This year’s Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity transformed into a fierce battleground for publishers vying to ease marketer’s worries in the midst of mounting concerns about programmatic advertising.
As ad budgets in the open programmatic marketplace continue to dwindle, and issues like the MFA controversy, domain spoofing, and Google’s delayed third-party deprecation loom large, media executives are seeking more direct sales. The Cannes festival became their playground to mingle with potential advertisers, with hopes of sealing deals in the near future.
Despite the shift towards direct advertising, programmatic advertising remains a vital revenue stream for numerous businesses. Publishers are witnessing a gradual departure from the open marketplace in favor of programmatic guaranteed deals and PMPs, creating a pressing need to address marketer’s concerns at the festival.
Talks of cookie depreciation struck a familiar chord for publishers, venting their frustration with Google’s phaseout timeline while touting their own data sets as potential solutions. The festival also saw the arrival of ad-tech representatives as publishers directly tackled advertiser concerns about cookie deprecation.
Joy Robins, the Times’ global chief advertising officer, stressed the significance of programmatic advertising for the business, emphasizing the Times’ commitment to maintaining a premium user experience and strategic partnerships with high-quality DSPs to uphold quality.
Geoff Schiller, Vox Media’s CRO, observed a noticeable decline in programmatic ad spend in the open market, attributing it to concerns about ad fraud. He highlighted the growing interest in programmatic guaranteed deals and PMP deals over the open exchange.
The festival delved into the role of AI in creativity and the ongoing dispute between The Trade Desk and Yahoo over open marketplace access to Yahoo’s video content.
In essence, the Cannes festival acted as a platform for pivotal conversations about the future of programmatic advertising and its impact on the media and marketing industries. With publishers and marketers navigating the evolving landscape in a quest for meaningful partnerships and effective solutions.