VIEQUES, PR — The traditional way of thinking about online advertising exchanges is evolving, says Joanna O’Connell, Principal Analyst at Forrester Research.

O’Connell explains that, “The real time bidding story is evolving to become the real time buying story.”  She says that currently, “the traditional way of thinking about ad exchanges and RTB is as a bid-based realtime market place and essentially that’s it…but it’s becoming bigger in scope.  The rise of the concept of private marketplaces, direct deals between buyers and sellers that are transacted through automated platforms, is a perfect example of this.”

O’Connell also discusses the trend of big brands getting into digital advertising platforms, and refers to Kellogg as an example of one big CPG company that is now spending a significant amount of their advertising budget in digital, through programatic mechanisms, and says that video advertising going programmatic is “a really interesting trend when it comes to brand expenditure.”

We spoke with her on Saturday at the Beet.TV executive retreat.

Megan O’Neill