Episode 059 - NYIAX and Atedra - Bringing home the bags for DOOH buys 💰

Welcome everybody to the out-of-home insider show, a podcast like no other hosted by the one and only Tim Rowe.

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Welcome to out-of-home inside of the loudest voice in out of home. And we've talked about the future of out-of-home being here. And I think we've got two visitors from the future here today. Pierre Greg gentlemen, welcome to the show. Thanks so much. Absolutely. It's a very cool concept. Very cool partnership that you guys get going on, but in case folks don't know who you are.

Let's just go left to. Right. Greg, tell us a little bit about yourself and about what sure. So I feel like I'm speaking for many people. When I say, if I could be from the future after this year, I've gladly me from the shoot. He wouldn't come back. That's absolutely right. But I'm upgrade to thicker on the CRO at Nyack.

I've been there for. Three and a half years, and then been in this crazy thing called digital advertising for about two decades. So, uh, very much looking forward to today's conversation. Appreciate you having a song. Absolutely. I think you're going to bring unique perspective to the conversation. PR tell us a little bit about yourself, where you're coming from today.

Yeah, so I'm a CEO of a Tedra, um, and, and my background's a little bit more digital, uh, for about 15, 16 years now. Um, and in the digital out-of-home space for three, five years now, so very excited to be here. Awesome, Greg, I'm going to give you this first one, the folks that listen to the show, we've got media executives, we've got agency executives, business development folks from both sides, but for people that maybe aren't familiar, um, tell us a little bit about what Dayaks does in the out-of-home.

Yeah. So, so I think in order to understand the out of home space, you have to kind of understand what, what, what we do in general. So now it's has been around for about four years and ultimately we are a, uh, a marketplace and a contract compliance platform. So, you know, when we were putting this company together four years ago, there were a number of.

Uh, industry challenges that we're looking to solve. You know, those, you know, some of those obviously still exists. Things like a lack of transparency, brand safety issues and fraud issues, ultimately that lead to, you know, um, or all contribute to compliance, you know, our, our buyers getting what they, what they pay for when they enter into these contracts with, uh, with our sales cycles.

So that's what we've set out to, uh, to solve for. And, you know, we ended up partnering with, uh, with NASDAQ, which is the backbone of our technology. So, you know, when you look at some of those, some of those challenges and also a rapidly evolving regulatory landscape, you know, you look at other sectors such as the financial sector they'd have, you know, they've had to deal with those things for, for awhile.

So. Uh, you know, partnering with someone like a NASDAQ where they have, you know, tried and tested technology that has been solving for those problems for, for decades, you know, they power a hundred plus financial exchanges around the globe. And I think handled 40 plus percent of every electronic trade, um, globally.

Um, you know, what, what better partner to have in order to achieve. Build that, that foundation for the technology and ultimately that's what our, what our product is built on top of. So it's got all the tools that are inherent in needing to, uh, to comply with that regulatory landscape. And also just kind of your general terms of condition.

Uh, between buyer and seller, which is obviously so important for out of home and especially, I'm sure you've got global business because, uh, problems  around the world without a home proof of performance. Am I getting the things that I'm actually paying for? What recourse do I have if I don't. I got, I got to imagine that that businesses is pretty good around the globe.

Would you say that that's a fair. Yeah. And I, I think those, those issues and challenges, um, are really agnostic to the channel, whether it's out of home at all or connect to TV, um, it, it, you know, that that message seems to resonate with, uh, with parties from each of them. Absolutely Pierre, how does that tie into what a Tetra does in delivering advertisers to the places that they want to be?

Yeah, so, um, like I mentioned, the, uh, the DNA of the tablet is more on the digital side. So I think this, this really is. Uh, because when we arrived with the, the opportunity and we were looking at the market and I go back five years, um, basically in 2005, 15, um, 2015, we were looking at, you know, what would be the next step for the company and all that.

And we had, um, uh, Built all those, uh, the full ad tech stack, really for programmatic. And then we, we looked at the digital out of home market and we said, This is quite interesting. It's just another screen. So basically it could be just about applying the same and bringing the same, uh, best practices that, you know, programmatic had built up to 2015.

Um, there's been, uh, a lot of things happening in those five, seven years, you know? Prior to that, to that. And we thought it's just another screen. We'll just add another screen. It's going to be two weeks of R and D will be done, you know, adapting all our platforms to programmatic digital out of home. And then.

