Any parent knows that terrifying moment when the three year old stands up and yells out the F-bomb. It’s entertaining, but pay it too much attention and you’ll just end up encouraging the kid.
That’s the case with the latest outburst from our friend Brian O’Kelley, who suggested in his recent interview, that everyone in the advertising ecosystem has it completely wrong. No one seems to understand the future, and everyone is pursuing a failing strategy. Makes us wonder whatever happened to that old adage about not saying anything if you can’t think of anything nice to say.
We respect the business that Brian has built in display, but his comments were troubling. He basically told publishers to drop dead, declaring them irrelevant and not offering them any real capabilities. We take publisher needs seriously – after all, they own the relationship with the consumer. And we have put our energy towards delivering real mobile solutions to our premium publishing partners. We suppose that if you haven’t successfully built a publisher product with a relevant value proposition, then you might imagine there’s no future in having them as paying customers. We disagree. And as much as we enjoy Brian’s colorful turns of phrase, we hope that he’ll soon bring the same spirited approach and energy to developing mobile offerings.
But hey, it’s the weekend, and as we wind down this week at ad:tech, let’s end it on a good note and say something nice about all the incredible companies that work in this ecosystem. Congratulations to our customers, partners and competitors for continuing to learn and innovate together, and cheers to all those that are committed to making the promise of digital a reality!
