ad Automation and Programmatic Confidantes

Do you know a leading ad automation consultant in the ad automation and programmatic area advising advertisers and media companies that Jayamp160should consider interviewing Tell himYour Name Jon MandelYour Company Dogsled Enterprises IncYour Title ChairmanSEARS What do you read to keep up with politics art and cultureMANDEL Eclectic Anything from The NewYork Times to The Globe and Mail to The Guardian and the BBC The important thing is to explore them sort of in the way that Quartz does amp8220obsessionsamp8221 or amp8220suprising discoveriesamp8221 or ReDef finds weird stuff And of course there are others like New York Atlantic Politco And more than that just randomly talking to people in my travels I think we donamp8217t do enough almost anthropological curiosity kinds of things in our business It isnamp8217t just about read and learned it is about touched and feltSEARS What do you read to keep up with friends MANDEL I kinda think that is more of the same as politics art and culture because my friends cross many political spectrums and have wildly different tastes in everything from music to art to foodSEARS What do you read to keep up with the advertising technology industryMANDEL If you mean pure tech then AdExchanger and Digiday But there is some in the others as well such as MediaPost Ad Age Adweek Mumbrella Campaign etc But again I think more important is talking to people Otherwise you are just in an echo chamber of fanboys You have to talk to the middle level people at agencies and clients using the stuff amp8230 the top guys at the agencies naturally are skewed by their compensationagency agendas I think you also have to use the media as a consumer amp8230 think of how it feels to them but with your professional eye Go to a site you wouldnamp8217t normally visit and think of how the content and the ads feel to someone who would be on the site How does it feel It is important not just to think of the tech in a clinical sense but also in how what is generated is perceived by the audience to the media fed by the techSEARS Whatamp8217s your favorite commercial of all timeMANDEL I am not a big fan of DR commercials which is the only place I think that is a valid question If you talk about campaigns that is different Although since I am not really privy to some of the numbers I canamp8217t say one of my many personal favorites like Dove Real Beauty was good or not But there are tons more over the years Usually they involve many commercials that collectively weave a story build a characterSEARS With regards to advertising automation what are the three biggest trends you expect to impact companies in 2016MANDELA recognition that there is no single answer amp8230 no one size fits allAn attempt to deal with the amp8220what have we wroughtamp8221 of too much datainfo and having to sort the wheat from the chaffHopefully that it isnamp8217t just about the numbers amp8230 that the tech has to get smart on the softeremotionalcontentcontext sideSEARS With regards to advertising automation what are the three most overblown topics that you wish would just go awayMANDELAd Blocking I mean really amp8230 the New Orleans water district complained in 1956 when the water pressure dropped during the last commercial in some TV shows Online is a technical medium so did you think someone wouldnamp8217t make it easy Letamp8217s not forget that the original digital media was the human finger that was adept at avoiding print ads by turning the pageBranded Content Native amp8230 not that these arenamp8217t important topics just that they are overblown by people in our industry claiming stuff from the amp821650s is new and different and the coming thing It is important but tone down the rhetoric that you just discovered something amazing and newData Again it is more about how it is talked about I think there are too many people confusing coincidence with causality and missing the point because they think the data is cool instead of focusing on which of it is important and what it means and whySEARS Describe your firm and then tell us the three most common issues you help clients on with respect to advertising automation and programmatic tradingMANDEL Often the engineers arenamp8217t fluent in marketing although they think they are like every cab driver thinks he knows how to improve amp8220Game of Thronesamp8221 Clients arenamp8217t really fluent in tech They each may have a touristamp8217s conversational capability but they get hung up in the mountain dialects We have to bridge that gap Sometimes it is like being the person who talks into everyoneamp8217s ear at the UN translating In a bigger sense we sort out if there is a there there for a given client with a solution providerSEARS Tell us about your firmMANDEL We come at it from the consumer of our clientsamp8217 products and work backwards with a marketing brain of how we increase that revenue Then we go up the chain to find what efficiencies or even more than that effectiveness gains can be made by adding to or tweaking the media process selection methodology and so onSEARS What are the most common issues you help clients on regarding automationMANDELIs it real or overpromiseBuy rent or oversee someone elseamp8217s use ofWhat do I really need and how do I stitch it all togetherSEARS The majority of ad technology companies have struggled relatively small unprofitable or both Of the poor performers what are the commonalities between them that have contributed to this weaknessMANDEL Too few people in poor performing tech companies have actually worked in marketing As a result they donamp8217t really have solutions as fully wonderful as they think they have They often are attacking the wrong problem It is like if you brought your car to a mechanic and they replaced the broken part but not what caused the part to breakSEARS A smaller handful of ad technology companies has achieved scale and performed better than the rest What are the commonalities between them that have contributed to this relative strengthMANDEL I think they know their weaknesses in addition to their strengths and they listen and are willing to try to bend their product to a better solution Plus they are honest about the state of the product and what it can do and what its limitations areSEARS Do we live in a amp8220tale of two citiesamp8221 where Google and Facebook win almost everything advertisers are dictated to and other media companies fight for the scrapsMANDEL I think it depends if you are asking about the demand gathering types of advertising which online has been very good at and has moved over But that is the low rent advertising with no pricing power due to infinite inventory and I think they will continue to dominate that space If you are talking the demand generating side then you mean video and Google has a head start there with YouTube but it is a wide open playing field And Facebook has to do video more and in general scale more to get their average audience up But again in video it is wide openSEARS Please answer the following statements yes or noamp160SEARS Tell us a bit more about you MANDEL I love discovery I value truth and honesty I know I can be a pita at times or often according to some but it comes from a place of wanting to make the world from our industry to our planet a little better off than I found itSEARS If you could go to the airport right now with friends or family and fly anywhere in the world for vacation who would you take and where would you go MANDEL I would take my daughter and a couple of very close friends who are not in our business and are from very different worlds amp8230 widely divergent educationeconomicpolitical groups I think I would like to explore Asia some more some of the areas I havenamp8217t seen yet Either that or do a cycling tour of Vietnam because I think that would be a fascinating way to rediscover that placeSEARS If you could create an endowment to fund any existing nonprofit you designated what lucky nonprofit organization would that be MANDEL Diabetes Research Foundation The way that they approach research like a business problem and the requirements they make of the researchers is brilliant and leading to progress for a cure not only for diabetes but for other diseases that have been helped as a byproduct of JDRFamp8217s work Plus like too many charities it is personal as my daughter has been Type 1 since she was twoSEARS What is your favorite restaurant in the world MANDEL That changes every day all day but as I am answering this I am thinking of the lobster in vanilla sauce I had years ago at some place in Paris By this afternoon Iamp8217ll be thinking of a pastrami from Katzamp8217SEARS Thanks JonThe opinions and points of view expressed in this commentary are exclusively the views of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaVillagecomMyersBizNet management or associated bloggersamp160

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Jon Mandel of Dogsled Enterprises -- The Ad Automation and Programmatic Confidantes

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