Episode 31 –
Using a Consumer-Driven Approach to Get the Most Out of Programmatic With Katherine Strieder of MiQ

RESOURCE CENTER   ❯   Identity Revolution Podcast 5-5-22

Episode Summary

Programmatic advertising allows tech companies and marketers to reach customers in new ways, quickly, and at scale. And without a doubt, it’s become one of the most indispensable tools to target the right audience.

But, at the end of the day, we need to understand that consumers come first, which is why we should be driven to do what’s best for them.

In this episode of Infutor’s Identity Revolution podcast, our host Cory Davis welcomes Katherine Strieder, the Global Chief Product Officer at MiQ, a programmatic media partner for marketers and agencies. They talk about the power of programmatic advertising, how MiQ helps their clients stand out in a saturated market, and the biggest changes in AdTech over the years.

Guest-at-a-Glance

Key Insights

• Always put the consumer first. If you want to make the most out of programmatic advertising, you have to be consumer-driven. Katherine says, “The sky’s the limit. I think the key is to push ourselves to a higher standard, and I’m hearing and seeing a lot more of that now than I was ten years ago. I hope it’s coming from a good place. For me, ultimately, if you’re thinking about the consumer and their best interest, in the end, you are not going to make the wrong decision.”
• Platforms, people, and partnerships. MiQ is a programmatic media partner for marketers and agencies. Katherine explains the company’s main offering. “The way we talk about the value we offer is that we say it’s platforms, people, and partnerships. So if you need access to some cool platform or even something white labeled to convince your customers that you’re a genius, we can offer that. We can do everything for you if you want, […] it’s like we’re your personal shopper. And then present it to you at the end, or if you want us to be a partner in it, we can do that as well. And then the partnership piece is becoming more and more important because as identity evolves and more brands become smarter about how to use their data, all of that has to be merged into this world.”
• How has the AdTech space changed over the years? With almost 20 years of experience in the field, Katherine has been in the front row for all the changes and innovations. She talks about the major shift that has happened over the years. “It is its own sort of medium by which people express themselves and exchange information, both in a good and bad way. I was watching the recent documentary series about Andy Warhol on Netflix, but they were talking about what he did with print and then with TV and how he sort of got it and how it was really sort of subversive and interesting. And they were just like, ‘I can’t imagine what it would have been like if he’d been around for the internet and what he would have done.’ So, the sky’s the limit.”

Episode Highlights

Put yourself in your consumer’s shoes

“I learned how to adapt to pitching in very different environments and to figure out what would work for this customer. But one thing that stood out to me was that as a young product manager, I was very passionate about what I thought was the right thing to do, and sometimes, my smartest customers disagreed with me and with each other. So I really felt like I needed to have the experience of being a customer, and that’s why I went to Viacom.”

Becoming a part of the huge change in the market

“From there, I sort of held my nose and went into programmatic because they knew automation was the future. Being the sort of social activist that I was, I looked at programmatic as it existed. And I was like, ‘This is going to need to get cleaned up and repositioned to focus on consumers and marketers.’ But I was beginning to see that happening. I wanted to be part of that change, and I think that change is happening.”

The impact of media platforms

“In some of the early days, companies like Meta, etc., talked about themselves and thought about themselves just as platforms. And I think it’s understandable because the people running them were very young. They probably had education primarily based on engineering. They hadn’t studied social history. So, they didn’t necessarily realize the impact creating this whole new world globally could potentially have for good or for bad. […] I think that sort of adherence to ‘we’re just a platform, and we don’t have any control over what people do with us’ is shifting.”

Top quotes:

[11:52] “What’s really exciting is that as we move into VR and shopping being in VR and all of that — it’s all consumer-driven, which is the way I think it should be. And then marketers and those of us who are aiding marketers and creating automated biteable environments — we’ve got to figure out how to do that in a way that consumers like, which, I think, is the way it always should be.”

[11:33] “There’s a lot of new technology that enables different attributes and different capabilities to be measured. And the whole streaming world is in its infancy, or still in its early innings. So a lot of the shaping of the industries is happening right now.”

[29:30] “My kids and I do research together, but to me, it’s kind of fun because they’re totally frank, and they have fresh eyes. So they’ll tell me if they think something is crap, and for us, that’s kind of a fun exercise.”