Guaranteed Returns

- Austyn Allison

The BBC recently held an event in Dubai to discuss programmatic buying with regional media buyers and their clients. It was aimed at brands who buy advertising on the UK national broadcaster’s digital platforms.

After the talks and panel discussions, Campaign caught up with David Goddard, global head of programmatic trading at BBC Advertising. He says programmatic – the automated buying of online ad space – has long been seen as a bit of a dirty word, a way to get rid of remnant inventory. The technology needs to rebuild trust and respect among advertisers.

Goddard had told the audience that programmatic has “redefined premium”. That may sound like a tired press release from a struggling hotel, but for Goddard it means putting ads on pages that are good for the audience, the publisher and the advertiser.

“The content I’m consuming, do I trust it? That’s premium to the audience,” he says. “If I’m the publisher, am I getting the right information out there on a regular basis to the vast reach and audience I’ve got? And for an advertiser it’s 60 per cent viewability, it’s transparent inventory, it’s human traffic, it’s brand safety. But it’s also an audience that will potentially engage with your product, and one that would buy it as well.”

He adds: “‘Premium’ is a word like ‘transparency’, like ‘automation’. It can mean anything.”

The BBC’s offerings have long been seen as premium content. Its journalism has 95 years of heritage and a reputation for editorial independence and fact checking. The much more recently formed advertising division basks in the reflected respectability of this.