Episode 31: Dennis Buchheim Part 2 - on Privacy Enhancing Technologies & Standards.

Summary

The Monopoly Report: Episode 31 Summary

Title: Episode 31: Dennis Buckheim Part 2 - on Privacy Enhancing Technologies & Standards
Host: Ari Paparo
Guest: Dennis Buckheim, Former Head of the IAB Tech Lab and CEO of Think Media
Release Date: May 28, 2025

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1. Introduction and Context

In the second part of his interview series, Alan Chappell hosts Dennis Buckheim to delve deeper into the complexities surrounding privacy enhancing technologies (PETs) and the establishment of fair regulatory standards within the ad tech industry. Building upon their initial discussion about the operational challenges at the IAB Tech Lab, this episode shifts focus to the broader regulatory landscape and the future of digital advertising in a post-cookie world.

2. The Evolving Ad Tech Marketplace

Dennis Buckheim opens the conversation by examining the current state of the ad tech marketplace, questioning the traditional roles of exchanges, DSPs (Demand-Side Platforms), and SSPs (Supply-Side Platforms). He posits that advancements in agentic AI are rendering traditional exchanges obsolete, as AI facilitates direct agent-to-agent interactions for buying and selling ad inventory. Buckheim remarks:

"[02:09] Dennis Buckheim: ...agent to agent connections of. I want to buy this. Do you have it? ... Do you really need an exchange for that?"

This shift suggests a transformation in how ad transactions occur, potentially reducing the need for centralized exchanges and altering the industry's foundational structures.

3. The Role of AI in Ad Tech and Addressability

Buckheim emphasizes the disruptive potential of AI in redefining addressability beyond traditional cookie-based tracking. He challenges the relevance of existing taxonomies in an era where machine learning models do not adhere to human-defined classifications.

"[03:00] Dennis Buckheim: ...Gen AI does not care about a taxonomy in the same way that humans do."

This perspective underscores the necessity for the industry to adapt its standards and practices to accommodate AI-driven methodologies, which operate independently of human-imposed categorizations.

4. Challenges with Industry Standards and Taxonomies

A significant portion of the discussion centers on the efficacy of industry standards set by organizations like the IAB Tech Lab. Buckheim critiques the longevity and applicability of these standards in a rapidly evolving technological landscape, questioning their ability to remain relevant.

"[04:05] Dennis Buckheim: ...how many of the standards that Tech Lab produces, ... actually live on? ... It's quite different."

He suggests that many existing standards may become obsolete as the ad tech ecosystem undergoes fundamental changes driven by innovation and AI integration.

5. Privacy Enhancing Technologies (PETs) and Data Governance

Transitioning to privacy concerns, Buckheim expresses skepticism about the current adoption and effectiveness of PETs within the industry. He highlights two primary issues:

1. Shifting Privacy Challenges: PETs often replace one set of privacy issues with another, rather than resolving underlying concerns.
2. Lack of Transparency and Auditability: The opaque nature of many PET solutions undermines trust and hampers effective data governance.

"[14:10] Dennis Buckheim: ...I would love your reaction to that because I know you've been a big proponent of PETs."

Buckheim calls for enhanced transparency and stricter auditing mechanisms to ensure that PETs genuinely protect user privacy without introducing new vulnerabilities.

6. The Browser Ecosystem and Ad Tech Control

A critical evaluation of major browsers' roles in ad tech reveals how companies like Google and Apple have exerted significant control over data monetization practices. Buckheim discusses the flawed implementation of Google's Privacy Sandbox, which was tightly coupled with third-party cookie deprecation, leading to unintended negative consequences.

"[07:14] Dennis Buckheim: ...their fatal flaw with this whole thing was that they tied the deprecation of the cookie to this horrible contraption that they called the privacy sandbox..."

Furthermore, he contrasts Google's approach with Apple's, noting that while Apple has managed to maintain its ecosystem's integrity, regulators are increasingly scrutinizing such practices.

7. Data Clean Rooms: Benefits and Limitations

The conversation shifts to data clean rooms, collaborative environments where advertisers and publishers can share data without compromising user privacy. While acknowledging their potential, Buckheim critiques their current implementation:

• Scope Limitation: Often limited to browser-based technologies, neglecting broader applications.
• Integration Challenges: Difficulty in standalone adoption, as clean rooms are increasingly becoming components of larger solutions.

