FORT LAUDERDALE — We’re not there quite yet – but we could be soon, if clients get their way. That’s the view of one industry exec casting her eye over the prospects for how so-called “programmatic” advertising technologies might revolutionize TV ad buying.

“In the beginning of 2015, there were some big announcements that … made a lot of buzz in the industry … but it wasn’t really a reality,” according to Xaxis SVP Christina Beaumier.

“This year …, (there) has been real advancements and real scale in … connected television, addressable television. Those two different buckets of what the market calls programmatic TV are actually real and actually growing at scale.”

Automated buying of and optimization for linear TV ads are still some years off, Beaumier reckons, but things are changing.

“The agency side buyers … are … not quite ready to jump on board,” she adds. “But, because there is such hype in the market about what it is, even though it isn’t quite there, clients are excited. Clients are now pushing everybody forward.”

Beaumier said the recent appointment of Xaxis CEO Brian Lesser to be North America CEO of parent Group M was emblematic of how important data was becoming to advertising.

 

This video was produced at the Beet.TV executive retreat presented by Videology with Adobe, AT&T AdWorks and Nielsen.

You can find more videos from the Beet Retreat on this page.