Looking to capitalize on the growing need for transparency in programmatic advertising, Advertience has opened its doors in Toronto to offer consulting on technology-intensive digital media channels like display, search, social and mobile, with a focus on programmatic and real-time media.
Founder Raymond Reid — a long-time digital media strategist who’s held senior roles at Starcom MediaVest, Neo@Ogilvy, and Acuity Ads — made the announcement less than a week after he launched another startup, Digital Ad Lab, to provide education on programmatic technology and strategy for new entrants into digital media. While the two self-funded companies are separate projects, Reid said they’re both intended to contribute to a better-informed and more open digital media ecosystem.
He said Advertience can offer a level of transparency that advertiser clients still can’t get from the agency-owned trading desks that currently dominate programmatic.
“Transparency is a hot topic in the industry. But it’s like Bigfoot: everyone says it exists, but no one’s been able to find it,” he said.
Advertience promises clients will have complete and direct access to campaign reporting and costs, as well as ownership of any data they use to target consumers online. “We believe it’s core that clients are able to see all costs throughout the buying process to understand that which is really driving their business,” said Reid. “That comes at no margin markups whatsoever.”
Reid is positioning Advertience as a consulting firm, rather than an agency or trading desk, in part because of its retainer-based pricing model. He said Advertience won’t charge clients a percentage of the dollars they spend on media (as is typical with most firms that buy on behalf of clients). It will instead assess what resources a client will need to meet their objectives, and charge fees based on those services.
He said that with the technology and insights now available, digital media agencies have a big opportunity to help clients meet their objectives, but because the big-name holding companies have become so focused on driving their own revenue through trading desks, they often overlook client needs.
Part of the problem is an over-emphasis on technology and efficiency, rather than strategy. “We’ve gone down the programmatic rabbit hole so far that we’ve forgotten a lot about how the whole suite of tools and services that are available in digital should work towards delivering a brand marketer’s objectives,” he said.
Reid said Advertience plans to centralize its programmatic, search and social executions through Google’s DoubleClick Marketing Platform. He doesn’t believe it’s necessary to run multiple platforms in parallel with dozens of third-party vendors plugged in, each of them taking a percentage of the client’s media dollars. Rather, the DoubleClick platform, in the hands of a capable planner, has more than enough functionality to meet the client’s needs.
“The technology itself is a method of execution,” he said. “Where agencies can still provide tremendous value… is strategy. It’s helping a brand understanding that it’s still a matter of storytelling and connecting with consumers across touch points.”