"[20:00] Dennis Buckheim: ...maybe that is the perfect environment for them."

He advocates for a more nuanced understanding and application of data clean rooms, emphasizing that they should be part of a comprehensive data governance strategy rather than standalone solutions.

8. Transparency and Trust in Ad Tech

Transparency remains a pivotal issue, especially concerning how data is processed and utilized within the ad ecosystem. Buckheim points out the systemic lack of clarity, which complicates efforts to build trust among consumers and stakeholders alike.

"[23:47] Guest Expert: ...you need somebody who can support them in the process."

He suggests the development of frameworks and playbooks to guide companies in asking the right questions and implementing transparent practices that align with regulatory expectations.

9. Evolution Over Five Years: Changes Post Cookie Deprecation

Reflecting on the past five years, Buckheim notes significant strides in awareness and control over data usage. However, he observes that innovation in independent ad tech companies has been slower than anticipated, primarily due to the absence of a unified push towards new solutions beyond third-party cookies.

"[25:21] Guest Expert: ...the innovation that started...is like smaller companies trying to find innovative new ways to deal with data securely privately..."

Despite these challenges, Buckheim remains optimistic about the ongoing evolution and adaptability of the industry.

10. The Future: AI, CTV, and Industry Adaptation

Looking ahead, Buckheim identifies two major forces shaping the future of ad tech:

1. Artificial Intelligence: Continues to disrupt data usage and addressability, necessitating further adaptation.
2. Connected TV (CTV): As traditional avenues for ad spend saturation diminish, CTV emerges as a critical area, albeit not immune to privacy and data protection issues.

"[27:52] Dennis Buckheim: ...we're just starting to grapple with the changes that AI is imposing on the ad space."

He anticipates a significant shakeout in the industry over the next 12 to 18 months as these factors drive transformative changes.

11. Personal Insights and Lessons Learned

In the concluding segment, Buckheim shares personal reflections from his transition from leading large organizations to managing his own consultancy. He highlights the challenges of scaling impact and the importance of maintaining an urgent, proactive approach to business development.

"[30:16] Dennis Buckheim: ...there's a certain urgency that like, you think your activity level needs to be at a 5 and it really needs to be at like a 500..."

He underscores the value of passion-driven work and the satisfaction derived from meaningful industry contributions, despite the inherent difficulties of running a smaller firm.

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Conclusion

Episode 31 of The Monopoly Report offers a comprehensive exploration of the intersecting realms of privacy, regulation, and technological innovation within the ad tech industry. Dennis Buckheim provides insightful critiques and forward-thinking perspectives on how the sector can navigate the complexities of a post-cookie landscape, the integration of AI, and the imperative for robust data governance. As the industry stands on the cusp of significant transformation, discussions like these are crucial for shaping a fair, transparent, and technologically adept advertising ecosystem.

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Notable Quotes:

• Dennis Buckheim [02:09]: "Do you really need an exchange for that?"
• Dennis Buckheim [07:14]: "Their fatal flaw with this whole thing was that they tied the deprecation of the cookie to this horrible contraption that they called the privacy sandbox."
• Dennis Buckheim [14:10]: "I would love your reaction to that because I know you've been a big proponent of PETs."
• Dennis Buckheim [23:47]: "You need somebody who can support them in the process."
• Dennis Buckheim [30:16]: "There's a certain urgency that like, you think your activity level needs to be at a 5 and it really needs to be at like a 500."

Transcript

[Podcast Host]

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[Alan Chappell]

Welcome to the Monopoly Report. The Monopoly Report is dedicated to chronicling and analyzing the impact of antitrust and other regulations on the global advertising economy.

[Dennis Buckheim]

Alan I'm Alan Chappell.

[Alan Chappell]

This week I continue my discussion with Dennis Buckheim, who's former head of the Ivy Tech Lab and current CEO of Think Media. Part one of the interview focused more on the challenges around running the IB Tech Lab, which includes a fair amount of herding cats and playing nice with the under industry trades. Today I want to talk a bit more about a handful of issues that Dennis and I focus on every day when it comes to regulatory standards. How can we make the industry standards which are fair and promote growth within the industry as a whole? Also talk a bit about the future addressability in the ad space, a world beyond cookies, and the pros and cons of privacy enhancing technologies. There's a lot to discuss, so let's get to it.

