AD-Vantage caught up with Head of AOL International Graham Moysey on his recent trip home to Canada. He spoke about how Canada compares to other markets in terms of ad tech adoption and education, and how AOL plans to build a Canadian userbase for its new One demand-side platform.
Moysey was picked to lead AOL’s non-US operations last fall after serving as AOL Canada’s general manager.
We’re very interested in how Canada’s ad tech market compares to other markets – how up to date we are compared to Germany, France or the U.S. Are Canadians asking you about AOL’s tech?
Canada’s in a really good spot, I think. Starting at the upper end of the funnel, I think there’s a huge creative force here, as evidenced by a bunch of creative shops that have moved south of the border and built out leadership positions in that space.
I think it all starts with creativity because you can’t replace that. Creative people are huge stakeholders for AOL, because we believe the creative process and the execution of creative digital ad formats are critical to building up that premium experience and ecosystem. I think Canada’s one of the talk-to-you players in that space.
On the agency configuration side, it’s pretty similar to the U.S. I mean obviously what you lack in Canada is scale. So the digital groups here aren’t as comprehensive or as scaled up as they are in the U.S. or the U.K. You could have a digital floor in New York or the U.K that’s 900 people, and 500 of those service one client. I mean it’s just huge scale.
Programmatically, I would say that the U.K. is the most advanced. So trading desks have the most momentum, the largest installed base of FTE’s, and the most power in relationships with media owners like ourselves. I think U.S. is right behind it, and I think Canada is following somewhere in the third or fourth spot.
I think publishers are participating in programmatic here, which is a really important component. If you don’t have publishers participating on the supply side, you can’t build the ecosystem. I would put markets like Germany outside the top ten, because they’ve got an advanced media landscape, but the publishers are holding back on all the supply. And they’re doing that because they’re scared — which is exactly where the publishers were in Canada and the U.S. two years ago.
You’re going to see the percentage of dollars moving programmatically continue to grow at breakneck speeds, in my opinion. Like I said at the Festival of Media in Rome, anything that can get automated, will – and I believe that firmly. I think if you can automate native advertising, it’s going to happen. Where you can give scale to high-touch ad experiences and drive efficiencies for the advertiser and the agency, it’s going to happen.
With the new One platform, AOL is committing even more heavily to the DSP space – but the DSP market in Canada is pretty locked up. How much headway do you think you can make there?
If you’ve got a tech solution that provides great yields to your publishers and advertisers, you’re going to get usage. It’s as easy as that. That’s what I love about technology, is that at the end of the day, the ROI is driven by how efficient the technology is and how seamless and easy it is for the advertiser and agency to use it. May the best platform win, right?
The reality is people are starting to navigate around their agency trading desks to work directly with vendors, because they want access to their own data. Data is the most powerful thing for a client, agency or media owner. And so access to that, and transparency into the economics of how the inventory is being purchased, is going to continue to shake things up. I see it as an opportunity.
And how about the level of education in Canada? Is there a knowledge gap here?
Like in e-commerce, there’s going to be people who are leading the charge and adopting technology and pivoting the resources and priorities quickly. This is a super combative environment, right? Whether you’re a brand, an agency, a publisher, you’re in a dogfight for share. You want to move product. If technology is a platform that can change the trajectory in a meaningful way, and you’re not adopting it, you’re going to be left behind.
But I don’t think there’s any meaningful gap between Canada and the U.S. or U.K. I see lot of different players stepping in. I see insatiable appetite to learn more about it, and so it’s the job of AOL and other organizations in the market to continue what we’ve been doing for 12 years — doing the seminars, doing thought leadership pieces.
I think of Canada as one of the top five globally in terms of education and penetration. I think the interesting discussion becomes, how does technology change the developing markets? I’ve spent quite a bit of time in Asia Pacific region. Vietnam, Malaysia – these are markets where there is an absolutely superb opportunity for aggressive agency groups to use technology to come to the fore. For me, that’s where it gets super exciting.
You’re also starting to see global deals. Not only is there consolidation amongst the agency holding companies, there’s consolidation in global deal flow. People are starting to negotiate, with companies like AOL, multi-market deals that have combined spend objectives across the Middle East, Europe, LATAM, APAC. But you can’t execute those unless there’s programmatic solutions in all those markets.
