In a breezy panel discussion that captured the continuing momentum in the digital media optimization space, Dapper hosted, “Fixing Advertising: The New Data-Driven Display Ecosystem” in New York City on Wednesday night.
(West coast, fear not. Dapper marketer Paul Knegten notes that the company will be bringing together a similar panel in San Francisco next month.)
In addition to moderator Sara Holoubek from SEMPO, panelists included marketer Emily Scott of Kayak; Vikram Somaya, Director of Client Services at BlueKai; Jon Aizen, COO at Dapper; Brian O’Kelley, CEO at AppNexus; and Joe Zawadzki, CEO of MediaMath. As it turned out, Zawadzki was not to be denied in this panel containing two of the DSP (demand-side platform) heavyweights.
Responding to a question from AppNexus’ inquisitive CEO O’Kelley, Zawadzki ended up challenging the industry to improve upon the MediaMath DSP formula when he started to explain the differentiating factors among today’s many online display advertising solutions such as ad networks and demand-side platforms:
“I’m going to take the job function of a marketer… all the way to what the CMO hears about… launch a program, compare it to any other form of display, and I’m not going to be too over the top here, but we will beat it, we will beat the alternatives on the plan. And that’s an open challenge actually, I’ll go all the way.”
Sara Holoubek, sensing gasoline had been spilled, threw the match: “Who wants to see a DSP smackdown?” BlueKai’s Somaya piled on and offered free data for the smackdown. The crowd roared its approval.
Zawadzki, feeling it, added, “Same creative, same offer, go for it, look at it at the end of the four weeks.”
You think I’m making this up? Dapper has the complete audio of the event available here.
Nothing like good, old-fashioned competition.
By John Ebbert
