It’s been a week full of activity, excitement and big news here at the MediaMath headquarters:
First, team members made a splash during several Advertising Week events. Advertising Week, for those of you new to the industry, is one of the world’s premier annual gatherings of marketing and communications leaders in New York City.
Our very own SVP of Revenue Operations, Dave Reed, joined other industry thought leaders at OMMA Global on September 23 as part of a panel entitled, “Is it Time to Face Up to the Post-Cookie World?” Moderated by MediaPost’s Wendy Davis, Dave joined other panelists to address the changing role of cookies in a world with intense privacy scrutiny and thriving mobile consumption.
On September 24, Dave participated in AW Data Congress, a dynamic segment that took a deep dive into the world of big data. During a roundtable discussion led by Digiday Writer, Jack Marshall, Dave helped address how to effectively leverage first- and third-party data to maximize customer engagement and marketing ROI.
In other exciting Advertising Week news, Microsoft, together with Yahoo! and AOL, announced a joint agreement to use a common set of APIs for programmatic direct digital advertising sales. This announcement declares Microsoft’s mutual commitment to sell its respective premium offerings in a way that will make buying faster and easier for agencies and marketers.
“Today, both buyers and sellers feel the pain associated with the friction-filled, manually-intensive process of buying digital advertising,” a Microsoft spokesperson said. “By enabling API access to our premium offerings, we’re supporting increased automation of the transactions, thereby freeing up the people involved to focus on creating value, rather than managing process.”
As part of Microsoft’s big announcement, the company is outlining the details of its go-to-market approach for programmatic direct offerings. Starting in Q1 2014, the company will launch a pilot program in the U.S. and inviting a select group of agency and technology providers to participate. The U.S. Pilot will launch with a subset of Microsoft’s premium reserved display ad offerings. Over time, the company will broaden and deepen the product set exposed through their APIs to include additional formats, both browser and application-based, across multiple devices.
MediaMath is pleased to announce it will join in this unique pilot program, with other participants soon to follow. “Our commitment to advancing the industry’s adoption of programmatic guaranteed is evidenced by the work we are doing with Microsoft and we applaud their commitment to transforming the digital ecosystem,” said our own Greg Williams, Co-Founder, senior vice president OPEN Partnerships for MediaMath.
And, finally, on another note, MediaMath announced earlier this week an expansion of OPEN, our company’s initiative meant to educate marketers on ad tech, with the launch of the Partner Marketplace. The Partner Marketplace serves as a hub of “relevant information” on all of our participating partners. Its purpose is to help marketers understand who does what when making business decisions.
In celebration of the OPEN launch, we hosted a special, exclusive evening at Liberty Hall at the Breslin Bar in the Ace Hotel in New York City on September 24. The gathering was geared toward digital media and marketing professionals so they could “meet, mingle and make a connection” with some of our best-of-breed partners integrated within the TerminalOne Marketing Operating System. Be sure to check out photos from the party here.
The event was a huge success thanks to four of our amazing partners and event sponsors: BrightRoll, Index by Casale Media, Grapeshot and eXelate. Reps from each of these companies talked throughout the evening about how they are uniquely positioned within the ad tech industry and the value they deliver through their partnership with our company. They also had the opportunity to personally connect with attendees, showcasing their OPEN profiles and demonstrating their solutions.