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- [00:00]
Ad Tech God
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Ad Tech God
Your window into the world of advertising technology and the people behind it. I'm your host, Ad Tech God. Welcome to the ADTech Godpod, where we speak with the startup founders in advertising. Today I'm joined by Austin Scott, the CCO and founder of Bedrock Platform. Austin is Austin, she's a great person and I know who she is, but she cannot figure out who I am. So if you know who I am, do not tell her. Ever. Austin comes from an impressive ad tech background, having worked at X Plus One TubeMogul Sticky Ads, which was acquired by Freewheel, Xander and Microsoft and has now branched out to co found her own platform. I'm assuming it's because she saw a gap in the market and decided to take a lead. I'm happy she accepted my invite and I'm looking forward to today's episode. Austin, thank you for joining me today.
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Austin Scott
Thank you for having me, Ad Tech God. Enjoy the mystery.
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Ad Tech God
Of course if you found out you would be so disappointed. You'd be like this is like the most normal person on the planet. But right now I'm God so it's more fun that way.
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Austin Scott
And I'm a programmatic mortal programmatic Mortal.
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Ad Tech God
You are a programmatic career. What do we call it? Like one heck of a career. Like you've been in it since X +1, which is pretty wild.
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Austin Scott
You mentioned, I think on one of your former podcasts you don't choose ad tech, ad tech chooses you. So I, I definitely feel like that's sort of my origin story and really enjoyed getting to be at the ground floor. Had an amazing career. Have a great life because of it. Traveled the world. Right. Like all of the things that I could have hoped for that happened that I didn't anticipate. So I'm glad to be here.
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Ad Tech God
You are now a co founder of a company I wanted to maybe run through everything right. Like how, how you started X1 tube mogul, the sticky ads acquisition by Freewheel Microsoft. Like I'd love to hear about your career path and then I really want to understand what it is that bedrock does. I looked up the website, we chatted a little bit prior but definitely want to understand what made you take that leap into entrepreneurship considering you're still, you know, starting out six months in. So let's run through kind of like your background and how you got into the space and then we'll move forward with the chat.
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Austin Scott
Sure. So kind of making the decision to take this leap was pretty easy or great because I had spent half of my career in more of a startup entrepreneurial future thinking companies and then half of my career through acquisitions in more big tech corporate companies. So I got to experience both flavors. So getting to go back to kind of the startup roots. I think the idea of solving for the buy side, making sure that you don't have the conflicts of interest with trying to please all different components and sides of the transaction was a big opportunity. And fixing some of the elements that maybe the business problems hold back the tech. Being able to solve the challenges was part of the thesis. And you know, it's great people too. Like I've very much found that people in media, advertising and ad tech are wonderful future thinking and exciting. So I had no problem with that. And big part of why I joined and the kind of beginning I guess in how my arc reflected some of the evolution was I was at a small agency right out of school buying full page color ads in the New York Times for book publishers. So it wasn't fancy digital. So I kind of made the choice to instead of copying, putting in binders, three duplicates of an insertion order, I wanted to understand what is the digital version of that and found my way to X1amazing leader Eric Simon brought us into a small team of five that was kind of incubating inside of the broader site. Plus one poindexter system evolution where a bunch of great people spun out from. And I got to kind of buy on DoubleClick ad exchange and write media as the media buyer and kind of go through the decisions of how do we evolve? When like DSPs were a PowerPoint and a dream, you know, like, that was really fun and I really appreciate that time and getting to kind of experience the pitfalls or the brand safety or kind of how you navigate the digital realm and evolve. And I always liked, you know, film and video, so kind of moving on into experiencing different types of the ecosystem, whether that was like trading desk at Cadreon or consulting for Tap ad, then kind of getting into tupemogul and feeling like, okay, so this is a really interesting thing. Like lots of, I think there they really got to do some of the exciting stuff around. How do you transition a really legacy linear type of model into digital? So how does reach and frequency look? How do you think about spot and granular