COLOGNE — If data is still “the new oil“, get ready for a tussle between prospectors eager to control the land through which it flows.

Speaking with Beet.TV for this video interview, one ad-tech exec sees a looming conflict between two industry actors who more typically do business with each other.

“Data ownership is going to be one of the biggest topics – not just next year but the next few years,” says Rocket Fuel chief marketer Eric Duerr.

  • “Marketers are going to want to own that data. It’s going to allow them to build out custom models.
  • “Agencies, on the other hand, are going to want access to that data so they can perform media campaigns better.

“So there’s going to be a tension about who owns the data versus who has access to the data.”

Duerr was speaking at the DMEXCO digital ad industry gathering in Germany, where advertising data was high on the list of delegate discussion topics.

And Duerr sees programmatic automation gobbling up all of future media spending, leading to a volume of transactions that is going to require even more of technology’s help.

“All media will become digital,” Duerr adds. “All digital media will be optimised in some sort of fashion.

“You’re going to need to have basically AI to help with the decisioning. Programmatic is going to be fundamentally the way we buy and sell media.”

This video is part a series that examines programmatic from both the seller and the buyer perspective. It is presented by PubMatic. For more videos from the series, please visit this page.