A New Addition to the C-Suite: Chief Programmatic Officer
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The New York Times, AOL, Meredith and The Washington Post — what do each of these media companies have in common? Within the past year, all have hired top executives as programmatic ad chiefs. Given that real-time bidding digital display ad spend is expected to grow another 38% in 2014 (after increasing 74% in 2013) and reach $9 billion in ad spend by 2017 (almost 30% of total digital display ad spend), it makes sense that these companies are investing senior-level resources to help embrace and monetize the massive opportunity.
Finally, the industry has realized that the debate is not about man vs. machine, but about how man can manage the machine to deliver the best outcome for all stakeholders involved — media companies, brand advertisers and targeted consumers. We’ve placed a lot of power in programmatic technology’s ability to scale ad buys and find more precise audiences, but human intelligence still remains the most important part of the equation.
More than ever before, a new crop of talent specifically tuned for more technical and analytical business requirements is rising out of the woodwork and taking hold in organizations across the ecosystem, from programmatic ad chiefs at media companies to programmatic media specialists at digital agencies. I predict that it won’t be long before a second CPO joins the C-suite: Along with the chief product officer, the new chief programmatic officer will affect influential strategies in the board room.
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