Omnicom Media Group looks for more clarity on the role of AI in the auction process

By Michael Bürgi • October 8, 2024 •

Ivy Liu

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With another Advertising Week well underway, Omnicom Media Group continues to work behind the scenes to address systemic issues around the more opaque processes in digital investment.

The Omnicom-owned media agency network already set its sights on the ad auction process, working in conjunction with a host of industry organizations and auction firms to help the beginning work to establish standards in the $600 billion ad auction marketplace. Now it’s drilling even deeper into auctions and how AI is applied, Digiday has learned.

OMG’s AI Buying Agent standardization initiative aims to ensure advertisers’ interests are kept in mind when platforms create their automated ad product algorithms, which are more autonomous in their decision-making. OMG’s self-described first-to-market initiative seeks to set standards by working with the major platforms — the ask is to get their help in doing a baseline assessment by filling out a questionnaire (sent in September), assess their level of compliance, and then accelerate and advance adoption and adherence.

To date Amazon, Google, Meta and TikTok and others others have agreed to participate, according to OMG.

Once again, the effort is being done in conjunction with the broader efforts of OMG’s Council on Accountability and Standards in Advertising (CASA), this time through its AI Buying Agent subgroup.

“It’s not just decisioning on the price that should be paid or a bid that should be placed on on one individual ad impression, [the platforms are] taking autonomy to a new level and broadening the scope,” said Joanna O’Connell, OMG’ chief intelligence officer and head of CASA, who noted that AI-led automation can impact audience, placement, environment or even creative decisions. “It’s not that we don’t trust [those decisions] necessarily, on principle, it’s that we don’t know. So in the absence of information, it’s harder for us to make intelligent decisions.”

Working with the platforms, OMG hopes to benchmark current practices and capabilities and ultimately generate recommended standards around such issues as:

Advertiser constraint on the buyer’s selection of placement, targeting and bid strategy

Direction on objectives, KPIs, and margins

Alignment with the seller’s commercial interests, transparent reporting designed to consider a seller’s own commercial interests as a decision factor

Reporting that mirrors standard capabilities, offering details on audience profile delivery and performance by site and placement

Disclosure of bid strategy

Third-party verification

Ultimately it’s making sure there aren’t conflicts of interest on the part of the auctioneers. “Different from some other technological advances in advertising, different companies have taken different philosophical approaches to building these agents,” said Ben Hovaness, chief media officer at OMD. “The design philosophy underpinning Google’s offerings is not exactly the same as that underpinning Meta’s, and that’s something that we want to shed some light on. For example, [one] evaluation criterion is the alignment of the agent — that’s something as simple as, has the company that operates the agent committed in writing that the agent doesn’t consider that company’s own yield and revenue targets when acting on a buyer’s behalf.”

In fact, Google is currently on trial on antitrust grounds because it controls both the buying and selling of inventory. For example its Performance Max offering was brought up in the trial, which is ongoing.

Although OMG’s efforts won’t necessarily affect the outcome of the trial, by asking for details in its questionnaire, it hopes to be able to identify when and where the conflicts might exist, and therefore choose to either work or not work with the auctioneer in question.

Hovaness said that OMG has already talked with the Media Rating Council about integrating some of this work and thinking into a future phase of the broader Auction Standards Program, given the intellectual connection between the two, and the seemingly inexorable advancement of AI into more and more investment processes.

““As advancements in technology automate functionality, it’s critical to ensure that marketers and agencies maintain the ability to manage a brand’s data via appropriate controls,” said Marla Kaplowitz, president and CEO of the 4A’s. “This latest CASA initiative addresses the importance of platform transparency with AI based tools related to campaign management.”

Omnicom Media Group looks for more clarity on the role of AI in the auction process

The AI Buying Agent standardization initiative aims to ensure advertisers’ interests are kept in mind when platforms create their automated ad product algorithms, which are more autonomous in their decision-making.