MarTech360 Interview With Anudit Vikram, Chief Product Officer, MediaMath

Hi, Anudit, could you walk us through your professional journey so far?

I am an engineer by education and started my career in networking with Novell and Microsoft. My journey brought me to website design and introduced me to the ways of monetizing internet content and the concept of digital media, by which time I was hooked!

I have been fortunate enough to have been a part of advertising technology from back in the days when Right Media built the first ad exchange. Then, having spent time on the publisher side (Yahoo!), an agency (Merkle), and in the data world (Dun & Bradstreet). I am now back in tech at MediaMath.

What challenges did the COVID-19 pandemic pose for you and your team?

The biggest challenge was creating a sense of camaraderie with the new entrants on the team. There is something about a face-to-face interaction that no amount of Zoom can make up for. That said, we are a global organization, and a welcome positive was that, with everyone being on Zoom, it made meetings with folks in different geographic regions more normalized – there were no ‘side conversations’ between people in a room.

From an innovation and new idea generation perspective, we could not easily replicate the ‘brainstorming on the whiteboard’ experience, but the teams came up with ingenious ways of getting together online and having fruitful discussions. On a less positive note, the mental stress of the pandemic due to the uncertainty of things (more so during the beginning stages of the pandemic) was something we constantly struggled with (as, I am sure, did everyone else as well).

What sets MediaMath apart from the competition?

MediaMath was established to address one critical need in the industry: transparency in the adtech supply chain. Many intermediaries create the entire supply chain between the dollar spent and the consumer seeing the ad. Because of how the adtech supply chain was designed and the people involved, it’s a complex ecosystem where it’s difficult to understand if the buyer and seller are getting the total dollar value. MediaMath offers tools to create transparency in the supply chain, so brands feel confident that their investments see ROI.

As part of transparency, we came up with three core tenets: addressable (transparency for both buyer and seller), accountable (for both buyer and seller), and aligned (where each side shares information for mutual benefit). The current market momentum with public and private investors validates the strong growth trends across a large addressable digital advertising market. MediaMath is one of only a handful of global adtech platforms with identity and technology partnerships needed to help brands and agencies navigate this dynamic environment.

We are constantly exploring multiple avenues to develop and bring differentiated capabilities to market and evaluate options on how we can seize that opportunity. We enable our clients to achieve measurable marketing outcomes in a privacy-first, cookieless world by offering them a truly omnichannel marketing platform that provides the user with intelligent recommendations.

We enable accountability and addressability in media execution, bringing it to life with a flexible and responsive engagement model. Our mission, platform, customer-centric approach, and tenets all help us stand apart from our partners in fulfilling a significant need in the market today.

Also Read: MarTech360 Interview With Ryan Jamboretz, President, Commercial & Partnerships, Smartly.Io

How, according to you, has advertising technology or AdTech evolved, and what does the future of AdTech look like?

The adtech industry is seeing many changes now, especially how channels are being leveraged. The industry has evolved from display and mobile to burgeoning new spaces in TV, digital, and even audio – think Alexa, Siri, and Google Home. As a result, there are some unique ways in which advertisers and marketers have channel opportunities to send their messages over.

At MediaMath, we are right in the middle of that. It is more interesting that regulators and international governments have different angles and positions on things they believe are okay and not okay. From an adtech perspective, we’ve always been cognizant and have tried to self-regulate, but now the EU is leading the charge with how they view regulations changing.

Given the changes around privacy and in the industry overall, the future of adtech will be very different. The cookieless future will mean a need to transform the way advertisers operate and target consumers. Among other things, we can expect the future to be more regulated, with more partnerships forged to build alternative options to data targeting, and a shift in ad experiences for the consumer.

Do you think omnichannel advertising is ideal for creating a consistent brand experience for customers?

The promise of true Omnichannel advertising has always been there but never fully realized. By that I mean the ability to storyboard, target, optimize, and measure effectively and efficiently across all channels that the consumer can be engaged with. It is not something that is solved via technology alone. It also needs a true transformation on the organizational and business sides, because the people responsible for the various channels and the business expectations across the channels need to be properly aligned.

But yes, for the consumer, the ideal experience with the brand will be when the way the brand engages is consistent and, more importantly – meaningful and provides value – in and across all the channels the consumer is present in.

As we are about to enter a cookieless digital world, how will the cookieless ad experience impact marketers and the end consumers?

