Razorfish’s Lanctot: Beware Ad Tech Middleman

“When there are significant shifts in an industry landscape, like the reinvention of online media, that invites a lot of new participants,” Lanctot said. The last time that happened was during the post-dot-com era, when publishers reduced sales staffs but were faced with a growing supply of inventory. In stepped ad networks to fill the void. Then you saw a backlash. Publishers got more educated on modern digital selling tactics and started to find their footing, while agencies started to build trading desks.”

Now, in the data/targeting/DSP/platform ad tech glut, he predicts the same sort of pattern to unfold. It already seems to be happening, as Yahoo moves to cut off re-targeters and other resellers. “With all the intermediaries in the exchange space, Yahoo and, I expect, others are going to want to squeeze that. So [these intermediaries] “have to be truly differentiated and ad value. A lot of others are going to be squeezed out.”

Below is a video interview with Lanctot on why he thinks there will be fewer ad tech middlemen.