targeting? And I think there were like lots of hopes and dreams of like, will it be more efficient? And so I just got to get a lot of great feedback and learning early. Like operational cost of digital just higher, you know, how are agencies going to absorb that? And so you did see like AD network come and fill that gap. Then you kind of got like maybe a dependency on that and things evolved where it was hard to see how to really achieve the original vision on efficiencies and right place, right time. You maybe saw companies come out and say agencies are stupid, come buy from us. You know, different versions of kind of having the right idea on mission, but then how the kind of structural stuff didn't allow to truly actualize it. So like you said, a gap in the market of like things definitely feel much different now, even though it took 15 years in terms of how some of the ecosystem has evolved and how the players view themselves. And I guess that concept of a platform business in media. But I think another piece that I've always really considered is more the media consumption in the audience, the user. Like it's not just ones and zeros and ad calls, you know, it's how do you get people's attention, engage them, move them through kind of a life cycle and stuff. And that's where I ended up kind of getting to experience both sides of supply and demand. So after Tubmokul, I, you know, small town girl from Alabama going To college in New York City, randomly meeting a Frenchman at De Mexico and upping my whole life and moving to Paris, that was a bit of a sea change. But it led me to, like, a great career experience of getting to help a small French startup, sticky Ads, really build their business. Right. So it was 30 people, tiny office, great team, and I got to bring, you know, a special skill set at a very critical time in their growth and made a huge, like, win. Right. Like, it was definitely a very fun ride. And got to kind of go through, you know, introducing them to Freewheel, getting to see how acquisitions go down, and then get to be on sort of that leadership mode of the process and move back to New York, married the Frenchie. All that worked out. And I had a really fun experience that way. And I think that international experience, the buy and the sell side, the ground floor elements of before programmatic was a word, have really shaped kind of how I view the landscape and how I view what the misses and wins can be. So moving back to Europe was more of a family decision. And then I got to Zander on.
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Ad Tech God
The work side on working with a French based company, helping them enter an American market or US market. Sometimes when international entrepreneurs enter the US the way we do business is very different. I'm curious if he was like, open arms with, all right, let's do business like Americans and move forward, or was there a little push and pull that you needed to assist with? Because sticky ads really took off pretty quickly here. And I hear it's from you.
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Austin Scott
So the idea of culture shock goes both ways, right? You know, Americans are the bee's knees, the center, the, you know, the media currency. And so I really got a great education in what that means and what that means to me and how do I operate. And I think in general, I found French work culture very unique. You know, like, if somebody left the company, everybody pulled a bunch of money together, you had a bottom, a present, you stood around a table and ate chips and drank some champagne. Like, it was such a warm and. And lovely environment and great talent and I don't know, like, it was. It was definitely a different vibe to how New York City Silicon Alley was, but it had its charms too, and had amazing leaders that did a lot of fun stuff and created great cultures. So Herve and Gilles, they had a good, dynamic rapport as founders, and they were really able to play to their strengths. And Herve moved his family to New York.
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Ad Tech God
He.
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Austin Scott
He adapted extremely well. So I think, sure, there was learning curve for either of us. Right. But I think that that's kind of, I guess in my founder journey, that element of really seeing the adaptability component and the determination component, you figure out a way, right. And you, you grow. I think the, the elements on kind of folding into a larger company and folding into those elements, I think that's challenging for any founder, whether or not that's a US or an American company. I think Freeville definitely respected a lot of the things to learn. Right. So like even all of the De Mexico and Cannes events, you know, we had amazing chefs and like Free Will kept that, you know, like the kind of hospitality and touch and marketing flair, that great French storytelling kind of naturally has. They learned from that and kept that. So hats off.
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Ad Tech God
Awesome. And then we moved on to Xander and I think you were saying something about ctv, if you want to pick up from there. How was the transition from Free Will to Xander at the time?