[Dennis Buckheim]

Okay, we're back with my new best friend for life, Dennis, and we finished the last conversation just giving some helpful advice to Tony Katzer over at the IAB Tech Lab, but I would love to just dive a little bit more deeply into so if you were running a trade association in the ad space today, what are the things you would do to make sure that everyone stays focused on the North Star of ensuring a fair marketplace?

[Guest Expert]

I think what's so interesting right now is is what is the marketplace, right? I mean that like stepping back to that level, you look at, you know, it's a monopoly report, right? You look at the ruling on Google and the ad tech space and Google's counterargument to a degree is everything's changing so quickly that is it actually relevant to even break these pieces apart? And I would take that a step further and say, is there even going to be such a thing as an exchange eventually? Already we see less. I Mean, you don't talk a lot about exchanges at this point. You talk about DSPs and SSPs and lots of private marketplaces, direct connections, all this stuff. Well, take that a step further and it's already kind of starting to happen. And think about, forgive me, agentic AI, right? And agent to agent connections of. I want to buy this. Do you have it? Right, I want to buy that. Do you have that? How about this mix of things? Do you really need an exchange for that? Certainly not in the way that we have it today. And I think one of the most interesting, disruptive thoughts for me, and maybe I'm the only person in the world who finds this interesting. We spent a lot of time defining taxonomies at TechLab and upgrading the content taxonomy, creating an audience taxonomy as a kind of parallel to it, seller defined audiences, now curated audiences is all. You know, it's kind of rooted in taxonomy. There was an article that pointed out, like, machines don't actually care about taxonomies. Gen AI does not care about a taxonomy in the same way that humans do. This does. This stuff doesn't need to be human. Understandable. So if you think about that, how many of the standards that Tech Lab produces, how many of the white papers the different trade orgs produce, how many of the practices in place today actually live on? Right? And you know, for the long term, maybe not a lot, right? It's quite different.

[Dennis Buckheim]

I have to jump in with my privacy brain because if you don't have a profile, like, I know this is the old and tired one, but like, if it's not travel intender to visit Hawaii and it's, and it's something entirely different. It's like, all right, so you have a responsibility to provide transparency into what that segment looks like that a regular user can understand. I mean, that's a hard and fast GDPR requirement. Like, how do you even do that? And how do you as a tech company communicate to a regulator that you can't do that without them automatically thinking, well, he's just trying to hide the ball. Yeah, I don't know that I have an answer to that.

[Guest Expert]

No, I don't. I don't have an answer to that. I think, point of blank, you know, I think that's right. And I mean, I think that's where we could actually, literally, I mean, maybe this is a crazy thought, but we could get to a point where it's more like your agent as a consumer has to be convinced that you're protected and that you're doing the right things. With your data.

[Dennis Buckheim]

Oh, good. I can't wait to see how that gets game.

[Guest Expert]

Right? I know, I know. But seriously, right, I mean, we know that informed consent is incredibly challenging, right, for consumers and to be a true useful concept, you know, AI can understand and distill, even for the consumer to understand if they want to. And distill. Right. A whole lot more information than a human is willing to let alone maybe can about the entirety of the ad ecosystem.

[Dennis Buckheim]

What do you think would prevent the industry associations from following your great guidance?

[Guest Expert]

I mean, I think there is so much that's in the legacy at this point. You know, there are like 30 different tech lab standards. There's, you know, so many practices rooted in what agencies do, what DSPs do and SSPs do as their businesses. Defending revenue, frankly, is so important to so many companies that I think it almost becomes a case of where I trade associations. Yeah, that's true. I mean, that's not wrong. We have a lot of trade associations also. Right. And they each have to defend their businesses. You're absolutely right. I have said this on stage probably too many times. It's going to get me in trouble. But sometimes capitalism just doesn't work. And there's a little bit of that here where it's competitive behavior to preserve your business and preserve your revenues and report a good quarter. Not the friend of really moving things forward, especially when you get into kind of. I mean, it's essentially the innovator's dilemma, right? You get into this mode where you have to keep doing the things the way you were, you have to fly the plane and change the engines, blah, blah, blah, and it's really hard. And I think that's preventing the forward movement. And you have to make hard decisions to say we are just going to stop doing this as of now or as of this date. Yeah, the deprecation of the cookie, wonderful example, right. Of like, couldn't we have just stopped? Right. Yeah, lots of reasons now, I know, but yeah.

