Rubicon Project, the global exchange for advertising, recently joined DPAA. Mel Stott chatted with Joe Prusz, Rubicon Project’s Global Head of Revenue.
Please tell us about Rubicon Project’s business.
Founded in 2007, Rubicon Project is the Global Exchange for Advertising operating one of the world’s leading, independent advertising exchanges powering open, private and direct marketplaces worldwide. We are serving both the needs of our more than 1,300 premium sellers, including publishers and app developers, as well as those of buyers, including brand advertisers, agencies and demand side platforms (DSPs).
Do you foresee a day when all advertising selling and buying will be automated?
As the digitization of boards and screens continues to grow, and the underlying technology becomes more advanced, we definitely foresee a day where a large portion of advertising will be available in an automated manner. However, in order for this traditional particular medium (digital OOH) to continue to flourish, the mix of human talent and technology will be vital to demonstrating its opportunities and reaching its full potential.
To what extent are you involved with the digital out-of-home industry, and how do you see your presence growing in the sector over the next few years?
We see our diverse inventory offering as a key differentiator in the market, and digital out-of- home accounts for a growing portion of that. We maintain this presence through strategic partnerships with key players in the DOOH industry including Clear Channel Outdoor, Captivate, Broadsign, Zoom Media and TouchTunes.
You announced an agreement with TouchTunes earlier this year in which you would be making their audience available programmatic DOOH real-time buying in a private marketplace. Can you provide an update on how that is working out?
With this partnership, advertisers using the Rubicon Project Orders platform can now place 15 and 30 second video and static ads on more than 30,000 programmatic-enabled TouchTunes Digital Jukeboxes across the U.S, that reach an audience of over 38 million uniques. The partnership has continued to grow and most recently saw an advertiser leverage the TouchTunes audience in a unique campaign.
For this campaign, digital marketing agency Ciceron tapped Rubicon Project to run 15-second video ad creatives across TouchTunes jukeboxes for the release of Warner Bros. Records’ Grammy Award winning alternative rock band Gorillaz and their first studio album in nearly six years titled, “Humanz,” which dropped on April 28, 2017. The agency specifically leveraged TouchTunes first-party location data to target this campaign to bars that are more likely to favor alternative rock and hip-hop genres. Each of the ads were served up programmatically via Rubicon Project’s leading Orders technology in private marketplaces.
Ciceron’s client, Warner Bros. Records, is a terrific example of modern-age advertising. Utilizing programmatic DOOH technology, they were able to reach a truly targeted audience of alternative rock music fans at the time they are most likely to be interested in an album drop by Gorillaz: standing at the jukebox in a bar.
As we look ahead, we are particularly excited about the opportunities presented by emerging channels. From OTT to digital audio to programmatic DOOH, we believe the market will continue to create opportunities for these platforms to take hold. We look forward to optimizing our business strategies to benefit from that momentum.
We also remain optimistic about the progressive move of header bidding toward server-side solutions. Our support for Digitrust and our launch of a server-side header bidding solution in closed beta have us well positioned to offer our clients an opportunity to benefit from this move in the coming months.
Across all aspects of our business and throughout the industry, transparency and quality have remained our key areas of focus for 2017. This was evidenced by our co-founding of Prebid.org, the elimination of our buy-side fees, and our open communication with buyers about changes to our auction dynamics. We look forward to continuing to evolve our business in 2018 and beyond to become the most transparent and efficient exchange in digital advertising.
What were your reasons for joining DPAA?
Rubicon Project has attended DPAA events and engaged with members for the past three years, but we decided to formalize our membership in 2017 for a number of reasons.
We wanted to expand our efforts in bringing our leading private marketplace technology into the out-of-home arena on the heels of our public partnerships with Captivate, Clear Channel Outdoor, Zoom Media, etc.
We wanted to make sure that the industry was, technology-wise, moving in the right direction to position OOH to be able to capture shifting digital and linear TV dollars.
We are committed to making programmatic DOOH part of core media buying.
Finally, we were excited about the opportunity to bring our 10 years of digital experience and our relationships with key tech and media partners to the fore to strengthen the position of OOH in the digital ecosystem.