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Celtra is a DCO OG. The company, founded in 2016, has been in the dynamic creative optimization business for nearly 15 years.
But last year, Celtra stopped classifying itself as a DCO provider and embraced a new category: creative automation. That meant backing away from ad serving and real-time decisioning to focus exclusively on ad production and versioning.
The move cost Celtra its “strong performer” spot on Forrester’s 2020 creative ad tech wave, released in October (Celtra didn’t formally participate), but it makes sense as part of Celtra’s new strategic vision, says CEO Miha Mikek.
DCO is more of a production challenge than it is something brands should purchase as a solution, Mikek says.
“We realized that this end-to-end idea of DCO production isn’t scalable and can’t really solve the creative challenge for the whole industry,” he says.
And creative production is hard enough to tackle on its own, especially when you factor in the personalization aspect.
“If you want to personalize at scale, first you have to be able to create all of this content with great speed and efficiency,” Mikek says. “And it has to be manageable and you have to do it for all of the channels … even going beyond paid media.”
Also in this episode: what it’s like to pivot from medical and chemical services into digital media, what it’s like found a startup with your spouse and what it’s like to love the taste of coffee – but be genetically impervious to the effects of caffeine.