[Dennis Buckheim]

Well, their fatal flaw with this whole thing was that they tied the deprecation of the cookie to this horrible contraption that they called the privacy sandbox, which anybody who's really tested the darn thing has said from day one that the thing doesn't work and it's not even close to working. And so by tying deprecation to that, you sort of built the ship to wreck where deprecation was much, much less likely to happen. Now, there were some other factors like, you know, the MOW guys complained to the competition markets authority and got them involved. But there was a fundamental product flaw with the sandbox just in how they approached the whole thing.

[Guest Expert]

Yeah, I think, I definitely think there's some flaws. Clearly now we're seeing it play out. But I, you know, even putting sandbox aside, good, bad, ugly, I 100% agree with the point about coupling sandbox and cookie deprecation. I mean when you look back app Apple started this, right? And when they started it did they, did they couple cookie deprecation to any replacement? Not really. I mean they had SK ad network 1.0 which was a piece of crap that was useless and who could do anything against that? Right.

[Dennis Buckheim]

I want to respond to that though because that gets brought up a bunch. Apple ran a fundamentally different ecosystem than Google. Google was very much a part, I mean heck, going back to the DoubleClick acquisition was very much a part of the ad supported media world where Apple sort of maybe tolerated it, at least to the extent that it helped facilitate some of its other businesses. So we weren't really starting from the same place. But the second thing that I don't think gets enough coverage is that I don't think Apple gets away with what they've done over the last seven or eight years if they started now. I think regulators worldwide are starting to recognize that the whole we need to do this for privacy and I will take no questions that that approach is no longer viable.

[Guest Expert]

Yeah, I, yeah, I mean you are more the regulatory and policy expert of course, but I certainly agree with that point. And I mean I've described, you know, Google was between a privacy rock and an antitrust hard place. Right. And you're absolutely right, Apple was not in that position and the regulatory environment was different. To your point, the fact I think still stands that if privacy sandbox had not been so explicitly tied to literally the date of cookie third party cookie deprecation, I think we all would have been better off and we would have been, you know, there would have been some more innovation around all of that as a result and it wouldn't have just looked like it's all on Google to solve what happens when cookies go away. Which I think was kind of a mistake. Right. It's like Google, I think there was some genuine interest that Google had to solve for, you know, solve for the use cases that would no longer be possible as third party cookies were deprecated. But I mean it actually gave them more control than you might want them to have, right? To have it all be dependent on sandbox as a foundation. So you know, I think if they had been decoupled, we'd clearly be in a different spot. Don't know what it would be, but a different spot now.

[Dennis Buckheim]

Well, and also they've now led the way. I mean they were not the first to create an in browser ad platform engine. I mean tiles is what, 10, 11 years old. There's probably some things before that, but boy did they popularize the concept. And, and so, you know, now to the point where you have the perplexity CEO basically saying, yeah, I want to get me one of them browsers, I'm going to, I'm going to use it to collect all the data. And that's, that's just sounds great. Which is interesting how some of the narrative changes over time because you know, somebody who had been in this space 20 years ago probably wouldn't have made that statement. Now that's not meant as a criticism. I think that's a, you know, I'm new, we're going to move fast and break things and you know, heck, maybe I'm being a little too old school in my thinking that, that a browser shouldn't be trackware, I don't know. But it's going to be to me that might be one of the top two or three trends over the next year or two to see how that plays out. Because I think it's going to dramatically impact how the ad supported Internet evolves.

[Guest Expert]

Yeah, I mean, I mean we could probably do a whole hour on the history of the browser. Right. Browsers had like no value. Well, had all the value initially and then no value and nobody wanted to own one. And then everybody, you know, then the biggest companies only were able to own them and then there started to be some disruption. I mean, very interesting to think about how different it would be if there were a few, if there were more browsers along the way. And the last thing I'd say is there was, I think a pretty controversial point of view that Randall Rothenberg, who was, you know, CEO and chair of iab and so I worked with him very closely, obviously I worked for him for a while. He said browsers should just be utilities. And you know, there's something to be said about that.

[Dennis Buckheim]

Well, so, so that, that actually I don't necessarily agree or disagree with Randy, but where I think browsers have gotten themselves into trouble is that they've held themselves out as user agents, as utilities, while at the same time feeling free to kneecap everybody else. And so they're protecting users from third party monetization while enabling their own user monetization Yeah, I mean, yeah, I mean.

