Viewpoint - Peadar Drislane

Programmatic media – simplicity is key

I began my career in Media back in 2000. Back then, the media industry was dominated by television, with shows such as Coronation Street pulling in viewing figures in excess of 15m per episode. This gave advertisers the perfect platform to generate mass awareness of their products to a huge audience in a very short space of time. Radio, outdoor advertising, newspapers, magazines and cinema were also hugely influential and were a mainstay on almost all media plans.

The past 20 years has seen dramatic change in how media agencies operate and how media campaigns are planned and implemented. The reason for this is the emergence of the digital age and how media is now consumed. The growth in online media has been phenomenal.

With this level of growth and scale, it can seem a daunting prospect when approaching the online world, but it is the perfect landscape for clients to reach their target audience at a much more granular level. In order to maximise this opportunity, programmatic media provides the tools to navigate the online space and identify the environments in which we can connect with consumers with relevant and targeted advertising and minimise wastage.

Initially, the term ‘Programmatic media’ can be confusing, with things like Demand Side Platforms (DSP) and Supply Side Platforms (SSP) to get to grips with, as well as Open Market Place and Private Market Place.

At Seika Media, we believe that simplicity is key, and aim to make the use of programmatic media as smooth and transparent as possible. To do this, we identify and vet tens of thousands of domains and curate them into bespoke PMPs (Private Market Places), so that all of the websites are entirely relevant for any particular target market. We then allocate one deal I.D to this so that we can monitor and optimise the campaigns on a daily basis to maximise the successful outcome of each one. Daily optimisation allows us to use budgets efficiently and effectively to achieve specific KPIs, on average increasing campaign performance by at least 20% across the board while keeping the client in complete control – choosing from display, video, connected TV, in-game, audio, digital out-of-home and YouTube, all within a brand-safe, curated programmatic marketplace of the world’s leading publishers.

Also with the aim of making digital media simpler, we offer two ways to buy with a choice of self-serve campaigns (where the agency/ brand uses a demand side platform) or a managed service (where we buy the campaign on the client’s behalf via a brief). We report back with complete transparency on the domains used, the price and the performance as regularly as needed, acting as an extension of the client’s internal team. In both cases, we set up Microsoft Teams chats so that clients can message us or have a video call when it suits them.

Programmatic media should be viewed as an integral element in all campaigns, as it enhances digital footprints by reaching audiences at unprecedented scale.

Peadar Drislane - business director - Seika Media - Peadar has over 20 years’ experience in the media industry, having worked with a host of global brands as well as some of the biggest media agencies in the UK. His expertise covers AV planning and buying, specialising in the toys and games and youth market. www.seika.media peadar.drislane@seika.media