CANNES — During a panel discussion at Cannes Lions, disagreement broke out over how much ad buyers should know about the so-called “transparency” in ad network and programmatic practices.

“If the agency and the client can have a very clean discussion about what is the value of the offer and what is the fee they charge, it is no one else’s business how it is set up,” said Dentsu Aegis Network’s AMNET global president Ashwini Karandikar.

“As programmatic evolves beyond display, the money that’s going to be at play is going to be 100 times what it is right now. So can we move beyond this silly question and talk about what is the value that you deliver? That discussion needs to be a one-on-one, not an article written in the press.”

But VivaKi global CEO Stephan Beringer and Bank of America’s global media investment SVP Lou Paskalis took issue.

“No,” Paskalis said. “The industry needs to have an understanding about the business model.

“Agencies, for the most part, are transparent about what they’re not transparent about. As a client, you have to understand that.  We have to be very clear what the rules of the road are.”

 

This segment from the Cannes Lions Festival was part of a series on programmatic advertising presented by Rubicon Project. Please visit this page for more videos from the series.