[Guest Expert]

I think there are certainly cases of some of those behaviors, clearly. And of course the deals of who gets what, defaults for how much and all of that. Yeah, there's a lot there that it's become again so commercial that you have to wonder, is it really the user agent? I think that's a very good way you put it.

[Dennis Buckheim]

And in fairness to browsers, they are about to lose the honeypot. Maybe they should have seen this coming and some of them sort of did. But you know, if you are no longer going to be able to monetize via search in the same way, then, you know, that does beg the question, well, where are you going to get your revenue? And you know, nobody's going to pay money for a browser. At least I don't think they are. And so it's got to be some flavor of ad supported. It's funny though, and this will be my last rant on the browser. Lots of focus on the privacy implications, not nearly as much focus on the intellectual property implications because if you're pulling a string from various publishers, if I know one thing about the publisher community, and this is somebody who's been an ad tech for a while now, publishers don't like it when you take a visit to their site and monetize it downstream. In my view, almost all of the browser ad platforms in one way or another, they might be more privacy safe, but they are all implicating some of the IP issues.

[Guest Expert]

That's a super interesting point. I agree. Keep it there, leave it there.

[Dennis Buckheim]

So I've been pretty skeptical of the adoption of some of the privacy enhancing technologies and a lot of that is really limited to the browser privacy enhancing technologies. And there's certainly a discussion to be had for why there hasn't been enough investment. I mean, heck, outside of like data clean rooms in our space, there hasn't really been a ton of investment or enough investment. But anyway, my issues are this. First, I worry that they don't often address a defined privacy issue and will often just trade one set of privacy issues for another. And second, I think that they lack transparency and auditability and, and that exacerbates an existing issues around trust in the marketplace. So I know I've just pontificated for a while here. It's funny, it's like I'm on your show but I would love your reaction to that because I know you've been a big proponent of pets.

[Guest Expert]

Yeah, I think, I mean, fair to say I was probably the pet spokesperson when I was at Meta and that's where I started to learn more and more about pets. And we actually encouraged Tech Lab to create a pets working group and facilitated that. So, yeah, I've definitely been more on the other side of pets and supportive. But I think there's a really important distinction between privacy enhancing technologies and techniques, which are the building blocks and the solutions that use one or more of those technologies and techniques. Right. I think most people conflate the two and that is unfortunate for the technologies and techniques which have lots of value in my opinion. And some of the solutions do and some don't. Some of the solutions based on the pets do and some don't. That actually led me to have a quote at a Tech Lab event when I was at Meta that Meta was skeptical of clean rooms. And it's because I said a clean room is not necessarily clean. And some of them are, some of them aren't. Right. And it's so I think it's exactly, a lot of it's exactly as you said that you know, that the solutions that you adopt, you, you have to, you know, if you're a buyer or a seller or an ad tech company for that matter, you better kind of interrogate the kinds of solutions that you're actually looking to adopt and understand better or worse what's under the hood. Right. Is it multi party secure, multi party computation that's doing xyz? Is it trusted execution environments that doing, you know, you know, ABC is a differential privacy. There's all these different kinds of technologies and techniques, some of which have gained more traction, some less, some are more. More efficient, some less. Some are more privacy preserving, some less. Right. More secure, less again, better or worse, you have to understand, you have to learn enough to ask the right questions and understand some of those details so that you know, is. Is your clean room clean? Is. Is your partner that's doing this with IDs doing the right thing from a security standpoint, is data leakage actually prevented or not in a certain solution? But again, it's solutions on top of all of those building blocks. I think at some point the building blocks will not be things we need to talk about. But I think right now it's pretty helpful because they're newer, certainly to the ad space.

[Dennis Buckheim]

Yeah. And we really do need more education about what those things do and what they don't do. I know the IAB just came out with the DCR paper and there's a separate trade org who, not a trade org, but a think tank that's contemplating One and I'm really encouraging them to do that because I don't think you can get enough out there to dissolve the. So AdTech's knee jerk here is things are very binary, like forever. It was like, well, what do you mean by, you know, what's your privacy stance? It's like, oh, we don't touch pii. And then it's like, yep, that's it, that's the end of the discussion. And there's a similar mindset around data clean rooms where I don't hate data clean rooms, but that's part of a solution at best. And it's not. You have to really understand what you're solving for because a lot of the more innovative uses of data clean rooms will often take the data, put it into some form of a synthetic ID and then use that to bid via the programmatic ecosystem. I'm not here to say that's bad for privacy. However, if the rule set is now saying that any UID with a profile on it has a privacy interest that needs to be managed and accounted for and opt out in some instances. Opt in. Well, okay, how is the clean room helping you with that? Or is it maybe part of the solution? But if you think of it as the entirety of the solution, I think you're running yourself into trouble.

