Audio programmatic predictions from RAIN Summit and Radio Show

Programmatic advertising was a key topic at RAIN Summit Atlanta, where a discussion panel (Online Audio’s Programmatic Path) examined viewpoints from the buy and sell sides. In addition, a RAIN Summit interview with Jennifer Hungerbuhler of the global agency Dentsu Aegis landed on programmatic with a revealing prediction.

Then, at the Radio Show, a 90-minute panel called Unlocking Programmatic’s Potential featured two discussion panels — the first with buyers and sellers, and the second with ad-tech representatives. In that session, another prediction of audio’s emergence into the programmatic arena.

Audio’s adoption of programmatic has many components that make predictions complicated. But Jennifer Hungerbuhler startled the RAIn Summit audience by cutting through equivocations, explaining that Dentsu Aegis was committed to 100% programmatic execution of ad buys by 2020 — four to five years from now.

The the programmatic panel, later in the RAIN Summit, Cordie DePascale (VP of Product Management at demand-side platform Mediaocean) agreed, but in more general terms. “It’s not that far off,” DePascale said. “It’s a few years away, not 20 years away.”

In the Radio Show panel, which was held in a large ballroom that made the gathered audience seem smaller than it was, moderator Matt Prohaska (CEO, Prohaska Consulting) pressed Carl Fremont (global chief digital officer, MEC) for a prediction. Fremont projected that 50% of radio would be sold programmatically in three years.