The Unstoppable Growth Of Programmatic Is Going To Kill Jobs

Darn it, I really wanted to write a rant about Twitter profiles from people that put a #hashtag #in #front #of #every #word #in #their #profile. Or people that qualify their profile with monikers like  #thoughtleader or #insert-other-pretentious-claptrap-here.

But alas, events in programmatic last week forced me to ditch my plans, and focus once again on programmatic’s unstoppable rise and rise. A Google search on the topic yields 1,720,000 results (in 0.39 seconds), more than double the amount of the other topic du jour: Millennials (695,000 results in 0.41 seconds). Sidebar: According to the Huffington Post, research has revealed that Millennials can’t sew or do laundry as well as their parents or grandparents. They are, however (I witness on a daily basis), very good at Minecraft and Terraria, something their parents and grandparents are terrible at.

So let’s quickly recap last week’s news.

First, there was fresh data via eMarketer on the state of the programmatic category. Two words: stupendous growth. Triple digit in 2015, and double-digit growth in 2016, to be precise.

And then there was news from IPG’s Mediabrands. The year 2013 was the first year of Mediabrands’ three-year journey that should ultimately lead to 50% of all of the company’s media trades being automated by 2015. That is 50% of ALL media, not just digital media. We also learned that by the end of 2013, IPG had automated pretty much all digital media trading at that point.

Last week, MediaPost reported a Mediabrands update that shows just how much IPG CEO Matt Seiler was not kidding two years ago. That’s right, local TV airtime buying is now automated. We are hurtling toward a (near) future where if I am P&G and want to buy TV reach among mothers with babies for Pampers, or if I am Toyota and am in the market for Millennials for the Camry, I can buy them through an algorithm, without the time-consuming intervention of media agency buyers and TV airtime sellers.

Short intermission: Have you seen the new Toyota 2015 Camry spot? A woman, who looks so young we can only assume she was allowed to borrow Daddy’s brand new Camry, buys a guitar called Lucille at an auction and somehow finds her way (in said Camry) to the previous owner, one B.B. King (age 89),  to reunite the two. “One bold choice leads to another” is the new slogan. Good luck attracting Millennials with that effort, Camry, through a medium that Millennials are deserting faster than you can buy GRPs (unless you’re buying them through Mediabrands’ programmatic local TV exchange, of course).

I have written about the rise of the machines in media a number of times. For a recent client meeting, I did some further digging on the effect trade automation has had on Wall Street. I already knew that automated trades of equities, futures and options far exceed 80% today, up from the low 20s percentage-wise at the beginning of this century, per research firm Aite Group. Aite also published results from a study among 15 institutional brokerage firms in Q4 of 2012, which showed that only 27% of brokerage firms expected their staffing levels of broker-to-client trade support to remain the same. All others reported declines of between 5% and 50%. Nobody reported the need to increase staffing.

If you are earning a paycheck buying or selling media, I would take that evening course in data analytics starting this week!

By Maarten Albarda
Maarten has lived in five countries across three continents and honed his integrated marketing communication skills at JWT, Leo Burnett, McCann-Erickson, The Coca-Cola Company and AB-InBev. He now runs his own integrated marketing consultancy in partnership with Flock Associates, and has written the book “Z.E.R.O.” with Joseph Jaffe.
Courtesy of mediapos