NEW YORK, October 2, 2019 – MediaMath, acclaimed independent advertising technology company for brands, today pledged to clean up the digital media supply chain by committing to a 100 percent accountable and addressable supply chain by the end of 2020, righting the wrongs of a digital advertising industry that evolved rapidly over the last decade with no purposeful design. With the launch of SOURCE by MediaMath, today’s news represents a meaningful industry step toward helping brands and agencies reclaim powerful results from digital marketing with less effort. The industry must create an environment that is accountable and addressable, and a place where the interests of brands, agencies, content owners, and technology providers are aligned. The announcement was made this morning as the ANA Masters of Marketing Week kicked-off in Orlando, Fla.

“We set out to change marketing for the better. Unfortunately, the purity of our industry’s intentions when we built the digital infrastructure have gotten lost in fraud, waste, and irrelevance. It’s created more ads instead of good ads and minimized the value of quality supply in its purest and most transparent form,” said Joe Zawadzki, CEO, MediaMath. “As some of the earliest pioneers of programmatic, we feel called to help fix what’s broken.”

“Simply put, instead of brands being able to focus on growing and deepening direct customer relationships, much of their time is sucked up with the operational and service burdens of a broken ecosystem,” Zawadzki added. “The supply chain must be rearchitected to fuel growth and health for brands and free creatives to create, and in turn operate a more trustworthy ecosystem with aligned incentives for all.”

SOURCE by MediaMath brings brands and agencies closer to the original, pure source of their media and is:

– Accountable: Real impressions on real media properties. A transparent and fraud-free supply chain from trusted content owners that gives brands full visibility into supply path mechanics and costs, modernized terms of trade, and supply chain technical standards that improve how every piece of advertising functions.
– Addressable: Real humans that brands can reach with real ads, at scale. A single view of who a brand’s customers and prospects are—and the ability to access more of these audiences—across desktop, mobile, and TV through a consistent, portable user-level ID, always prioritizing privacy and consumer respect. Effectively, connecting signal throughout the supply chain allows content owners and advertisers to more effectively communicate their needs and transparently agree upon goals.
– AI-Powered: Cleaner data using the power of computation to draw meaningful insights and detect real trends from huge data sets in a way that requires less effort to achieve. The power of AI is the ability to make high-quality decisions fast. But for machine learning to work in the way it’s intended, it needs good data – no more garbage in, garbage out. AI enables a cleaner supply chain, empowering agencies, brands and content owners with trusted, actionable and real-time data.

Content owners and technology companies are partnering to create the SOURCE ecosystem, not only providing full visibility into supply path mechanics and costs but building new infrastructure and commercial terms for the industry. MediaMath unveiled in June its partnership with Rubicon Project to architect a direct and transparent digital supply infrastructure.

With the rise of streaming TV capturing a larger share of both traditional TV and digital budgets, the SOURCE ecosystem can for the first time define what truly programmatic TV looks like – blending all the benefits of accountable and addressable digital connections with the attention commanded by the largest screen – the TV. MediaMath’s partnership with market-leading Telaria, the complete software platform that optimizes yield for leading video publishers, creates meaningful technical connections between buyer and seller to enhance both sides of the transaction, making every impression accountable and measurable while layering in best-in-class addressable targeting and reach extension capabilities across the digital video and CTV landscape. This new initiative builds on Telaria’s industry-leading transparency program, launched in 2018.

“SOURCE is a movement for the entire industry, propelled by the commitment our partners bring and our shared desire to clean-up the supply chain, and in return we will work to improve the economics around doing so for them,” said Jeremy Steinberg, Global Head of Ecosystem, MediaMath. “For too long, content owners have not been incentivized to protect the quality of their real estate. SOURCE puts brands, agencies, and content owners alike back on equal footing, all sharing a common goal to engage consumers across the globe and earn their trust.”

SOURCE offers brands and agencies a fully accountable media environment and fully addressable audiences. Together, an accountable and addressable environment creates stronger return on investment while lowering brands’ and agencies’ levels of effort to attain those results. The impact extends to insights and the ability to better negotiate across the supply chain with content owners, buyers and technology partners as well.

