Much has been written about the 'brand trading desk' or specifically the in-housing of the programmatic buying function. A lot of it has surfaced in the trade press - but there has been very few clients prepared to speak publicly about their operations.

At this year's ATS Paris event ExchangeWire finally has a client to go on record about their operation they run independently of any third party service layer.

Air France, one of Europe's largest airlines, operates an internalised team for programmatic buying - responsible for the majority of the company's DR spend in France and internationally.

Sebastien Thomas, Air France, online display advertising, will sit down with Fabien Magalon, La Place Media, CEO, to discuss how he and his team successfully rolled out the brand trading desk propositions, the challenges around tech implementation and talent, as well as the opportunity around leveraging first party data sets to hit internal metrics.

Key areas of discussion will include:

- Why did Air france decided to internalise their programmatic trading function?
- The process around choosing the right platform and technology partner?
- How did Air france hire the right people given the dearth of talent in the industry?
- Does having an internal desk help with access to first party data within the organisation?
- Keep pace with innovation in the space: how does a client keep ahead of the curve in terms of keeping its proposition competitive with third party offerings?

The full agenda is now published. Tickets are now on sale - but are likely to sell out in the coming days.