The ad industry has ‘poisoned’ programmatic and it needs fixing fast, Scott Hagedorn warns
Adland has poisoned programmatic, destroying its potential to be a huge force in the future of advertising, thanks to a lack of transparency that has left clients with little trust in the industry, the CEO of Hearts & Science has warned.
Delivering the opening keynote at Mumbrella360 today, Scott Hagedorn, global CEO of Hearts & Science – which was founded little more than a year ago and immediately captured headlines winning Procter & Gamble and AT&T – warned that the damage had been so great the industry may not get the chance to repair it.
“We as an industry have poisoned programmatic,” Hagedorn said.

Scott,
Coming from you, I hope your point about refocusing on content catches
on.
Also, your points also put the exclamation point behind my strongly held position that the digital media supply chain badly needs to be demystified to the advantage of marketers who, ultimately fund all parts of “the chain”.
Sorry, but you’re focusing on the wrong things. It’s not about the flaws in programmatic buys and making a gross impression. The elephant in the room is: Most advertising is ineffective! It’s either outdated or designed to win awards – totally missing the consumer. All the data in the world won’t help lame ads touting 0% financing, whiter whites and ask your doctor about Xzytellimaneargentic.
I could not agree with Scott more!
I have been saying “context matters” for years, but even moreso after meeting Affinity Answers.