[Guest Expert]

Yeah. And it's again where I think the devil's in the details. And a lot of people don't want to deal with details, unfortunately, in some cases. But to your point, understanding what goes into the clean room, what happens inside of the clean room and what comes out of the clean room, you need to understand all those things enough, right, to be able to judge is this the clean room for me, number one? Number two, I mean, we're seeing clean rooms be acquired pretty much as non standalone solutions now. Right. I think they've gotten to the point where they are components of a broader solution. Which exactly goes to your point. You know, agencies want to own them or other technical companies want to own them. We're getting to think a different place on clean rooms.

[Dennis Buckheim]

It's funny, a couple of people who I really respect have almost pointed that out as a failure of dcrs and I actually view it differently. I see that the integration within a wider tool stack is a success of the dcrs. I mean, what's your view?

[Guest Expert]

I agree with you. I think it's, I mean, it's similar to what I said a couple of minutes ago about, about pets, right. That at some point we'll get to a point where we don't really talk about differential privacy or tees or whatever, you know, in the same way that we do now, kind of. Kind of the way we. I mean, do you, do you really talk about a digital ad agency anymore? Right, right. You don't. Because, you know, most media is digital. So you don't need to say that. I mean, there's been traction around clean rooms. Were they big enough to be a standalone successful business? Maybe not. But that's not, that's not necessarily a failure. I agree with you.

[Dennis Buckheim]

Yeah. And maybe within the holding company environment where there's a whole bunch of different interests and certainly most of them have their share of data, either whether it's their customer data or now have their own kind of third party data reserves, maybe that is the perfect environment for them.

[Guest Expert]

Although it creates some interesting questions for conflicts of interest perhaps, and even just advertiser preferences and the publisher integrations and all. How does that work? Well, I think there's an argument that clean rooms as solutions, or at least components of bigger solutions make more sense as part of platforms rather than, you know, rather than as part of an agency. But there's a controversial point of view for you to chew on.

[Dennis Buckheim]

So. So most of what we've talked about has been the privacy component. But I'm curious if you have thoughts on, you know, the transparency component? Because in my view, and we had. Rick Bruner is an old friend, we had him on the pod a while back and you know, he's a, he is an old school measurement dude. And one of the challenges that the measurement folks see is like, if you really can't measure the thing because we're not getting any data that creates its own set of challenges. And I'm just curious, what's the workaround to using pets in a way that provides enough transparency that if I'm not the owner operator of the pet, that I have some confidence that the thing is doing the things you tell me it's doing.

[Guest Expert]

I mean, I think some of that comes back to what are the inputs and what are the outputs. Right. If I know that, if I know that the inputs are at, you know, a user level, for example, but the outputs are aggregated and completely unidentifiable as individual users, then, you know, kind of as long as I probe the company and its, its technology is enough that the company is taking the data and taking those inputs and turning it into those outputs, I can probably be fairly confident that they're doing reasonable things. Right. If it's to your point earlier, inputs are User level and outputs are user level. You know, who else is that company working with? Do I actually trust that the data is not, you know, not going to places I wouldn't want it to? And I think it's, I think that's just. That is there. To my knowledge, there is no technological solution to that. Exactly. I mean, it gets a little bit at the accountability platform that we started at Tech Lab, you know, which was to give companies in the space the opportunity to even like sniff the data stream, right. And sample it and audit it and have that perhaps you know, become a more auditable thing over time. I think, you know, short of that, I think it's. It winds up being more about understanding enough of the types of data, the processes, the technologies to be able to, you know, to ask the hard questions of the vendors that you depend on.

[Dennis Buckheim]

Yeah, fair enough. And that often becomes, really the rub here is that there's just often it's difficult to get, you know, the CPO of, you know, insert brand name here really doesn't often know what questions to ask. And that becomes a bit of an endemic problem because it's sort of, the whole thing becomes a little confusing.

