While billions have been invested over the past decade or so in startups touting software that promises to deliver the right ad to the right person at the right time, it’s fair to say that the majority of that investment in so-called “programmatic” advertising has focused on ad buying and targeting--and less on the actual making of ads. Creating ads, even digital ones, is still primarily the domain of people. Yet earlier this year, the ad tech companies Eyeview and Spongecell raised capital--$21.5 million and $10.5 million, respectively--promising to bring more of the automated aspects of digital advertising to the typically art-dominated creative side of the business. And earlier this week, Recode reported that Snapchat has snatched up the ad tech firm Flite, which also operates in the fledgling “programmatic creative” realm. The way these firms operate varies, but their promises are similar. Instead of just helping marketers target a digital ad to a person at the right moment, they provide software and tools that allow for custom ads to be built in real time. Take Tennessee Tourism. In 2015 organization worked with its agency VML and Spongecell to deploy 23 different video ads to consumers based mostly on what part of the country they lived in, since roughly a dozen states are in a day’s drive of Tennessee. This past summer during the height of travel season, the group took things up a notch. It ran pre-roll video ads on sites across the web using a dozen templates which yielded over 2,000 video ad possibilities. People saw different variations of video ads based not only on where they lived, but whether they are foodies, golfers, outdoors enthusiasts or like to listen to country or rock--based on an assortment of first- and third-party data sets employed by the marketer. The end result was that while these ads featured some consistent music and visuals, one ad might tout hiking in the Tennessee mountains while another might talk up Memphis’ restaurants or the Johnny Cash museum in Nashville. “Our audience was basically men and women between 18 and 65,” said Megan Davey, associate channel director at VML. “You can’t just serve the same ads to all of them. So we have the audiences tell us [what ads they want].” Certainly not every advertiser is going to run thousands of ads in each campaign. But according to Ben Kartzman, Spongecell’s co-founder and chief executive, the fact that more advertisers are leaning so heavily on their own custom data sets and building in-house programmatic teams is helping accelerate the use of such tactics. One retail client can potentially generate 80 quintillion creative ads on a weekly basis, he said. “I do think it’s where we’re headed,” he said. It seemed like “programmatic creative” was headed toward becoming a bigger industry trend at the end of the previous decade, when both Google and Yahoo made acquisitions in this realm. Yet overall, “this subsector has seen less investment compared to data and media,” said Terence Kawaja, chief executive of digital media advisory firm Luma Partners. Mr. Kawaja’s firm famously creates PowerPoint slides that illustrate the hundreds of ad tech companies in various sectors of digital media. And it doesn’t currently have such a slide for “programmatic creative.” Early on, the concept of “programmatic creative” got “co-opted by retargeting companies” said Loren Grossman, chief experience officer at Omnicom Media Group’s data-centric Annalect. Think of those banner ads for items you may have placed in a digital shopping cart but didn’t purchase--and now follow you around the web. Mr. Grossman said there’s been a revival in this category over the last 12 to 18 months as more programmatic ad teams are endeavoring to partner with creative agencies. “There’s been this real focus on customer journey,” he said--and using data to show the right messages along that journey. “We’re in the business of creating and delivering compelling commercial content,” added Chris Thomas, chief executive for Omnicom Group’s BBDO the Americas. “How we use data is changing both how we create and how we deliver that content.” To be sure, many traditional marketers and their creative agencies are still largely inclined to make ads that tell the same story to the whole country or planet. And the disjointed nature of ad agency holding companies are a big obstacle to advancing “programmatic creative” since a marketer’s creative agency “might be in a different part of the world than the one who buys the media campaign,” said Oren Harnevo, co-founder and CEO Eyeview, which has worked on campaigns for advertisers like Honda that employ thousands of different ads. Mr. Harnevo estimated that roughly 5% of digital ad spending used these tactics. “The idea is pretty clear. Different creatives for different people,” he said. “But it’s complicated.” Write to Mike Shields at mike.shields@wsj.com Copyright ©2019 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8
Programmatic digital ad creation is becoming more significant as tech companies such as Eyeview and Google offer custom ad building in real time , enabling advertising through software , rather than human design . This new method of creation offers infinite possibilities , potentially creating 80 quintillion creative ads on a weekly basis that are tailored specifically for each viewing audience . With the rise of programmatic in ad spending , the increase in programmatic creation seems obvious , though at present only around 5 % of digital ad spending is utilising this new method .