Hasta La Creative!

“Programmatic buying is the gluten of advertising,” Jimmy Kimmel quipped during ABC’s upfront presentation last week. Like gluten, “programmatic” has become a buzzword that many people use but few really understand. They just know it’s important. For some reason.

The term covers a wide range of technologies that have begun automating the buying, placement and optimization of advertising, replacing human-based methods like phone calls, faxes and, yes, three-martini lunches. Through programmatic technologies, advertisers can buy ads the way they pick up something on Amazon or bid on eBay.

For all the ink spilled, you’d think the entire world had gone programmatic, but it’s still just a sliver of online-display advertising. Interpublic Group of Cos.’ buying arm Magna Global projects that programmatic spending will reach $9.8 billion in the U.S. this year, or about 20% of the overall digital-ad market. To move brand dollars, programmatic technologies have to grow up and advance to other forms of media, like TV and radio.

Continue reading at AdAge.com