SOURCE by MediaMath also extends MediaMath’s partnership with White Ops. Announced in June, the partnership protects some of the world’s largest advertisers, agencies and content owners from sophisticated invalid traffic (SIVT) before it is purchased. The White Ops bot mitigation platform detects, prevents and outwits bot populations of every level of sophistication to provide transparency and build trust and accountability across the advertising ecosystem.

SOURCE by MediaMath sets new global industry standards for media performance and significantly improves engagement as brands and agencies tap into a premium, highly curated supply chain driven by market demand for addressable and accountable audience reach.

For more information on SOURCE by MediaMath, visit https://www.mediamath.com.

 

QUOTES BY ECOSYSTEM PARTNERS

“We’re thrilled to further develop our partnership with MediaMath with the launch of SOURCE and to further reimagine the programmatic supply chain by providing a more transparent, simplified and direct path to inventory to power SOURCE,” said Adam Soroca, Global Head of Buyer Team, Rubicon Project. “We have long-standing relationships with the most valued content owners, such as Publishers Clearing House and News Corp., and are committed to aiding advertisers in accessing inventory that is both clean and efficient.”

“Advertisers are demanding greater transparency to ensure every dollar they spend delivers impactful media that moves their businesses forward. From day one we have been committed to providing greater clarity within the programmatic ecosystem to help drive the shift of dollars from traditional media to digital and CTV,” said Mark Zagorski, CEO, Telaria. “As an independent technology platform, free from the conflicts and lack of transparency of the walled gardens, our only mission is to ensure that publishers deliver the most efficient and effective advertising experience for leading brands in a way that optimizes return for both parties.”

“Our clients are demanding a more sophisticated approach to programmatic, with custom and curated options that just aren’t meaningful without full control of the media supply chain,” said Andrew Goode, Executive Vice President, Head of Programmatic, Havas Media Group. “And for us, full control means having the ability to make financial and operational choices. Growing our partnership with MediaMath via support for SOURCE ensures that we will be able to continue to innovate and evolve within the biddable ecosystem on behalf of our clients.”

“Marketers and advertisers continue to struggle with ad fraud and relevant placement, often resulting in reduced efficiency and increased brand risk,” said Mark Simpson, CEO of Acoustic, the largest independent marketing cloud. “MediaMath and industry alliances like Source will set a higher standard, increase transparency, and help professionals generate results that drive revenue.”

“Working with many of the world’s leading digital publishers, Akamai is acutely aware of the challenges and complexities that lie in the way of effective, meaningful programmatic advertising,” said Shawn Michels, Director of Media Product Management, Akamai. “We’re fully supportive of MediaMath’s efforts to apply rigor to the industry.”

We’re delighted to partner with MediaMath on their powerful new solution to foster more transparency and trust in our ecosystem,” said Jana Meron, SVP, Programmatic and Data Strategy at Business Insider. “In fact, we support all industry efforts to keep the supply chain clean. Insider Inc.’s goal is to make sure advertisers get what they pay for, and SOURCE will help us in our mission to provide transparency and accountability for all our inventory.”

“As Crackle Plus is launching enhanced programmatic capabilities, we’re excited to partner with MediaMath to bring an added layer of control and transparency to our streaming video supply across our publisher portfolio of AVOD and linear TV properties,” said Darren Olive, EVP, Advertising Sales at Crackle Plus. “As Connected TV becomes a primary component of omnichannel marketing plans, it’s important that our advertising partners be aware of the incremental fees associated with supporting addressable advertising across our premium long-form video supply.  Transparent and accountable connection between the buy- and sell-sides will be a key piece of our 2020 strategy.”

“IBM Watson Advertising has a longstanding commitment to provide our customers with trusted, innovative and brand-safe advertising solutions,” said Jeremy Hlavacek, Head of Revenue for IBM Watson Advertising. “We’re encouraged by the MediaMath SOURCE ecosystem, which aims to provide brands with the clean inventory used to best engage target customers.”

“Enabling content owners to delight their loyal audiences with the highest quality user experience while maximizing revenue has been our mission at IRIS.TV,” said Richie Hyden, Co-Founder and COO of IRIS.TV. “Without an ad experience that is contextually relevant and brand-safe, that mission is incomplete. It’s a team effort and we look forward to contributing to a more transparent, efficient, and intelligent programmatic supply-chain.”