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Austin Scott
It was really kind of a wonderful way to go into another kind of market. Right. Like when I was in Paris, I did come to London all the time. So it doesn't feel like a net new experience, but the elements of, you know, again, taking a company maybe not known for something or not in a region or not in that format and helping understand how do you bring that across Emea and again, like back to media consumption. Like audiences don't consume in Europe CTV like they do in the us. So there are a lot of nuances and caveats and the particulars around sort of the scale scenario of CTV and then to additionally add sort of different languages and different markets, different broadcast, even tech. Right. Like, I guess it was something like 90% of France's RDIP TV enabled, you know, like there's just a lot of. Of uniqueness there and it's more to solve for. So the, you know, ride of kind of going through, you know, in with the at&t kind of scenario, the international team was quite on their own. There wasn't any legacy business there. So it was cool to kind of get to see how CTV evolved, go through the Microsoft acquisition, go through, you know, Netflix coming to Zandra. So it was really a bigger company than kind of getting folded into Comcast. So I really found that to be quite, quite a good learning experience.
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Ad Tech God
When you look back at your background and your career at Tube and Sticky Free Wheel, Xander X plus one, where do you think that you felt as a contributor to these companies and as a hard worker in the space, where do you feel that you brought the most success and what's your most proud Moment, moment.
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Austin Scott
In doing so, I really again, I guess kind of enjoy the people aspect, enjoy getting to solve hard problems, getting to, I guess, get to do some of the mentoring and kind of thought leadership stuff. So I think overall, like, I got great exposure, got a great network, you know, So I guess I bring it back to sort of the people elements and getting to make impacts that way. So business solutions that are tech driven, data driven, and trying to find the best solution for everyone. You know, like that idea of consumers sometimes not prioritize maybe or sort of seen as, you know, a piece in the acquisition funnel. So yeah, I mean, that's kind of where privacy comes in. That's where this idea of like, how do you build a media buying platform for the curated Internet that meets these multiple kind of principles or multidimensional decision making. That piece, I guess, is the opus for me. Right. So this is probably my most fun experience and challenge and it's great leadership opportunity and great exposure in terms of, like, you're probably aware, having wonderful leaders in the industry is great. And then when you get to see sort of different voices and diverse voices, even better.
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Ad Tech God
So is that what bedrock is trying to solve for? Is it trying to solve for the complexity of the space? But what is bedrock doing in general in the market? Like, how are you going to market with this product and how do you think it's different than what's out there today?
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Austin Scott
Yeah, like going to market with kind of like no new DSPs and kind of innovation that doesn't necessarily get folded into legacy stuff. That is exciting. We take that infrastructure approach, but we can also be flexible. Right. And for me, the sell side challenges, while, you know, revenue is kind of an easy indicator of success, the buy side challenge is you have products, services, you know, different proof points of success at a marketer level. And those are quite broad, you know, like different type of challenges. So a one size fits all tech stack or feeling like you don't control your data. Those are things that, while you do hear those quotes from marketers saying, yeah, you know, the cookie problem's not my problem, you know, like, I need roas. Right. But it is an ecosystem and there are interdependencies. So, you know, it would be great if you considered how it plays into things and how it plays into your real roas or your real control. So being able to have an alternative and independent solution and take the new class and the best of the best from the last 15 years, that's very exciting. You know, the kind of fixing curation or fixing deals and you know, making buy side be able to be more neutral or be more flexible in how it decides. So a custom algorithm, right. You know, I think maybe advertisers will view that as a form of their IP and you know, there seems to be a way to kind of really move it forward. So for bedrock platform we want to be able to enable that and empower that. So that part is what's exciting.
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Ad Tech God
So are you mostly like demand side focused? Because you had mentioned something around no dependency on kind of legacy technology in the space. Are you guys really building from the ground up a totally new way of doing things?
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Austin Scott
I mean, I think the architecture really allows for it because you know, you have the elements of supply library management or you know, kind of defining your environments, pulling in all of your deal IDs from all of your SSP platforms and curation platforms. Then you have the curation module where you can package things up so you can buy across, you know, deals with layered data. And so you kind of view that as a command central for optimization where the line items in the bidder module would inherit it. So it's not to me so much what is the company type, it's what is the action. So if your action is to buy media, whether you're a publisher doing audience extension or retailer with data, that's, you know, very valuable at Holdco that wants to decide against a supply commitment versus a campaign performance, you know, in the reflexivity of campaign performance or vertical ad network that's looking to, you know, provide that great data, intelligence and service to anybody in the ecosystem. So from that standpoint, I agree it is broad, but to me these elements of category in the digital space, you just have to be more flexible. You know, you have kind of such a variety publishers or apps that are audience owners, but also marketing, you know, and driving revenue on their audiences and stuff, or able to sell them and you know, package it up. I mean you even have car companies that sell sunglasses. Like everybody is almost everything now does.
