The rise of programmatic ad trading and the entry of generation Z to the workforce has resulted in new approaches to talent acquisition and retention. Wayne Blodwell, Head of Programmatic at iProspect spoke to ExchangeWire about today’s best talent, what motivates them, and what's the talent of the future.

Finding the proverbial needle in a haystack

iProspect have a team dedicated to programmatic and hiring people for roles within this team has been difficult over the last 12 months since launching. Finding people who want to work at a media agency is not difficult; agencies are diverse, fast moving, exciting places. Plus, the nature of the work means that agency people see the whole of the market. The challenge is finding people who have the skills required to make a difference in today’s environment.

In the past, the majority of media agency hires came from other media agencies. Today, media agencies are looking further afield and iProspect have hired people from consultancy firms, like Deloitte, and enterprise technology companies, such as Oracle. These are the kinds of organisations agency people used to leave to join, not the other way round. Blodwell believes that today’s media agency can now compete with consultancy firms and enterprise technology companies because the fragmentation of media, advent of advanced measurement and tracking, and the increased level of general interest in data, has advanced the roles within media agencies beyond buying.

No one has more than about five years experience in programmatic, because programmatic hasn’t been around that long. This means people with two or three years programmatic experience can be hard to find, compared to those with a similar length of experience in other channels; because there are fewer of them. Even internal recruiters can sometimes be stumped because the network of contacts they have built over the last decade is not as relevant for new, programmatic roles.

The disparity between supply (of skills) and demand means that many people are acquiring new programmatic skills on top of existing experience in other areas, creating highly rounded media professionals.

To succeed in programmatic you need to be able to do three things: one, analyse data; two, think creatively; and three, apply the output from number one and two. It is the last of these that Blodwell believes is the hardest skill to find. Blodwell describes this as similar to requiring an interpreter when a conversation needs to occur between two people who do not share a common language.

The generation Z effect

Generation Z (born after 1995) are entering the workforce with different motivations compared to their predecessors. They are less focussed on status and money, instead seeking knowledge, skills and progression. This means that employers have to invest in development to retain talent, it’s no longer sufficient to offer annual pay rises and arbitrary promotions.

iProspect have development programmes aimed at different types of talent. Elite performers join Route 500 and benefit from increased access to new working relationships, development opportunities and resources locally, regionally and globally. These benefits help them to develop their leadership capability and accelerate their careers. There are two other programmes, NEXTGEN aimed at rising stars working in digital and DAN Learning that is open to all employees, this all sits under the iProspect University umbrella.

Performed by humans, enabled by machines

There is a general belief held by many brand marketers that machines are taking over and that programmatic buying involves little more than signing an IO and clicking a button, letting the algorithm get to work. This lack of understanding is, in part, because typically when agencies and vendors have spoken to brands about programmatic; they have oversimplified it to combat a lack of brand-side education. This has compounded the belief that machines are taking over.

As programmatic becomes mainstream, some brands will look to bring it in-house, enticed by the idea of cutting out the agency cost, mistakenly believing there’s little more to programmatic than pressing a button. Blodwell believes this can lead to huge performance and commercial issues.

The reality is that there’s more to programmatic buying than just signing an IO and pressing a button. Audience segments need to be defined, identified and targeted. Messaging, frequency and bidding need refining, and campaigns need to be planned with careful consideration of other channels. Humans, enabled by machines and algorithms, should perform these examples of strategic thinking.

As programmatic ad spend increases, there will be more scrutiny of performance. Agencies are a hotbed of people with the knowledge and experience required to critically evaluate technology and media. It is hard for a handful of people working in-house to match up to the combined efforts of agency teams when it comes to this kind of evaluation.

The talent of the future

Blodwell doesn’t believe we’re going to see a big change in what defines talent over the next few years; he believes the data-creativity-application triad will reign for several years. Instead, the hiring process will change. It will become more about seeking out individuals from a broad pool of organisations, finding creative people in analytics companies, and vice versa. This will result in a more diverse agency workforce and there will no longer be a ‘typical agency person’.

There will be a new breed of agency folk who are creative and analytical, but most importantly understand how the two practices link together, Blodwell believes that is the key to winning in programmatic.