LONDON — The rise of advanced data-driven and otherwise “programmatic” online advertising sales processes is challenging traditional ad networks to step up and defend their place in the future, a Beet.TV panel of industry execs agrees.

“For the development of video as a legitimate channel, they were a necessity,” Videology’s global TV strategy head Rhys McLachlan says.

“They still have a valid role to play, but that role has to have a value-add now. The aggregation of content and URLs to be a pure vehicle to drive advertising impressions is not sufficient.”

Nicolas Bidon, UK MD of GroupM’s Xaxis data unit, says networks need to accentuate strengths with either inventory or data: “Just doing aggregation is not enough. They need to add value. If you can have one of these two at scale … people like us on the buy side are potentially interested in working with you.”

And sports video firm Perform Group’s UK sales MD Jamie Wilson agrees: “Working with a dozen ad networks is not efficient – it won’t happen in future. They have a future. The good ones that will see the test of time are the ones that have the best data and the best publishers.”

This video was recorded  at the Beet.TV programmatic video leadership summit sponsored by Videology, hosted by Xaxis at the London offices of GroupM.