Where do you stand on curation? At a dinner I hosted with Yieldmo on Thursday night, the initial discussion started with the skepticism I heard at Base•Camp Denver. In Denver, a couple of publishers said they had told SSPs to stop curating their inventory. At Thursday’s dinner, someone said something that surprised me: They want the SSP to pass only a bid request that is part of a curated package. Wait, what? 

First, there is no “one” publisher perspective. Yes, sometimes I wish there were, but there isn’t. It’s one of the reasons you’ll see pubs get annoyed when the trades talk about “publishers don’t pass the right video signals intentionally.” F you, for putting me in that group! No, each publisher is unique, and therefore, our takes on curation will vary just as much. 

I believe, however, that there is an underlying agreement between the no curation/all curation positions. I think there is a perspective from some in the ad tech space that publishers produce a raw commodity – we are banana farmers, and our only job is to grow fruit, get paid a paltry amount, and be happy with what we get. Guess what? Some of us are. But for many publishers, that is unacceptable. After investing in creating the content, building up a sizable audience, and convincing that audience to consent to us using their data to target ads, you can understand why publishers push back. We want a say in how we are being packaged up and sold. Some curators are giving us that. Others are not. We aren’t always sure who is working for us or against us. Can you blame us?

My thought: Take this publisher skepticism as an opportunity to forge a new relationship with them. Don’t just tell us you can grow our revenue by 30% without understanding our business first or that “it’s just a line of Javascript.” Help us navigate through the bullshit and offer real solutions. 

In my heart of hearts, I think this curation movement can change the dynamics of our industry in favor of the sell side… unless we get bamboozled again.

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