In conversation with Catherine Tyley and Varun Mohan, MiQ Digital

Catherine Tyley is the Trader Manager- India & SAARC at MiQ Digital & Varun Mohan is the Head – Revenue & Growth- India & South Asia at MiQ Digital. We interviewed both these industry experts to understand the latest programmatic trends across the globe and how these trends are similar as well as different from those in India.

Agency Reporter- How did the COVID-19 pandemic affect the adoption of programmatic advertising across the world?

Catherine: COVID-19 has had a huge impact globally in terms of accelerating businesses’ move towards digitalisation. Suddenly the only way for an advertiser to reach customers was to do so in their homes, which has pushed programmatic to the forefront of consideration. 

Varun: In India specifically, we have seen many Brands who never looked at digital as a medium for marketing and Branding, started looking at digital and programmatic. Benefit of a programmatic approach is that it brings different media channels within digital – like display, apps inventory, OTT, YouTube under a single panel and then from there reach/frequency can be managed in a very systematic way. Also, many Brands are feeling the need to understand their audiences better and then use those insights to do better targeting which is possible with programmatic.

AR- With the world being overrun with data, how has programmatic advertising changed the content industry on the whole?

Catherine: Programmatic as a medium has the benefit of having grown up alongside this recent explosion in data and thus has always been agile in terms of what metrics it uses. In recent years of course we have seen major data privacy legislations applied throughout Europe & America which has caused a real reflection on the use of data and lead to refinement in data usage both on the publisher and demand side. Given the symbiotic relationship between programmatic buyers and the content industry we are now seeing a real push towards alignment on cookieless solutions which I think is a really positive move for advertisers and consumers alike. Like everything in programmatic things move fast, so I’m sure we’ll see plenty of new and exciting innovation on cookieless in the near future. 

Varun: For India, mobile usage and content is exploding. Programmatic is helping in promoting mobile content and apps. Online video is also exploding and there again programmatic is able to add value with its consolidated approach and meets the need of a unified marketing approach.

AR- Can you please shed some light on the influence of AI on media buying and programmatic?

Catherine: Given the vast amounts of data involved in programmatic and the enormous scale of delivery across platforms AI is absolutely key to ensuring best results. It’s something that MiQ traders have been utilising for years thanks to the phenomenal work on automation in our Centre of Excellence in Bangalore. It’s hard to fully appreciate the complexity of what can be done with AI, but to give an example a custom algorithm for an advertiser might consider countless different data points (from the online: location, language, device make etc. to the offline: the outside air temperature, the USD/INR exchange rate, or the score in a cricket match) and in real time decide on the basis of those factors the appropriate bid for that one impression. Then multiply that by several million impressions in a day with all those millions of data points and you get the picture. Of course we can’t look to AI to do it all, but these kinds of algorithms in the arsenals of experienced traders really takes programmatic to a level of precision that is hard to replicate through traditional channels.

Varun: In the Indian context, we have focused on huge amounts of mobile data signals. With this we are able to have customised AI based algorithms to do better contextual targeting on mobile and also focus on other channels like connected TV, computer and digital out of home. 

AR- While programmatic advertising is seeing massive growth all over, are there any region/country-specific challenges that it faces?

Catherine: Whilst naturally there are always region specific differences in terms of data privacy legislation, and laws around what content and platforms are available, MiQ has always aimed to have local teams situated in each of its markets to ensure that we can align with those market specific requirements and really tailor our offerings to each. More broadly however I would say that there is an increasing shift from web to app, and from desktop to mobile particularly in Western markets. India & many of the APAC countries benefit from being naturally mobile-first and so already structured around this, but I think we will see a real shift in other markets as more and more advertisers and consumers migrate towards apps and mobile content. 

Varun: We have been doing app download and app transaction campaigns. MiQ India also has the capacity to analyse mobile first party data and enrich it with audience data signals we have with our data partnerships to provide deep consumer analytics for app first advertisers. There are also unique targeting capabilities like appography which are very relevant in mobile first markets in APAC, including of course India.

AR- As we enter 2021, what are some essential programmatic creative technologies being adopted?

Catherine: 2020 was a tough year for everyone, and from an advertiser’s perspective it’s meant that the touchpoints that you have with a consumer have decreased. So I would say a rise in demand for dynamic and responsive creative formats, be that DCO or more innovative formats like chatbots, and click to call which allow for more personal interaction with customers.

Varun: We have a very innovative offering. Social is such a big channel in India. We have this technology partnership where client/agency can give us the best performing creatives on social media, we can re-purpose it for programmatic environments. Benefits are huge – these are best performing creatives anyways, targeting is precise with our data capabilities and the pricing of programmatic is lower delivering very good ROI.

AR- The world of programmatic is evolving even as we speak. What are some emerging formats that we are looking at?

Catherine: One of the most rapidly growing formats over the past year has been connected TV, and I think we’re going to continue to see massive growth in this area as people replace and upgrade in the coming years. Connected TV is one of our top focuses this year and represents a really unique opportunity for large screen advertising content that can cut through the noise and still have all the precision, customisation and trackability of programmatic. The move to consolidate more TV advertising into the programmatic umbrella has massive advantages to advertisers in being able to run and track across multiple channels through one engine.

Varun: Agree with Catherine. Online video is a big bet for us – be it OTTs, YouTube, Connected TV and so on. Additional value we bring is at the planning stage. We help understand the consumer profile and also analyse the media habits of the TG. This helps to do an indepth planning in terms of what are the online video platforms we should focus on and also complement the TV campaign very effectively. Combine it with a detailed Brand survey and analytics of consumer engagement to the campaign, it becomes a very powerful solution for Brands to have a very data driven, effective video Branding performance campaign.

AR- What are some trends that you expect will shape programmatic advertising in 2021 and beyond?

Catherine: I think 2021 is really going to be the year where everyone is trying to get back to ‘normal’ and we’re yet to see how much that will resemble the normal of the pre-COVID era. This year I can see programmatic being an invaluable tool to many legacy and highstreet brands in helping get their customers back into their stores and branches, which we can offer through hyperlocal targeting, store locator creatives, and footfall analysis. I think moving beyond 2021 we’ll be looking at an ever increasing app ecosystem, a huge focus on the cookieless world that that presents and a much bigger emphasis on tying together reach and performance across app, web, connected TV, audio, digital OOH and more. Essentially as more and more formats and channels become available in the RTB marketplace, success will be marked by how quickly the players can adapt to provide a truly unified solution to brands and consumers.

Varun: Agree with Catherine. Additionally two big trends – 1. Analytics and data drive programmatic – Brands want to understand their consumers better, reduce data silos and make better use of data they have. So a huge focus on data, analytics and insights based marketing campaigns will come in. Right measurement of impact of campaigns is also part of it. 2. Huge growth in new channels – with 5G more devices will get connected to internet. Connected TV and digital OOH come into mind immediately but this is only the beginning.