NAPA, CA — It’s one of the hottest media buzzwords of 2014 – but everyone seems to have a different definition for the set of new-wave ad-trading techniques collectively referred to as “programmatic”.

At programmatic’s core, says Nielsen digital MD Andrew Feigenson, is moving dollars that, once, were transacted manually in to some automated process. But a description that ends there would be “short-sighted” because programmatic “makes media buying fundamentally different”, Feigenson adds, offering up three characteristics of programmatic…

  1. Buying specific audiences as opposed to buying the contextual audience wrapper of content.
  2. Machine learning and optimization: “Rather than a human pulling levers to change a campaign in flight, you have systems listening, learning and adapting.”
  3. Real-time dynamic ad insertion and bidding.

We spoke with him recently at the TubeMogul partner meeting.  For more videos from the event, please visit this page.