“Transparency is a word that gets tossed around a lot, but still hasn’t become the industry norm. We’re excited to be a part of SOURCE because it’s a collaborative commitment and shared responsibility to make programmatic the efficient and effective form of media buying it was intended to be,” said Christopher Guenther, SVP, Global Head of Programmatic, News Corp. “At the end of the day, transparency in data, transparency in inventory, and transparency in the feedback loop is what is going to push the industry forward and ensure our partners get the most out of their spend.”

“As an innovator in a rapidly growing DOOH ecosystem, Octopus is committed to fitting into key buying requirements, while paving the way to easily enable spending to flow,” said Cherian Thomas, co-founder and CEO of Octopus Interactive. “As we grow our footprint, opening new cities and placing more screens inside of rideshare vehicles, it has become vital that we continue to embrace innovation across the buy- and sell-sides. We are excited to join MediaMath on this journey towards a fully transparent and accountable supply chain.”

“All publishers with quality content and real engagement have a vested interest in a clear, transparent programmatic supply chain,” said Chris Moore, Head of Strategic Partnerships, Publishers Clearing House. “We pride ourselves on building trust with all of our direct partners, and we applaud SOURCE’s efforts to restore that same level of trust to the infrastructure of digital media.”

“We are excited to be working with MediaMath to provide brands and agencies a transparent view of their campaign performance through Moat both specifically for viewability, and broadly for media quality and engagement. Like MediaMath, Oracle Data Cloud is committed to bringing our clients the best tools in brand safety and measurement to drive optimal performance,” said Chris Langel, VP of Partnerships, Oracle Data Cloud.

“We are excited to partner with MediaMath and applaud their commitment to a fully transparent, accountable and addressable supply chain,” said Jodie McAfee, SVP Sales and Marketing of Inscape, a subsidiary of VIZIO.  “The combination of Inscape’s best-in-class, always on TV viewing data, and MediaMath’s device graph will allow marketers to make connections between on and offline media spending and exposure.  A powerful tool in a media market in which business outcomes are becoming table stakes.”

“MediaMath’s announcement today is a great example of industry leaders taking a stand through partner collaboration to ensure advertising integrity,” said Tamer Hassan, co-founder and chief executive officer, White Ops. “White Ops fully supports MediaMath’s efforts as we have taken tremendous measures to differentiate human interaction vs. sophisticated bot interaction, in order to detect fraudulent activity. Bot fraud is a cybersecurity issue, not a measurement challenge – and as the threat evolves, we are innovating at a faster pace by offering dynamic and more sophisticated solutions to guard against it head-on for partners like MediaMath and the SOURCE ecosystem.”

 

About MediaMath

 

MediaMath helps the world’s top brands deliver personalized digital advertising across all connected touchpoints. Over 9,500 marketers in 42 countries use our enterprise software every day to launch, analyze, and optimize their digital advertising campaigns across display, native, mobile, video, audio, social, digital out of home, and advanced TV formats. Founded in 2007 as a pioneer in “programmatic” advertising, MediaMath is recognized as a Leader in the Gartner 2018 Magic Quadrant for Ad Tech, won four awards from the IAB for Sales, Service and Education Excellence, and was awarded Best DMP in the 2019 Digiday Technology Awards.

MediaMath is leading an industry-wide effort to create an accountable and addressable supply chain through an alliance of agencies, brands, tech companies, and content owners designed to provide long-term sustainable solutions for a clean digital media supply chain with brand-safe, fraud-free, and viewable inventory. MediaMath has offices in 16 cities worldwide and is headquartered in New York City. To learn more about how MediaMath helps innovative marketers delight their customers and drive real business outcomes, follow us at @mediamath or visit www.mediamath.com.

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MEDIA CONTACTS

Laura Colona, VP Global Communications, MediaMath

lcolona@mediamath.com

+1 (516) 242-8487

 

Ryan M. Wallace, PAN Communications for MediaMath

mediamath@pancomm.com

+1 (917) 442-2305