[Guest Expert]

I agree. And you know, and you know, a little bit of a plug for something that we're focused less on now. But, you know, think medium. My consultancy, one of the big investments we made was in developing a playbook for publishers, a playbook for marketers that if you check them out, right. It's literally this framework of questions about your data assets and your data strategy, questions about the solutions and partners you depend on, the technologies and platforms you depend on, et cetera. Right. And that's because I think exactly as you said, you need help. You need help knowing what to ask of whom. Right. And I think that's. It's not trivial. It's a whole lot of responsibility and a whole lot of knowledge that I think a lot of people in the industry never expected would need to have. But I believe they do need to have it, or they at least need somebody who can support them in the process.

[Dennis Buckheim]

Oh, for sure. And boy, I cannot say this enough. Data governance is something that the ad tech space really still needs to embrace. I mean, we've gotten better since GDPR collectively and there are some folks who are doing a pretty good job. But if you had to grade the entire class, I don't know that it would be passing. It might be a C minus kind of a thing. And I think there's a ton of room for improvement there. So. Okay, so While at tech lab you had a first row, you know, seat as Google announced third party cookie deprecation and the privacy sandbox. So you know, what has really changed in that five year period other than, you know, apparently never mind, we're not doing it anymore.

[Guest Expert]

I think, I actually think a lot has changed. I think there's a lot, a lot more visibility that people have into, you know, what is done with data. And when I say people, I mean consumers. I mean ad tech companies, publishers, advertisers, regulators, of course, to your earlier point too. So there's a lot more awareness than, than there was about how data is used, who uses it. There's a lot more control, right, over data and, and people are taking, some consumers are taking somewhat more advantage of that, which I think is a good thing. But yeah, I mean in terms of the platform based solutions, not as much progress in terms of independent companies in the ad tech space and data space. Lots of progress, right? Lots of innovation. The challenge there is almost like the challenge with gaining standards adoption. It's what is the driver, what causes somebody to say I'm going to stop doing things the way I have been doing them and shift to this new scary way. That sounds interesting. It's, that's hard and you know, we still need, I think, a little bit more, you know, of the impetus for people to do that. And clearly third party cookie deprecation in Chrome was impetus for people to jump to new solutions. They did some of that on the buy side and sell side. I think they should do more and will do more over time. But it's, it has been certainly slower than one might have thought and it has certainly been more fits than starts. But I remain, you know, I remain optimistic actually that the, the innovation that started, and in this case maybe capitalism does work, is like smaller companies trying to find innovative new ways to deal with data securely privately, you know, to protect ip, things like that, you know, IP of their customers. I think that will continue to evolve and if we hadn't gone through the last five years the way we did, you know, maybe it would have evolved faster, but I still think actually it probably would have evolved faster. But I do think it's, we're better off than we were five years ago.

[Dennis Buckheim]

It does feel like we've reached a different level of maturity having gone through the last five years. We'll see. I mean it's sort of like anything else. Do we have a regression back to the mean over the next year or two or do we continue to plow forward and And I've been trying to have discussions in using this forum as a means to encourage people to move forward. And so hopefully that has some impact.

[Guest Expert]

Yeah, no, I think it does. And I think two other forces at play here. One is AI again. I know, but it is disruptive. Right. And it's going to cause changes. It already is causing changes to the way data is used, consumer data, and as you said earlier, the IP that publishers bring to the table and others bring to the table. So clearly there are going to be chefs in that regard. And the other one is even with cookies remaining in Chrome indefinitely, third party cookies. I think we saw over the evolution of Safari deprecating third party cookies and GDPR and all these changes, the constrained availability of data, you saw a enough growth still happening in digital media that it could, you know, it could allow people to grow their businesses, companies to grow their businesses without changing their behaviors significantly. Right. And number two, if they wanted to change their behaviors, there were all kinds of new, interesting, shiny places to spend money. You know what happened when Safari deprecated cookies? Well, spend moved to Chrome. What happened when iOS introduced app tracking transparency? Well, spend moved to Android. What happened is there's more opt out all over the place. Well, spend moved to ctv. We're running out of places to squeeze the balloon to. Right. And CTV is not. I mean, I think a lot of people view CTV as sort of immune to a degree from all of the privacy and data protection and so security related concerns. And I think they're very mistaken. And if they think that so it's.

[Dennis Buckheim]

Anything, it carries more risks.

[Guest Expert]

I agree. Yeah. And we're starting, we're seeing some of that now. But yeah, running out of places to push your spend to. Right. And that I think is in and of itself going to cause a significant shift in behaviors and adoption of new tech, et cetera.