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Ad Tech God
Bedrock and I'm just trying to understand it better. So if anybody's listening is. So if you're, if you're a media buyer in the space, they would kind of reach out to you, talk to you and tell you what you're they're looking for. And then depending on their needs or requirements, then they would use one of your modules and that module could be like you had mentioned, like a, a curation module or like a bidder module. And then there's various solutions and stuff that's built into that to help them.
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Austin Scott
Yeah. So, you know, curation specialist, some agencies or Holcos might view themselves as that, or it might really just be those curation specialists that have formatted data, built out extensive taxonomies, do the analysis, do the planning, you know, API in and create the deal ID for you, then deal troubleshoot. And so in an activation idea, it's an on switch for that, you know, so again, it's really how people prefer, choose and want to engage. And if they're happy with their, their stacks, great. But if they are looking for something different or they are wanting more control or more kind of customization to how the platform works for them, this would be that.
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Ad Tech God
Austin, over the last year or so, there's been a ton of change in the space, especially as it relates to ctv. You know, I think you're touching up on one of them, the curation piece, the SPO piece, the AI piece, talk about the growth of streaming and connected television over the last four or five years. But like, what really excites you over the next year or two? What changes in the space keep you excited and motivated to keep going?
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Austin Scott
I think the, the idea of like, what are the signals, what are the ways to really think about the combination of them to drive results, outcomes, performance. And I think some people kind of say like, the beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Right? So who should be deciding what the value is? Who should be deciding what the right environments are? I would, I would assume it's the person with the wallet. Right. So the buyer needs that, that ability to be flexible, or the buyer needs the ability to have contained ways that their service or performance management or performance mechanics can go in and get the feedback data, you know, whatever level of reporting that helps them do their job, be able to push it to a line item that inherits all of that logic and insights to where the trader or the buyer just says yes or does some bid multipliers, you know, has some ability to impact the things that help drive the results and outcomes, but also gets to leverage the specialists. So I think that to me is like that future where you're able to enable real collaboration in a controlled and contained way where everybody's happy and comfortable and you can redistribute the tech tax and put the value where the buyer thinks is being added. That to me is, is just more of a sustainable model where you can really achieve the promises.
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Ad Tech God
I spoke to, I spoke to someone and we were talking about outcomes in general and the definition of outcomes. And it was funny because the conversation leaned more towards, you know, the platforms themselves define outcomes and a lot of the platforms weren't addressing what the outcomes of the buyers were. And so platforms were building out what they assumed were the outcomes that buyers wanted. And that when they leaned into listening to the advertisers rather than listening to their internal teams, they actually built a significantly better product. Because the reality is is that sitting on the brand side or the advertiser side is very different than sitting on the platform side. And I think it comes down to what you were saying is, you know, the service aspect of it and the expert aspect of it is super important because you need to get that feedback from your client to build the right product.
