The transparency train is making its next stop in Latin America.
On Tuesday, a company called Exiber came out of stealth with a raison d’être centered on what it calls “uncomplicated and transparent programmatic marketing.”
Based in Miami, Brazil and Mexico, Exiber bills itself as a data-driven agency for LatAm and US multicultural customers looking for more transparency and for help ramping up their programmatic efforts.
The company was founded by two MediaMath vets, a former IgnitionOne account exec in Brazil and the former director of client services at Headway Digital in Mexico.
The region is “still ruled by a black box approach,” where trading desks rule the roost, ad networks are “still super relevant and rebates and margin manipulation are par for the course,” said Francisco Garcia, chief media officer at Exiber and former director of platform solutions for MediaMath in Latin America.
That makes advertisers skittish about programmatic, and they’re not taking full advantage of what it has to offer, he said.
“A lot of brands have had a bad experience with programmatic with other players, and now they say, ‘It doesn’t work,” Garcia said. “That’s part of the education process.”
Exiber’s goal is to help clients build out their own in-house programmatic practices, starting out with a little hand-holding.
“We’re positioning ourselves as consultants to work with agencies [and brands] on how to manage programmatic,” Garcia said.
The company was partially inspired by programmatic agency Anagram in the US. Anagram was founded by Adam Cahill, Hill Holliday’s former chief digital officer, on the principle of what he called “radical transparency,” giving clients full visibility into what’s happening with their programmatic spend.
Exiber’s client roster includes Avis, Portuguese national carrier TAP Airlines, Mexican airliner Interjet and Liverpool (Mexico’s answer to Macy’s) as well as several US multicultural agencies.
The company has a few different offerings, including managed, self-serve and guided, where clients get training on how to use a programmatic platform and ongoing help with optimization and troubleshooting.
Getting employees up to programmatic speed is a top priority, Garcia said.
“One of the biggest struggles we hear from agencies and partners is talent,” he said. “English is a second language, and people can easily make mistakes. We’ve seen a lot of mistakes happen.”
Regardless of which service Exiber clients choose, they’re given a direct contract with the programmatic platform. Exiber works closely with The Trade Desk, with Google DoubleClick Bid Manager across Latin America and with MediaMath mainly in Brazil.
“They have access to any of the platforms we use, so they see everything we do in terms of optimization or anything,” Garcia said. “If we have to include a fee in there for our operating the platform, they will see it along with everything else, from the cost of media to PMP negotiations.”
Exiber is also trying to shift the prevailing mentality away from using third-party data to using first-party data, which is particularly relevant for multicultural marketing.
“Third-party data has been limited in LatAm and also for US Hispanics,” Garcia said. “Everybody is using the same tactics, and at the end of the day, the cost goes up because they’re all going after the same audiences that Third-Party X identified as Hispanic or African American.”
And just because someone identifies as Hispanic, that doesn’t mean that person communicates in Spanish. In fact, most Hispanics in the US are English-dominant, Garcia said, “which is why we highly encourage clients to use first-party data” to hammer out the nuances of audience creation.
“[We’re] helping with various technologies so that clients have options and transparent ways to operate,” Garcia said. “The market will figure all of this out, but it needs a little push, which is what we hope we’re giving.”