[Dennis Buckheim]

So this has been a fascinating discussion. I'm going to ask you one more question because I'd really love to know, just as somebody who's run his own indie consulting company, so you've, you've got your own gig now. And I'd love to hear two lessons you learned going from big companies and leading trade associations and then moving to a smaller firm, by the way, you can't answer. Well, now I have to make sure I keep the lights on because apparently that's also an issue for the trades.

[Guest Expert]

That's a great point. No, it's, I mean it's sort of related to keeping the lights on, but, but I have never before in my career, been the primary salesperson. And I've concluded there's a reason for that. Yeah, I love working with a prospect or a client to define what is it we can do together, how can we help you? And you hit those moments that are so satisfying where it's like, yes, that's the thing. Love that. Hate the hunting and farming and all the, all the administrative and all of that. Secondly, I've said a term like scaled impact is my top motivator. That remains true. And I'm really proud of what we've been able to do with think medium, especially with some of the public facing projects that we've done with trade orgs or released some explainers about pets recently, things like that, or playbooks, which we just took on ourselves to try to create something useful, openly available. I'm really proud of what we've done to make more noise as a small, small firm. But it's not the same as the scaled impact that you can have when you're part of a bigger platform or a bigger player. And there are aspects of that that I definitely miss candidly. So figuring out that balance of, yeah, it's great to be your own boss, but how do you have the level of impact? How do you spend enough time right on the things that you're passionate about and really moving things forward and not just selling.

[Dennis Buckheim]

Two thoughts. The first is the worst thing and the best thing that ever happened to me in my career was I was sort of forced because there was no lawyer gigs in 1999 and 2000. So I was kind of forced to go to do tech sales. I worked at DoubleClick in the research group and then I sold DFA for a little bit bit. I was horrible at it, absolutely horrible at it.

[Guest Expert]

So you get it.

[Dennis Buckheim]

So I, but, but I, I ended up doing it. I had three or four different stints of nine months each because they are like, well, he seems smart. Let's, let's hire him. And then I didn't sell anything. And they're like, all right, we got to let you go. But what I learned is when I started my own thing a couple years later is that there's a certain urgency that like, you think your activity level needs to be at a 5 and it really needs to be at like a 500, maybe even a 5,000. And it's very easy when you start one of these things to like, you got friends who are like, oh yeah, maybe we'll hire you for this thing. That would be a great idea. And then you chase them for two years and it never materializes. So having that level of urgency is really helpful in terms of scaled impact. You are sort of a wonderful, shining example of a single person who has had a very, very significant impact within the industry, both at your previous gigs, but now. And I want to emphasize that because I don't think that kind of story gets told enough on these types of pods. So kudos, Dennis. That's just fantastic work.

[Guest Expert]

Thank you.

[Dennis Buckheim]

Well, we'll leave it at that. Positive note, Dennis. This has been an absolute blast. I really appreciate you coming on.

[Guest Expert]

Thank you so much for having me. Really appreciate it.

[Alan Chappell]

That was a really fun conversation. Dennis is a really sharp guy, but also he has a unique perspective given the work he's done at IB Tech Lab and Meta. I really appreciated his comment that our industry is running out of places to squeeze the balloon to. In other words, we just can't operate in a Wild west mindset for much longer and we're just starting to grapple with the changes that AI is imposing on the ad space. I think there's going to be a huge shakeout over the next 12 to 18 months, and I hope that we're all collectively ready for it.

[Dennis Buckheim]

I'll try to do my best by.

[Alan Chappell]

Continuing to bring on smart people like Dennis, and I hope that you all will keep listening.

[Dennis Buckheim]

We've got some other great guests coming.

[Alan Chappell]

Up on the Monopoly Report. We'll have Mike Racsic from Pre Bid coming up in a few weeks. Please subscribe to the [e-mail] or on Spotify, Apple, YouTube, or wherever you listen to your podcasts. Thanks for listening.

[Podcast Host]

Thank you for listening to the Market Podcast. New episodes come out every Friday and an insightful vendor interview is published each Monday. You can subscribe to our library of hundreds of executive interviews at marketecture tv. You can also sign up for free for our weekly newsletter with my original strategic insights on the weekly news at News Market tv. And if you're feeling social, we operate a vibrant Slack community that you can apply to [e-mail].