On May 29, San Francisco Bay Area Interactive Group (SF Big) hosted a breakfast panel discussing the effects of media planning automation. With over 200 attendees, the panel had a great turnout. Cory Treffiletti, President, Managing Partner, Catalyst, moderated the panel.

And panelists included:

• Ryan Becker, VP Publisher Development, ContextWeb
• Shane Vaughan, VP Marketing, Balihoo
• Matt Boyd – SVP Sales, ValueClick
• Neil Monnens; Co founder and President, Good Hands Media.

With widespread acknowledgment that the media planning process could be more efficient, the panel focused on the new technologies being built that will help automate parts of the planning process. The panel discussed the critical importance of the human element in media planning, and panelists agreed that while many of the processes behind planning can be automated, there always will be the need for human interaction and creative thought when creating a successful ad campaign.

Panelists also agreed that media planning could benefit from some automation. But planners have difficulties deciding which of the new technologies will benefit them, and they feel that more standardization should exist before many of them can be adopted. ComScore and @plan seem to be the most widely adopted, but they only track the larger sites. How, then, do planners address a world in where thousands of new sites are published daily?

On this topic, I said: “We need to start thinking of the universe in terms of pages not just sites, how do planners efficiently access the pages (not just the sites) that are right for their advertisers?” Publishers and technology vendors need to work together as partners with media planners to better service advertisers, and the ADSDAQ exchange is a great platform to do just that.

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