Carolyn Bollaci is MediaMind’s Country Manager for Australia and New Zealand. Here she discusses why it's key for advertisers to deliver rich, engaging and optimised ad experiences to consumers, wherever they are in the digital space.

Bollaci also talks on ad relevancy and data privacy being paramount to MediaMind and how 2012 will bring the real start of ‘infinite advertising’ – where an ad is only a window into other brand experiences the consumer might want to explore.

Bollaci highlights mobile as the second most important screen in the home after television and predicts when IPTV takes off we’ll start to see the replacement of traditional TV all together.

Can you give an overview of MediaMind and its offering within the Australian  and New Zealand market?

MediaMind offers a campaign management and ad serving solution for all digital media types. We provide media and creative agencies, advertisers and publishers with an integrated platform to manage their ad campaigns across all digital media channels.  With us, advertisers can serve ads into thousands of certified publishers globally and reach hundreds of millions of unique users.  Our technology allows advertisers to deliver digital media campaigns of any size and in a variety of formats, including rich media, in-stream video, display and search. This means advertisers can provide highly immersive ad experiences across multiple digital channels.  Heavily data driven, the MediaMind platform can
identify, track, optimise, and report on complex user interactions to help improve campaign performance.  Everything we do is essentially about helping advertisers to deliver rich, engaging and optimised ad experiences to consumers, wherever they are in the digital space.

How large is MediaMind’s reach on a global level?

Last year, MediaMind delivered campaigns for approximately 9,000 brand advertisers, servicing approximately 3,800 media and creative agencies across approximately 8,200 global web publishers in 64 countries.  The ads we deliver are seen by over 700 million unique viewers worldwide.

Who is MediaMind’s competitive set in Australia?

We have a few competitors in Australia in certain niches but no-one that really offers the range of services that MediaMind offers.

How is MediaMind actively maintaining momentum within the fast evolving online advertising ecosystem?

Last year, MediaMind grew twice as fast as the global online industry and video, standard media and data driven products were our fastest growing products. We’re also seeing accelerated growth in emerging markets like Latin America and APAC. MediaMind maintains this momentum largely through product innovation. The reason our products do so well is that they are built in partnership with our agencies. We’re constantly soliciting agencies for feedback and we involve them in every stage of a product’s development – from concept design to beta testing. When a product launches, clients tend to adopt it quickly because it is built for, by and with them.

Has the increase in programmatic buying had a large impact on MediaMind’s strategy?

It has enhanced the capability we have as a technology partner to provide agencies with the right data to help this channel.

What challenges does MediaMind face introducing innovative rich media formats? Adoption speed? Technical?

Our challenges vary from region to region and depend on whether a specific region is ready to bring new consumer formats to market. We’re constantly educating agencies about the rich media capabilities that are available to them.  Our
challenge is to build up enough people within agencies to champion new rich media formats. It’s not a huge challenge. Typically agencies are willing to try new rich media formats simply because they tend to deliver more engaging experiences for consumers and better campaign results overall.

What industries are the biggest innovators from an online advertising perspective in Australia?

The entertainment and the automotive industry have always done well in bringing new ideas to market.  The entertainment industry recognised early on that the internet could distribute their movie trailers quickly globally to reach as many people as possible. It helps that the entertainment industry has a great distribution model. It simply wants as many people as possible to watch its film trailers. So they’re not trying to drag consumers to another website from wherever they’re browsing.

What’s holding back the growth of the local inventory pool in Australia?

We’re waiting for the big players who have procured these inventory pools in other markets to really hit the ground in Australia. We expect that will happen very soon.

What are the crucial elements to consider in an online advertising strategy? Engagement? Does ‘size’ really matter?

An online advertising strategy needs to hit all the touch points that a consumer goes through when making a purchase decision—so, awareness, consideration, research, purchase and eventually repurchase. Advertiser’s ad messages and campaign needs to fulfill every one of those consumer needs to reach the end point, which is the sale or conversion. Good advertising also needs to provide engagement along the way.

How active is MediaMind in targeting, re-targeting and dynamic creative optimisation?

Targeting and dynamic creative are the backbone of our data offering and we expect this side of our business to grow significantly in the next 12 months. This is because clients that use their data for improved targeting typically see significantly better campaign results, sometimes by a few hundred percent.  When so many agencies are wondering how to lift CTRs up from a current low point, data optimisation can provide them with an easy solution.

How key is ad relevancy within the overall user experience?

Ad relevancy is paramount. If advertisers want better campaign results, they need to have relevant conversations with their consumers. The more relevant the ad, the more likely the consumer is to respond positively to it and the brand. What’s surprising is how many advertisers continue to waste resources serving ads that are simply irrelevant to the consumers they’re reaching. With targeting, this wastage is unnecessary. Digital should end the spray and pray approach of advertising but surprisingly you still see it.

Are Australian online audiences demanding more relevancy?

I can’t really speak on behalf of all consumers. We’re enabling agencies to create relevant messages and in doing so we do see better measured consumer response. But as a consumer, I think we’d all like ads to be more relevant to our browsing and searching intentions.

Will we see a consolidation in the next couple of years?

Given how much has changed in the past five years, I think we should all expect significant change in the next five years too. We work in such a dynamic, fast-paced industry, we’ve got expect that industry will keep changing and consolidating for some time yet.

How does data work within the MediaMind platform? Is audience data privacy a key factor?

Consumer data privacy is paramount to MediaMind and we do not track any sensitive personally identifiable information. The MediaMind platform analyses broad user data to make campaign performance results better for the advertiser. For many clients we’ll use this data to optimise campaigns through retargeting to drive better results.

Will 2012 be the year we see Australian advertisers move into video in a big way?

I think 2011 has already proved that will be the case. We’ve seen most agencies adopt video and it’s now as much a norm on a media schedule as any other placement. I think what we will see next year is changes in the way ads are delivered. There will be more interactive tools built into video ads than

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