Potential billion-dollar industries have been built on the backs of cookies. You can’t just remove cookies now without seismic changes in the industry. As the world of identity changes, we are seeing a period of fragmentation, with various identity providers for the top slot as the provider for the open internet. Marketers forced to pivot to replace cookies are now exploring options such as authenticated IDs (think single sign-on), probabilistic IDs, data partnerships using first-party data within a publisher’s environment, and more.

“As the world of identity changes, we are seeing a period of fragmentation, with various identity providers for the top slot as the provider for the open internet.”

The lack of available data will challenge some marketers who can’t pivot as quickly and can no longer apply data targeting to build audiences, resulting in lower media buying and conversion rates, with higher cases of ineffective and irrelevant targeting. This period of fragmentation of the ecosystem will continue for a while before a few winners evolve to provide suitable alternatives to third-party cookies and become the de facto standard for others to use

End consumers, for their part, may initially lose out on the more personalized ad experiences they are familiar with. Nonetheless, they will be able to enjoy the benefits of greater data privacy. And once the period of fragmentation comes to a close, consumers will benefit from new and creative ad experiences, as they will be based on insights that aren’t reliant on personal data tracking and make an effort to reengage with them.

The cookieless world will provide a balance of higher media buying with a good user ad experience and healthy consumer/marketer relationships.

Recently, Netflix announced that it will introduce an advertising-supported version of its service, how will its ad-supported tier work? And will it be beneficial for Netflix?

Only time will tell how the experience of the user in the ad-supported tier will change (or not) the value equation between the consumer and Netflix. But one thing is certain…with its created/owned content footprint, Netflix is in a great position to create new engagement experiences for consumers with advertising. I hope it makes the most of this opportunity and will closely watch its signals as Netflix matures its ad-supported business.

We believe that MediaMath conducted a survey that revealed that ad experiences are one of the leading factors consumers consider when selecting streaming providers, what were the exact findings of this survey?

MediaMath’s survey aimed to understand consumer sentiment toward ad experiences within connected television (CTV) streaming services, and better understand consumers’ preferences toward streaming service providers and the options available to them, such as Live TV.

Key findings revealed that while cost is a top factor behind consumer choices in streaming services, the ad experience also plays a pivotal role in their decision-making. Of the 79% of consumers who subscribe to a streaming service, over 50% said they would discontinue services over long ad breaks, while 47% said fewer ads was their top reason for a better ad experience on a streaming service.

Most voted for Netflix having the best ad experience at 35%, with Hulu following at 15%. However, the majority of respondents ranked personalized and relevant ads last among their reasons for picking a service. Interestingly, package deals were also not particularly enticing, with 41% ranking service bundles as their last reason for subscribing.

Survey findings indicate that the consumers’ ideal ad experience is one that is short, with less frequent ad breaks. For brand marketers and advertisers, this highlights the need to meet these preferences to attract and retain consumer appetite successfully.

Also, alternate TV streaming options are also on consumers’ radars. Nearly 60% said they had considered discontinuing streaming services for Live TV, and over 40% of consumers cited cost as their main reason for choosing Live TV. On the privacy front, the research found that a majority of consumers (59%) felt their data privacy was at risk when using streaming services.

Overall, the survey findings lend critical insight into the ideal user experience with ads, CTV versus Live TV, and privacy and data protection concerns. Streaming services are up against a few challenges. As Netflix adopts ad tiers, we can anticipate other streaming services to invest in the ad experience.

Every consumer has different needs and preferences but as per stats what do consumers prefer more – short ad breaks, less frequent ads, or personalized and relevant ads? 

Our survey asked users to rank reasons for subscribing to a streaming service on a scale of 1-6, with 6 being the bottom of the list. While cost was top of the list, the remainder were based on ad preferences. Of the consumers:

• 53% of consumers said ad breaks that are too long was the top reason they would consider discontinuing a streaming service
• 29% rank fewer ads as the #2 reason they subscribe to a streaming service
• 56% rank personalized and relevant ads as the #5 and #6 reason to subscribe to a streaming service

Data indicates that streaming services can make or break their audience numbers primarily by long ad breaks, followed by fewer ads. However, viewers are least concerned about how interesting or relatable the ad is to them.

Could you name one other Chief Product Officer or any C-level personnel that you would like to see featured here? 

 My colleague and MediaMath’s Chief Privacy Officer, Fiona Campbell-Webster.

What is the one piece of advice you would give to those who wish to enter the MarTech world?

The opportunities in the marketing technology space are many and the innovations happening here are exciting. This is one area where creativity, technology, and business come together, and I welcome more inspiring minds to come work with us. Jump in with an open mind, be ready to learn and to challenge the status quo – the ceiling is infinite!

Thanks, Anudit!