Adobe Advertising Cloud Q&A with Simon Peel, Global Media Director at Adidas

Q1) Why did Adi­das select Tube­Mogul (now Adobe Adver­tis­ing Cloud) to be its DSP of choice?

A1) Adi­das has been work­ing towards a holis­tic ad tech frame­work for a few years now. Set­ting up our own DSP part­ner­ships was a strate­gic choice for us and pro­gram­mat­ic media in gen­er­al was a space in the mar­ket that our media experts have had their eye on for some time.

We had a look at around 12 poten­tial DSP part­ner­ships. The review assessed poten­tial part­ners on a vari­ety of para­me­ters such as trans­paren­cy in trad­ing, flex­i­bil­i­ty in data own­er­ship, mea­sur­a­bil­i­ty of dig­i­tal spend and mar­ket­ing effec­tive­ness. Tube­Mogul (now Adobe Adver­tis­ing Cloud) was select­ed because they demon­strat­ed that their prod­uct would enhance our dig­i­tal media per­for­mance; specif­i­cal­ly behind our video placements.

Q2) What ben­e­fits do you feel the acqui­si­tion of Tube­Mogul by Adobe brings to your relationship?

A2) As a glob­al brand we need a part­ner that can offer scale. The acqui­si­tion was a sign of the poten­tial to enhance the robust­ness of TubeMogul’s mar­ket offer­ing with the strong foun­da­tion­al enter­prise solu­tions offered by Adobe.

Q3) What are your biggest cur­rent con­cerns when it comes to pro­gram­mat­ic trad­ing today?

A3) Trans­paren­cy, data own­er­ship and ad fraud are areas that we are still look­ing at. We have focused on trans­par­ent con­tracts with clear data own­er­ship rights with our DSP part­ners. How­ev­er the full pro­gram­mat­ic sup­ply chain and myr­i­ad of ad tech ven­dors glob­al­ly means that this space is still pre­dom­i­nant­ly opaque. When you look holis­ti­cal­ly at the over­all sup­ply chain there is still a ways to go for the indus­try to ensure it is per­ceived as transparent.

Q4) Are you excit­ed by the poten­tial of pro­gram­mat­ic TV? If so, why? If not, why not?

A4) As a glob­al sports cul­ture brand, we enjoy high reach through broad­casts that put our brand on the fields, courts and pitch­es of the world. We do expect Pro­gram­mat­ic TV spend to grow steadi­ly over the com­ing years and will look for future oppor­tu­ni­ties in this space.

Q5) What can ad tech providers, brands and agen­cies do dif­fer­ent­ly to make pro­gram­mat­ic trad­ing a more com­fort­able, prof­itable and effi­cient sector?

A5) Uni­ver­sal mea­sur­a­bil­i­ty, brand safe­ty, viewa­bil­i­ty and trans­paren­cy stan­dards should be adopt­ed by all ad tech providers, brands and agen­cies. If we all oper­ate from a com­mon under­stand­ing with a sin­gle set of rules, then that should make every­one feel more comfortable.