TechBytes with Anudit Vikram SVP of Product at MediaMath

Hi Anudit, tell us about your experience as a Product Management leader in AdTech during a lockdown crisis?

Covid-19 has changed the rules of the game with businesses re-aligning their priorities to address the suddenly changed needs of their customers. The key to success in these times is clear communication across the organization, ensuring everyone understands and is on the same page with the new objectives. At MediaMath, our team is set up to change course in required direction swiftly.

How do you relay your ideas and managerial expectations with your team? Any tool, app or solutions that have helped you meet ad tech demands faster?

The current situation has amplified the need for clarity in communication. More so for people taking on new roles or joining new organizations. We used to get together in a meeting room around a whiteboard, or over lunch. Now it has to be done virtually.  Building new relationships through purely virtual means has its challenges. Video conferencing certainly helps since it gives a sense of body language and receptivity to an idea. Long-form writing is becoming more relevant so that plans, ideas and expectations are properly detailed.

Programmatic ad tech marketplace is bursting with energy and optimism. Which ad formats would rule the space in the coming week, and why?

Within the COVID context, the boon and the bane for programmatic advertising is its flexibility. Programmatic advertising allows marketers to adjust campaigns on demand and shift ad budgets to new and emerging channels on demand. We started to see brands and agencies moving their budgets to channels like CTV. It is the very same flexibility which enables advertisers to run a test in a programmatic channel with ease, tweak program goals and desired outcomes in real-time, with preferred financial commitments. Dynamic Creative Optimization with its ability to tailor messaging in real-time is set up well for these times and, of course, with the increase in video content consumption, video ad formats are certainly seeing an uptick.

We hear that gaming experiences are driving customers to experiment a lot with various ad formats. Any advice to publishers and advertisers looking to monetize gaming platforms to deliver ad experiences?

The greatest advantage of in-game advertising is that it is unlike traditional advertising media which are essentially passive and offer mainly one-way communication – from the advertiser to the consumer – games are inherently an interactive medium and user interaction with the ad is more detailed. From the game publisher’s perspective, this means they can create a very engaging monetization vehicle and provide more in-depth metrics into the consumer’s interaction with the ad. For the brand, this provides a great channel for direct communication with their target consumer.