By definition, the word confusion means “disorder, jumble, bewilderment, perplexity, lack of clarity, indistinctness, abashment”–a term that is frequented in the ad tech industry. There is an abundance of information, systems, platforms, and technologies that are bandied about as buzzwords, tech talk, and sales-speak. The result is misinformation, posturing, and fear among digital marketers.
There is no question in any digital executive’s mind that knowledge gaps and deficiencies result in setbacks and redundancy rather than best-of-breed thinking and the boundless innovation the world expects from our industry. The prospect of creating industry experts with a knack for innovation is not a simple proposition, but MediaMath’s new OPEN Buyer Certification programis designed for any grade of buyer and organization that aspires to a higher level of technological competency and promote that competency to grow their business.
MediaMath has been a longstanding advocate of education within the market. In 2012, to remedy some of the head pounding and teeth grinding the average digital marketer experiences on any given day, MediaMath birthed the New Marketing Institute (NMI) with the intention of carrying over its core business tenets of driving marketer ROI, transparency, and creating automation across the board. The result was an educational certification program that cuts through the clutter and creates a new class of smarter, savvier marketers.
Based on a grassroots concept of educating entry-level buyers about technology and marketing decisions and how those collide with ROI, the next evolution was to further educate the industry with the OPEN program and portal which educates and connects MediaMath’s partners and buyers to breed innovation.
OPEN Buyer Certification, a three-tiered program, was built to acknowledge those who the experts are among us and give them the opportunity to showcase their capabilities and take advantage of lead referral opportunities from MediaMath. We’re creating a community of expert users of digital marketing software who can go out and represent their brands and be role models in the space.
There is no better way than to just jump in and start doing it.
OPEN aligns MediaMath with collaborative partnerships that strengthen its platform view of marketing initiatives and creates an entire channel of resellers for its technology. By disrupting the underlying framework of how marketing is thought about and how agencies function, we are changing and informing the ecosystem.
The Buyer Certification program is stacked in three levels: Silver, Gold, and Platinum, with each level evaluated on three distinct categories with qualifying criteria. The program levels focus on different marketplace components as expertise and skill-set progress, the first category focusing on establishing a marketplace presence, provisioning to lead the market, publishing case studies, keynote speaking, and cultivating thought leadership. The second category focuses on platform usage. Are buyers/organizations doing everything they are talking about in the marketplace? Are they embracing programmatic, data integration, and other key industry initiatives? Finally, the third category is based on strategic initiatives; how buyers are innovating and bringing those strategies to market, and how they’re advancing the industry to get to a programmatic and platform viewpoint.
Highly motivated and accomplished buyers and their organizations can power through the certification’s curriculum in a short period of time, or it can be parsed out over several weeks or months to accommodate different schedules.
To date, six companies have participated in the certification program, including the first, platinum-certified partner Epsilon, as well as Adroit Digital, Mediasmith, The Big Lens, 3Q Digital, and Huddled Masses. As of that, there are more than 35 at various stages of the process.
Early adopters are already incorporating certification benchmarks into their 2014 strategic plans, powerful assurance that, a few years out, program participants will move the needle within the industry and rise above the competition.