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This week on AdExchanger Talks, CEO Pete Kim describes the origins of MightyHive, the programmatic media services company that was acquired by S4 Capital in 2018.
Today, MightyHive is known as a programmatic adviser to Google clients, but its original thesis was different. Early on the company wanted to support first-party data activation.
“It was clear to me that you were always going to have diminishing returns with third-party data,” Kim says. “Third-party data is arbitrage. It’s a market opportunity that closes as people compete the value away. You can’t build a … defensible strategic advantage by using data that everybody else could buy too.”
So the company developed what today might be called a customer data platform, but back then was labeled a DMP. But MightyHive was too early to market.
“The marketers of the world really weren’t ready,” Kim says. “The comment we got was, ‘This is programmatic PhD. We’re in programmatic preschool.’ That’s bad news when you have a year of cash.”
Later it pivoted toward media services, finding a warm welcome not only with prospective clients but with Google as well.
“Programmatic execution expertise was a real need, particularly to some of our friends at Google,” Kim said. Google at its heart is a software company, which is the complete opposite of a services company.”
Also in this episode: MightyHive’s acquisition strategy. Pete’s work ethic. Google’s partner approach.
