Mindshare launched a service on Thursday designed to let programmatic planners automate targeting, which lets them create lots of segments quickly.
The system, called ANNA, is still in beta and uses AppNexus’ demand-side platform (DSP) and a new API from dynamic creative optimization (DCO) platform Jivox.
“Physically, you wouldn’t have time to sit in a DSP and create a million line items,” said Adam Ray, global chief innovation officer at Mindshare FAST. “ANNA can do the legwork for us. It allows us to be significantly more expressive in how we target.”
ANNA also connects the workflow between Mindshare’s programmatic and DCO teams, so they can better tie messaging to targeting. Media planners can also dip in to see how campaigns are running. That interface, which unites the tech from Jivox and AppNexus, is called Mobius.
“Creative, media and data teams had an incredibly complex workflow,” said Diaz Nesamoney, founder and CEO at Jivox. “[DCO staffers and traders] don’t have to go into three platforms and make changes. They can do it into one workflow and it trickles dynamically into these platforms.”
Mindshare worked with Jivox because it is one of the only DCO platforms that assembles creative on the fly, making it possible to tie assets to programmatic buys. Mindshare chose AppNexus because of its bidder, which buyers can build algorithms on top of to add functionality. (Mindshare’s parent company, WPP, also owns a 15% stake in AppNexus.)
“ANNA allows us to be significantly more expressive in how we target and more strategic in how we communicate,” Ray said. “You can take that high-def campaign structure that has millions of rules and apply that to how you want the creative delivered.”
For Mindshare, ANNA allows campaigns to be much more finely targeted while saving employees time to think about bigger strategic ideas.
“It’s a massive enabler for people because all of those intricate steps of configuration have been built into the system,” Ray said. “People want human brain power to focus on how to be the most effective in solving a problem and how to get the most out of technology.”
Mindshare hopes to get a significant number of clients to join the beta program by January, Ray said, though he didn’t specify an exact amount.