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Austin Scott
Yeah. And that's not an easy thing. Right. Like it's kind of that customized element where I don't know, I remember kind of a lot of these tech conversations of like customize isn't scalable. Right. Like standardization. But I guess standardization forsaking the end result for the, the way to truly scale, you know, and add more money and add more revenue. It's, it's just sort of like self defeating or short term. So again finding the real problems to solve, finding the ways to drive like the value, looking at the verticals where you can make bigger impact or they have different business problems to solve. One thing that I've been thinking about more recently is kind of your, when you're kind of talking about like CTV and stuff is like, you know, those are reach frequency maybe plays. But there are plenty of brands that understand the performance of TV or would buy sort of like could I have a lower price point on this satellite TV to sell $2,000 bikes. Right. Like there is an element of this idea that upper funnel drives action. You know, you're searching for something because you saw an ad about it. And so it's always kind of funny to me how people would say oh you know that's brand, you know it's like sure, but it's probably more impactful at the end of the day than a 300 by 250. But I've also heard you know people some auto talk about, you know, in certain markets if they don't have display, they don't have as better results. Right. Like there is a, you know, an element of moments of leveraging different formats for the better outcomes. And I think that's where people, when they talk about curation it can mean different things. But I do think some of the better versions of it is when it's about being Able to look for the real pockets of performance and find out what is that right combo. Because sure, it'd be easy if like this one DLID solved all your problems or you know, this one, I guess I didn't want to say pmax, right? But that kind of idea of like, here's the easy button, you know, here, just go for this easy button and we promise it'll give you the results you want. So again, if it is, you know, weighted to that or I guess where I was going somewhat with the TV angle is if a lot of B2C brands are 50 or 70% TV, maybe brands that are more digitally native really get to experience the benefits of granular targeting outcomes based custom algos. And that is maybe different because say at Tamoogal it was like we're going to solve the $70 billion problem, but did it need to be solved in the digital way or does it need to be solved in more, I guess of the data feedback. And I've seen now really creative ways of leveraging out of home with tv, you know, underexposed, overexposed audiences on linear versus digital. So again, that feels very based on the person, right? You know, the audience and not so much what's good for a platform or what makes the most use of like, I don't know, I've just, I've heard so many wonderful like anecdotes over time that kind of add up. Project Runway advertisers don't want to pay because 50% was male. You know, it's like, okay, but I.
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Ad Tech God
Mean, and, and I also think like there's this weird misconception that the marketing funnel that was drawn out 30 years ago still stands true today. Like it's something that kind of irritates me because like the way you did awareness in the past was it was purely a TV play, right? Or it was, it was very blanketed. But now TV is digitized and so like can you click on an ad? You can, you can also scan a qr. You can also be forwarded to Shopify account. And like the, you know, they have the funnels that they draw to try to diagram this and they're like, well, this is where each one is. Like, this is where you generate leads and this is where you have loyalty and this is where you have purchase. But now it's so blended into each other, it's like really hard to say, like, is this really top of funnel or not? Because something as simple as a Roku remote control can take you all the way from a Brand awareness play to, to a purchase and it not even be intentional. It's just like hey, we're going to put a button here that you could potentially or QR code that you could potentially scan and buy the product. We're just going to put it at the last five seconds of the app and we're going to see if we recreate any purchases. And so it's like the, even the funnel I feel like has changed and somebody needs to re diagram it to show that they all blend into each other at this point it's really hard to keep them separate.
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Austin Scott
It just when all of these changes or advances mean that the old ways are harder or it takes more work right to prove the value. And then something that came up when I was at Video week was like cross channel measurement, cross channel attribution and all that. And it's a bit like oh wow. Then it's going to get down to, you know, once you can really track it all, well what's my fractional value for the role in the, in the life cycle of the outcome? You know and do people argue about it and then do you go actually it was because her friend bought the shoes. You know, like it's just kind of funny. Like even some things I've heard is like, you know we went down this whole path on like retail attribution and then it was just kind of easier to buy CPMs again, you know. So the kind of swinging back and forth that's pretty common in our space. But that fragmentation is probably why we get the most confusion on being able to leverage what seemed like would be benefits the one to oneness, you know like of devices is why I feel like it gets quite hard right that element of less, less things in the way when you get kind of down to the individual devices or not being able to understand who in the household might be watching or how do you, you know some companies seem to have an offer and present to that solve it just sounds like a lot of, you know, a lot of data, a lot of work and then getting back to that advertiser specific need.
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Ad Tech God
Totally. Austin, I wanted to thank you for being here and good luck with Bedrock. I wish you and your, your, your partners the. The best of luck as you continue to grow.
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Austin Scott
Thank you so much. Appreciate getting to be on and keep the mystery living.
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Ad Tech God
Awesome. Thank you Austin.
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Austin Scott
Take care.
- [30:55]
Ad Tech God
Thanks for tuning in to another episode of the AdTech Godpod, a podcast for the people about the people. Stay connected with me for more insights, trends and interviews in the realm of ad tech. Don't miss out on the latest updates, so follow me on X Instagram and connect with me on LinkedIn. Don't forget ATG Slack community has insights, networking opportunities and jobs. Keep the conversation going and stay at the forefront of adtech innovation.