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Several brands have made public commitments to shift their budgets to purpose-driven advertising and allocate spend to companies owned by and reaching underrepresented populations or focusing on industry causes.
However, given the complexity of the digital media ecosystem, the actual shifting of dollars to purpose-owned or led organizations has proven elusive. The fact remains that despite best intentions, it’s been hard to scale purpose-led programmatic media investments.
Display advertising accounts for over a third of all U.S. media spending, and 90% of display dollars go through programmatic. In 2022, that represented more than $115 billion. Almost every digital budget allocation, therefore, includes a heavy programmatic component, but programmatic was designed to deliver efficiency and efficacy, not “purpose.” That foundational tenet of how programmatic was designed has resulted in challenges for brands and agencies interested in purpose-led investment at scale.
Many have tried. Historically, however, when brands and agencies attempt to spend programmatic dollars with specific supply partners, the algorithms optimize those same specific partners out of the plan, shifting buys toward performance. As such, the spend is often reallocated to larger players that may meet core KPIs, even though those changes may run counter to the desired goal of scaling purpose-led investment.
As this is happening, there are still basic questions regarding what qualifies as a “purpose-driven” investment. Before we define that term, buyers need a bridge between purpose-led media investment and programmatic scale. The solution may lie in one of the biggest trends in programmatic: curation.
A solution within reach
Curation is the process of activating data and inventory packages on the supply side through PMPs. This provides buyers complete control over the inventory considered, the data applied and each option in the digital supply path. Buyers can assemble curated private marketplaces that include hundreds, even thousands, of inventory providers and audience segments around specific parameters and KPIs ranging from audience characteristics to inventory characteristics. Importantly, these curated PMPs can be optimized with real-time performance data.