This year will see the fifth ATS London, ExchangeWire's flagship conference, take place. Due to increased demand, ATS London has moved to a bigger venue – Queen Elizabeth Hall, Southbank – and as always the event remains strictly NO PAY-TO-PLAY.

The main thrust of this post is to explain the thinking behind this year's agenda. As ever ExchangeWire wants to bring the most relevant and engaging content to ATS London attendees.

The event will be split in two sections: First, will be future gazing – looking six-to-twelve months ahead; and the second part will delve deeply into the mechanics of programmatic media buying and selling.

Future Gazing: The clash of marketing & advertising technology, and programmatic getting closer to creative

The purpose of this section is to introduce the audience to trends ExchangeWire feels will have a huge influence on the industry over the coming months and years.

Scott Brinker, Editor of ChiefMartec and marketing technology evangelist will kick off proceedings with a presentation on the intersection of advertising and marketing technology, plus what it means for our industry/industries.

This will be followed by a panel comprised of the big enterprise marketing vendors (Salesforce, Adobe and Oracle). The discussion will focus on the growing importance of the marketing cloud and why marketers should be looking at a single platform approach, plugging their disparate data and mar-tech tools into the one stack.

The event will then explore how this applies to digital advertising, and how they will work with the gatekeepers of advertiser spend, namely the media agency. Europe, APAC and LATAM are polar opposites to the US, where fragmentation is not seen as a huge unsurmountable business hurdle for marketers. Is the lack of a true scalable market the enemy of the marketing cloud outside of the US? This section of the show will explore this and more.

There continues to be a disconnect between programmatic and the creative process. Often the creative is seen as an after thought, as many trading desks look to re-engage users at the bottom-of-the funnel, using dynamic creative.

In the last panel in this section we examine how programmatic can inform the creative process – and how technology and data can begin to have real influence at the creative agencies. Here a number of creative agencies, as well as data people, will share their thoughts on bringing the two together.

Going deep into the weeds

The mechanics part of this year's event will include individual keynotes from the two technology lynchpins of the advertising technology industry, namely Brian O'Kelley, AppNexus CEO, and Dr Boris Mouzykantskii, IPONWEB, Founder, Chief Scientist & CEO.

Both are pure box office, and will doubtless bring the gravitas and deep-dive thinking that only these two industry stalwarts can provide.

The rest of this section then breaks into topical and relevant content for our discerning attendees. Here is a top line on the panels ATS London attendees can expect at this year's event.

The power of transactional first party data

It's a given that technology is becoming increasingly commodotised in the ad tech sector – algorithms, infrastructure, etc.

Data is becoming the key differentiator in our space – particularly first party transactional data. ExchangeWire has invited a number of the new breed data suppliers to discuss how first party data can help buyers achieve programmatic campaign goals. Already confirmed for this panel:

- Datalogix
- dunnhumby
- Axciom

The emergence of the multi-advertising ecosystem: How buyers deal with increased fragmentation

This panel focuses on the increasing fragmentation of the programmatic ad space. Walled-gardens seem to be preferred routes for media players and data power players like Amazon. No integration allowed. You can only buy in its ecosystem via its bidder.

How will buyers deal with this? Are we seeing the emergence of a multi ad ecosystem? How are big media companies like Yahoo and AOL approaching the new reality of the programmatic space. And how are trading desks making sense of the fragmentation? What will the future of buying look like?

This course of the event will also see AOL, Yahoo and Vivaki provide their respective insights on the subject matter.

'Shift to mobile ads will be most anti-democratising move for ad tech due to first party data'

These are not the words of ExchangeWire. They are the thoughtful meanderings of ad tech M&A magician, Terry Kawaja. And he's not wrong either. This shift to mobile should a be a red flag to everyone in the digital advertising space.

Do we really want to depend exclusively on three oversized media giants for mobile targeting? The answer is of course: 'No'.

For this reason ExchangeWire is inviting a number of vendors and speakers to discuss the potential of statistical IDs – and how it might help our industry remain independent. This panel will be preceded by a presentation that focuses on the vendors who are working together to build an open ID initiative for use across multi-devices.

Piracy, privacy & the power of the bot

This panel will explore the bot problem and why brand advertiser creatives continue to appear on piracy and hate sites. How prevalent is it, and what can the industry do more of to prevent it?

We examine the distinguishing features of bot behaviour as well as the strategies enabling you to whitelist your way around the programmatic ecosystem.

This discussion will be preceded by a presentation from PIPCU, the police organisation leading the fight against piracy sites operating in the UK.

Redefining the publisher in the programmatic age

A funny thing happened while the industry shifted its attention from desktop to mobile: The definition of a media company seems to have changed radically.

In the desktop world a traditional publisher served up a never ending supply of text based information for its reader on its domain. Search engines redirected to sites. The cookie (mostly DoubleClick) allowed us to target, measure and track digital advertising.

It went all a little wrong with the shift to mobile (particularly handheld devices). The app is master of this universe. Most content on mobile devices is consumed through the app.

Traditional publishers like newspapers are no longer a destination for app users.

Instead they have become disintermediated by the new content aggregators like Facebook and Pulse. In that same time there has been an explosion of spend on mobile – but mostly in-app buys.

New media companies like Rovio and Outfit6 (makers of Talking Tom) have grabbed mobile ad share.

And as demand has become more data-driven and programmatic, these same companies have benefited most. So how do traditional publishers compete and monetise mobile traffic?

We invite a number of traditional publishers and app only media companies to discuss what will make a publisher successful in mobile programmatic.

This panel follows a presentation around opportunities and pitfuls of the new programmatic app eco-system for publishers.

Re-tooling the agency for the digital age

In-housing? Disintermediation? Undifferentiated service layer? The agency model has come under a lot of flak recently from the trade press. Some have suggested that they are ultimately doomed – due to lack of capability around tech and data. And with the growth of programmatic who needs an agency managing and executing media buys?

This is of course is hyperbole in the extreme. But there appears to be some pressure on the agencies to adapt to the new realities of programmatic. Some are rising to the challenge, others have not.

During this panel discussion we will examine whether or not the traditional agency model does need a pivot? Will they be challenged by new incumbents like Deloitte Digital which is hiring hundreds of staff to service the technology and data requirements of marketers? How will the agency compete?

The agenda for ATS London is now live. You can get your ticket to ATS London here.

Expect more detail on the personnel for all  panels in the coming week. If you wish to get involved in the conversation around the event, the hashtag for ATS London is #ATSL14.