Dive Brief:

• The Trade Desk, the maker of software that media buyers use for digital advertising, launched a campaign to explain in simple terms how brands can benefit from programmatic advertising, or the computerized bidding for ad space on websites, per an announcement shared with Marketing Dive.
• The "As Explained By" campaign includes two short films directed by comedian Neal Brennan that highlight the limitations of walled gardens, a term to describe closed digital media outlets like popular search and social platforms.
• The ads will run next month on digital media platforms that include connected TV (CTV) during events such as college basketball games. Creative agency BBH New York developed the films for The Trade Desk, per the announcement.

Dive Insight:

The Trade Desk is taking a lighthearted approach to explain programmatic advertising in terms that are easier for people to understand while touting the advantages of its platform. The computerized buying and selling of ad space has become a huge industry, but specialized jargon like "walled gardens" and "open internet" can mask the differences among digital media outlets. The Trade Desk is trying to make these ideas more accessible to a wider audience by dramatizing those differences with everyday examples.

The first film titled "Reach" shows Halloween trick-or-treaters who discuss how they could have found more candy outside a gated community, a metaphor for a walled garden that's closed off from the open internet. The second short titled "Objectivity" features a hotel manager likening the experience of a couple seeking unbiased restaurant advice to advertisers using a buy-side ad platform that is either objective or non-objective.

The campaign, which is part of The Trade Desk's Media For Humankind effort highlighting the open internet for digital ads, comes as popular social and search platforms continue to increase their share of the U.S. digital advertising market. Google, Facebook and Amazon are forecast to have a combined the market share of 69% this year, according to researcher eMarketer, leaving the remaining 31% to other digital media outlets. The Trade Desk seeks to highlight the opportunities to reach audiences who look at other digital media properties that carry advertising. The CTV market also is forecast to carry more programmatic ad placements as its share of total media spending inches upward in the next few years, per a separate eMarketer forecast.

The Trade Desk's campaign comes a few weeks after Google announced that it would end support for a key online audience tracking technology in the next couple of years. The elimination of third-party cookies in its Chrome browser may impair the ability of marketers to reach target audiences unless the industry develops another tracking methodology that protects consumer privacy. To address the growing conflict between consumer privacy and personalized advertising, the IAB this month announced a plan called Project Rearc to unite the digital media and marketing industry. The association is enlisting the IAB Tech Lab, government agencies and industry and consumer groups to develop codes of conduct, legal agreements and supporting technologies for the initiative.