Three years later, I think we thought, okay, now I think we got it now that it's that overnight success story, right? Well, exactly. So at that point, yeah. Then it turned up to be because we wanted to bring to digital out of home, um, like programmatic guaranteed right away. We wanted to have to bring transparency.

We wanted to bring, you know, all that you need that, that, uh, Good tools that RTB didn't have, uh, barely ages of, of, uh, of 2000 tens. And, uh, so that's, uh, that took a little longer than we thought, but, uh, we're quite excited to be where we are now. And, uh, this partnership with, uh, with NYNEX really brings on, um, you know, an additional.

Layer where exactly you can, you can do stuff that you couldn't do before. And it's a, the accessibility of the inventory now. And the scale of the inventors available today on Dayaks for the joy out of home is, is really impressive. Um, and we're very proud of. And right. When we think about out of home, it's traditionally been such a fragmented industry.

So to be able to consolidate it in a way that we can all buy confidently seems pretty important. How do you see, right? Obviously out of home, took a huge step back this year. Understandably so everyone's stuck inside, et cetera, but we went from really getting close to a $40 billion international market.

We took a step back. We expect to recover a lot of ground next year, but how do you think the marketplace has changed permanently? From what we've experienced in the last nine months, it could be technology process. What do you think has changed forever Pierre? Well, for me, I think it's it's. Um, how can I say, uh, you know, I think it's, it's gonna be, uh, a unique, um, um, adopt, um, adoption fell facilitator.

I would, I would, I would name it. Um, I think there was a progression into programmatic digital out-of-home the market was definitely embracing it and embracing, you know, the best practices and all that. Um, and the usage of the platforms. I think there's definitely, like you said, Bennet a step back, but this step back, uh, A game-changer for the change that had to happen instead of happening in a longer period of time have years, you know, uh, I think that's gonna to happen right away is, uh, we're seeing now and budgets are coming back in, uh, in great scale and, and, um, and I think, uh, the planners are taking advantage of technology now to shift right away into the new.

Which is, uh, which is, uh, uh, what the next platform and DIA Tetra partnership, uh, enable. Yeah. I talked to a, a head of, one of the big out-of-home agencies recently, and they have 10 people that they're training just on programmatic buying, even though they don't account for making up a ton in the way of revenue.

But they're dedicating resources now for that longterm build-out Greg, how do you see. How do you see the adoption coming from the buy side for a platform for a medium, like out of home? How has that changed? Yeah, you know, the appetite is, is I think as strong as ever again, this is, this is somewhat new territory for us at Nyack, exciting new territory.

Um, but certainly, you know, when we talk to our buy-side partners, you know, they're looking for unique supply opportunity ultimately, and certainly. You know, a Tedra is, is one of the companies that brings those to market. So, um, that's what we're excited about and just getting the awareness and the word out there that, um, those types of opportunities are available on our marketplace.

Um, the other thing that I'll mention, just in terms of, you know, answering your earlier question, Um, I wanted to answer it from a consumer point of view because I think, you know, out of home to me, even during this crazy year with the pandemic, we got involved in a, in an industry initiative called ed tech cares, which was essentially started, uh, by a conglomerate of, of ad tech companies, as well as some others in the media space.

But it was supporting. Uh, COVID education and awareness, um, and kind of also evolved into, uh, addressing some of the social justice issues that we've obviously heard a lot about this year. Um, and a couple of the out-of-home companies participated in that and continue to do so. And even when I do get out of the house now, to me out of home is still one of the most impactful.

Channels that there is when I see those types of messages up, you know, on those billboards and digital billboards, to me, there's nothing more impactful than those types of opportunities. So we're excited to bring those to our, to our buy-side clients. Yeah, no, I totally agree with that. Rick Robinson is famous for saying it's the people's space, right?

It's where we all congregate. It's where we all have that shared experience. It matters. Like it really does matter when you say unique inventory. That, that indicates to me that maybe they're not. Thinking about digital, out of home on like a pure performance marketer basis. Right. I'm thinking about how it compliments my big brand campaign.

