10
That day at the AdExpo in Chicago changed how I look at programmatic
I was at the AdExpo in Chicago back in 2019, standing in line for coffee, and this older guy next to me starts talking about how he used to buy print ads in the 80s. He said something like "you kids have it easy with your buttons and sliders but you miss the feel of a real negotiation." That conversation hit me hard because I realized I had been treating ad buying like a video game, not a relationship business. Has anyone else had a random encounter that made you rethink your whole approach?
2 comments
Log in to join the discussion
Log In2 Comments
patriciareed13d ago
Honestly that story really hit home for me. Tbh I think we all get so caught up in the data and the automation that we forget there are real people on the other side of those transactions. Ngl I had a similar moment a few years back when a media buyer in her 60s showed me how she used to pitch campaigns over lunch meetings and I realized I barely knew the names of the people I was buying from. It's easy to hide behind a dashboard but that old school approach has a lot of merit in building trust. Makes you wonder how much we lose when we skip the human part.
7
evan_burns9513d ago
Yeah I read something similar in a book about old ad agencies, they used to have these binders with actual photos of the account managers and creative directors so clients could put faces to names. It sounds cheesy now but that kind of personal touch probably built way stronger loyalty than any automated CRM. There's something about knowing who you're dealing with that makes a deal feel less like a transaction and more like a partnership. How do you balance that human element when everything is pushing toward efficiency?
5