Marcus Johansson is CEO of BidTheatre DSP. We caught up with Marcus to hear the latest on the pandemic’s impact for buyers, the post-cookie opportunity, plus the potential for connected TV in the Nordics.

For those that don’t know already, can you tell us a little about BidTheatre?

BidTheatre DSP is a versatile digital media buying platform built for professional marketers. Our idea is simply to maximize buyer value by providing relevant media and data assets, state of the art optimization, and wrap it in a great user experience.

We believe in building long lasting relationships, top service, full transparency and media independence. We pride ourselves in being fast to innovate, no nonsense and proactively helping our clients to stay ahead in a fast-moving world. We were founded in 2012 in Stockholm.

How would you summarise the Nordic ad market for buyers in 2020?

At the beginning of the pandemic, there was a lot of ‘wait and see’ from clients, and of course a dip in spend across the board. But since then, from May onwards really, things have really taken off – and overall this year is still our strongest ever.

Certainly more time (and money) spent online has played an important part. Not to mention the flexibility and control that programmatic offers buyers in moments of uncertainty.

Bid Theatre is a local DSP, What are the benefits and challenges from a scale perspective?

Acting within a specific geography allows us to have very granular access to media and data, also forming closer relationships with those local.

As a smaller player, we're also able to be very agile in supporting our clients and prioritize product development, while maintaining reasonable technology costs.

We're also highly dependent on the ecosystem of similar-sized, friendly businesses to continue to bet on cooperation and openness over protectionism and walled gardens.

Conversations across the industry seem to be dominated by Google’s sunsetting of the third party cookie by 2022 - what is your take on this and where do you think it will lead?

I guess the writing has been on the wall when it comes to the cookie for some time. I'm optimistic that life will go on and that advertising can continue to be just as relevant after the cookie’s demise.

It seems to me that we'll end up with two basic categories of data-driven advertising; one based on personal identifiers such as email, fully opted-in and consent-based.

The other based on assigning users into non-personal cohorts. I think this will be an okay world! I really hope that the standards and mechanisms will still allow for a vibrant ecosystem, in which smaller players that can continue to contribute to the value chain.

Google has seemingly been spearheading efforts for an industry-wide solution to identity. What’s your view on the developments around that so far?

It seems to me that we are still in the early stages of finding out where we'll finally end up. Generally, I think Google has taken a sympathetic approach to the upcoming change, and I'm still optimistic that we will end up with a viable replacement for the third-party cookie. I also don’t believe that they would just shut everything down without a viable alternative in place first.

It seems likely that the browser will play a more active role in facilitating the interest-based advertising of the future. I'd wish Google to be less dominant, on the other hand as a browser vendor they seem to be the least aggressive towards ad tech, compared to Safari and Firefox.

On CTV and OTT, where do you think this will go across the Nordics, when will it scale, will Bid Theatre engage? 

Everything is prepared on our end, and I'm really looking forward to seeing CTV/OTT supply increase over the coming months. Premium and high impact ad supply is always in high demand with our clients, and discounting YouTube, it is also relatively limited in the Nordics.

Rubicon Project/Magnite has invested heavily in creating a clean and efficient supply chain. Do you see this reflected in client performance, and preference to work with Rubicon?

Yes, I believe that Rubicon's ability to provide clean and no nonsense supply has been fundamental to it playing a key role among BidTheatre's supply platform partners for more than half a decade.

An equally important part to this I believe is the platform's ability to serve publishers with the tools they need to engage in selling their ad space the way they want. It's when all the parts of the chain works together that the full benefits of programmatic can truly be felt.

What would you say are the key benefits of working with Netric and Rubicon Project/Magnite specifically as a buyer?

Direct access to local and relevant publishers. A solid tool for publishers to manage their ad selling. A robust technical platform. At the forefront of adopting new OpenRTB protocol standards. Excellent service.

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