Would you fair that say that's a fair summation, or do you, do you think that there's some performance marketers who maybe are screen agnostic, um, and they, they want to drive a certain result. Are you seeing a mix of that? There is a mix of that. I will say, from what we see on the Nyack platform, we tend to play more in space where, you know, our buyers are looking to lock up those types of opportunities.

They don't want to leave to chance that they may or may not get through maybe some of the programmatic open marketplace. These are opportunities that they know are critical to whatever those campaign goals are. And they want to be a hundred percent sure that those are locked up and reserved in a way that they can do through our platform.

Yeah. That makes sense. So, so how do brands come to work with you or what's the right? What's the right relationship partnership wise for you? Yeah. You know, we, on the buy side, we've really focused our, a lot of our attention on obviously the major holding companies and, and larger independent agencies, but certainly, um, you know, we feel as though our, our value proposition is relevant for, for companies of any size.

Um, so, you know, we've, we've kind of, uh, gotten in the door at some of the holding companies and are slowly building that awareness through those organizations and driving adoption of the platform. Yeah, it's great to hear it. And obviously, honestly, before having this conversation, I didn't know that this was even available as an option.

Uh, do you hear that often as you guys have put this partnership together, that I didn't even know that this existed period. Care to take that one. I've been hearing that for two years every day. I really, and, and that's, uh, that mostly of the excitement, uh, there is to be because you know, it's happening all the time and we're still in this, um, amazing sharing of the information, um, part, uh, where yes, it's available.

It's available now. And. And scale is available as well, right away. It's it's available now. What, what maybe was a challenge to three years ago is, is no more so there's a, so there's definitely lots of great things and happening. And then. You know, you're, you're helping a lot with hosting this, uh, um, today because we're, we, we want to make everyone aware of, um, of this and what opportunities that there are, uh, W with, uh, with this platform, but as an industry as well, we've been working really hard and every player in the industry has been working really hard on, uh, sharing and, and, um, helping each other bring, uh, this great news, uh, event of, you know, new era in the digital era.

Right. So, and to crystallize it and guys stop me if I'm, if I'm off base here, but here's a platform that you can confidently assuredly by the space that matters to your campaign through all the way through. Right. It's just the, you know, we, we've never had to worry about it in digital marketing, because if I'm buying something from Google, Google is like, it's all Google, right.

I've got one singular place to transact. That is that. Is that a fair assessment? I would say, I would say that's a fair, uh, interpretation. I would add to that, that, that not only can you buy it, that you can do so in a much more efficient and automated fashion than traditional methods. And I think that's something certainly this year when people are, um, you know, busier than ever, um, is, is really important to them is working efficiently, um, as much as they are, you know, intelligence based.

So, you know, it's. You know, bringing up what we're talking about, awareness, when you get into the different levels of an organization, you know, I'll use the agencies and the holding companies, but certainly some of the more operational teams, I mean, you realize is how inundated and how busy they are. So, so to expect them to kind of.

In what level of free time they have go out and try to do, you know, find out what solutions are out there is, is probably unrealistic. So, uh, when you talk to them and see some of the issues that they're dealing with and, you know, uh, you see their faces, when you say, you know what, we actually have a solution for that we can automate 80% of that for you.

Um, that's really the rewarding part. Yeah, that's exciting peer for there's lots of media owners that, that students of the show. What does the Tedra offer that maybe, you know, another programmatic DSP? Well, I think, you know what, like I said, the best practices and bringing already the right tools and the right, uh, um, systems, but mainly, you know, for me, what's, what's a key, uh, point in components is transparency because it's been such a challenge with the real-time bidding.

Uh, Market, uh, but you know, the market is as evolved and as brought, um, brought apart, you know, solutions for those. Um, and still today, I think there's some things that are happening that are helping transparency. Um, media owners need to have, um, confidence into, uh, programmatic digital evolves in general.

Uh, Ted has been really focused on bringing those, um, tools and systems in place and bringing those solutions together to facilitate and to make sure that everyone's aware of what's happening and that operators and specifically operators, um, to your question. Understand what's going on and, um, in, in what's happening and who and where and how much and all that is very easy for them to understand.

So the can remain in control and staying in country. Everything that's happening, um, especially with, with, you know, a pro programmatic guaranteed mode. Um, but in general, you know, that's, I think it's been a big focus for us, uh, for operators. Yeah. And listen to, I mean, who doesn't want to sell more? We've got a, we don't have a inventory shortage, um, uh, to put nicely.

