While UM has been involved in programmatic buying for nearly five years, it’s recently begun investing in a slate of technology to bolster its work in this area, says David Cohen, Chief Investment Officer at UM. Specifically, UM has created a “single-source view” across screens.
“As usage has grown from PC and TV to over-the-top to mobile, we need a single-source way of looking at that, so we have invested in the data assets to do that,” he says, in explaining how UM is approaching programmatic growth. UM has built its own audience management platform that ingests data from a range of sources including Nielsen, Rentrak, Polk, first-party and others, he says.
The emphasis on data and programmatic is vital because media agencies are increasingly moving to both the performance-centric buys, like programmatic, as well as the more customized, highly strategic campaigns. “We are doubling down on both sides and we expect the middle to be smaller over time, which makes sense, and yields better performance for clients,” he tells us.
Beet.TV spoke to Cohen at the BrightRoll Video Summit last week where he was a featured speaker.