We know that we know that we could sell more. Are there ways to use, um, or to, to leverage this type of partnership at the local level, knowing that we still drive a lot of sales locally, are there ways for media owners to, to, to take advantage of this at a local level? Yes. Certainly certainly from a platform perspective, we support that, you know, um, you know, you can filter our market as a buyer by pretty much any method you'd like, but certainly geography is one of those, um, going down to the hyper-local level.

So certainly we support that because we know how critical that can be ending on your campaign. Yeah, no, that's, I mean, that's great to hear and, and just, you know, always have my sellers hat on. So I'm thinking of more ways to sell more stuff. Greg, let me ask you, this is off topic, but are you a podcast guy?

You read books. Where, where do you go for motivation? Inspiration is mentioned in that the pre-show a little bit about Joe Rogan. So certainly I listened to him. Just it's fascinating to me how, how that, uh, that area has blown up. And we look at, obviously, you know, the contract you signed, it's pretty Spotify.

Listen, uh, you know, I'm not going to cost a hundred million, but I do have the fastest growing podcasts and out of home also, like,

so your podcast, your peer, how about you? Same question. Uh, you know, information is, is critical. Uh, so I like to listen and watch as much as I can every day. Um, I just can't have it. Um, I'm going to say, I keep my, I don't know where they are now, which oh, here they are. I keep the AirPods. Whenever I'm in between calls.

I'll just start, stop, play the podcast. It'll take me 10 hours to finish a half an hour, but yeah, same thing. Just always ingesting more information. All right. Here's the bonus question. Neither of you can answer that. It's this partnership, peer, what are you most excited about going into 2020? Uh, I think, you know, the, um, the industry, the market, the advertising world is changing so much, it's changed so much.

And what I'm very excited about is, uh, having this change happen. Uh, yes. We're publishers. Yes, we're advertisers, but for the end users as well, more transparency, more clarity and more reassurance. Uh, understand understanding what's happening. I think this is really, uh, something that's going to be big for the 2020s.

Uh, and especially before 2020. Yeah, I totally agree. It's been fun, uh, over the course of a year or so of having started the show that to have conversations about here's how Autohome home makes the rest of your stuff work. Like here's ways to intelligently measure whether or not it's having an effect.

Um, we're definitely coming into a very cool time. I think folks are maybe a little bit over, over saturated or just tired. Just want to try something other than stuff online and great to your point earlier, how the home is a really fun format. So again, same disclaimer, can't use the partnership. What are you most excited about Greg?

Um, is it fair to say for 2020 to be. That's that's fair. That's fair. But, you know, I think, you know, anytime we go through a difficult time such as we have this year, um, I think it kind of forces folks to, um, To go back to the fundamentals, you know, and, and peer mentions transparency. And, you know, there are certainly others that, that we operate by.

And I think that that is very much in line with our mission at Nyack is using those fundamentals. Um, and I, I think I'm also excited, you know, I mentioned like some of the other initiatives, um, you know, to support things like social justice. And I think there's also the sense of, of, of sharing ourselves with integrity throughout.

So the landscape. So I'm excited to see that too. And just how, you know, companies are working together to solve these challenges, um, whether they're cultural or, or more directly associated with what we do every day from a professional standpoint. But that really excites me about 21. Yeah. I'm excited about the same.

Uh, once upon a time was in the Marine Corps and our senior drill instructor always said, Do the right thing. Right. That's important, but do the right thing even when no one's watching. And I mean, I'm in on the integrity culture idea, gentlemen, this has been a lot of fun and I'm sure a lot of folks are going to have questions.

So Pierre, where should people go? Uh, LinkedIn or my email PA F R a D E T at Tetra, uh, dot com. Call me, email me, write me I'm available for sure. We'll make sure they get in touch. I'll put all that stuff down below. Yeah. People find you in here. Certainly LinkedIn, um,  dot com. There aren't that many Gregg, two thinkers out there.

So you won't have it's really his last name. It's too thick. Or we waited until the end because I didn't want to butcher it in the intro, but gentlemen, thanks so much. If you found this helpful, please share it with somebody else who could benefit as always the best way to help the shows. Smash that subscribe button down below there in the corner.