Amidst all the recent craziness surrounding Netflix’s coming push into advertising (and the sweepstakes to get to be the company that helps), it struck me - what’s The Trade Desk’s plan exactly?

The ad tech company was reported as one of the early contenders to land a deal with Netflix to help it deliver and sell ads. In the end, it seems that it came down to NBCUniversal and Google, and the surprise winner Microsoft.

It’s no great failure for The Trade Desk to not nab that assignment - in fact, being mentioned in the same breath as those titans is would seem to be a terrific endorsement. Speaking of endorsements, just before the Netflix/Microsoft pact broke, TTD announced a big win of its own - an exclusive pact with Disney to help the entertainment giant with its targeted ad business.

That news, along with the Netflix chatter and a few other moves, raised a lot of intriguing questions for me, such as:

Both Netflix and Disney are clearly in the ad sales business. TTD built its reputation, messaging and business by being singularly-focused on the buy side, first with agencies, then brands. They weren’t conflicted like Google or the other guys (AppNexus, MediaMath, etc.) or so the narrative went.
Indeed, part of TTD’s raison d'etre (that’s French for ‘you be you’) is that it is fundamentally anti-walled garden
Yet Disney is clearly headed toward the walled garden space. In fact, it has built its own ad exchange -DRAX - as well as a proprietary audience graph. Disney wants to sell Disney ads using its own ID and own tools. Which seems like the kind of thing The Trade Desk was against - maybe?
Surely, Netflix will build its own walled garden…so, same question.
Let’s not forget that TTD built a custom DSP for Walmart, which yes, is an advertiser, but in this case, is becoming a serious ad sales player (one built on its own proprietary data that surely stays on one side of its walls)

Anyway, since that’s a lot of questions, I figured I’d ask Jed Dederick, The Trade Desk’s chief client officer.

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Overall, Jed was adamant that TTD is not trying to go the route of previous ad tech companies that looked to build ‘full stacks’ - i.e product suites that theoretically provide everything that ad buyers and ad sellers could need (again, think MediaMath, AppNexus), regardless of whether that arrangement included serious potential conflicts of interest.

In other words, TTD isn’t trying to “build another Google.”

Ok, but you were reportedly up against Google to land the Netflix business, right?

“People think that Netflix came to us looking for a supply-side partner that helps with yield optimization and ad serving etc.,” Dederick said. “That's not what we do. We have a great relationship with Netflix, and we're actually happy with the outcome (Microsoft deal).”

Got it. But what about this Disney thing? Is TTD helping them build up their own walled garden?

“That's not what this Disney deal is,” said Dederick. “They have their own identity graph and platform. We are not building them an SSP or exchange. Rather, we plug our demand into their platform.”

Right, but weren’t advertisers already using TTD to buy Disney inventory? “Clients are always asking for us to make it easier to buy this way at scale,” Dederick added. “This is a result of that. In this case, brands can use their identity data, they can use UID 2.0, and match up with Disney's data.”

Ok, so this is a significant partnership, but it doesn’t seem to signal that Disney is going “all in” with one ad tech player. Here’s how Axios laid it out:

“This is one of the largest media-business efforts yet to craft a new ad-targeting system as third-party tracking fades away, and it's likely to trigger a series of similar partnerships between major media companies and other big ad tech firms.”

BUT, in the same article, Axios reports that Disney “will be talking to other distribution partners about similar deals moving forward.”

Fair enough. You might even wonder - quite fairly - who cares if TTD is working both sides of the market? Don’t brands want to reduce the number of ad tech companies in each buy? Won’t it be better for publishers if you just cut out SSPs, and just let brands plug right into their inventory (like TTD is building)?

Yeah but, the TTD and CEO Jeff Green have also preached democratic buying, and helping to defend the open web against the big guys. Now they’re helping some of the bigg-ish guys. Am I crazy to think this stance could get the company some attention from regulators, and could make things uncomfortable for brands who work with TTD and also TTD’s media partners?

Or maybe nobody cares right now because the other big tech guys are so much more of a target.

For his part, Dederick says he has gotten some questions from clients, and that the company continues to reiterate its singular mission. But he understands that there is a lot for marketers to wrap their heads around right now.

“We think the walled gardens are cracking,” he said. “People aren't wired to think things can't be different or less monopoly-driven in this market. They can. This [business] shouldn't be about one company managing frequency for brands, etc.”

“We think the open web is only getting better.”

This conversation makes me wonder where The Trade Desk may be headed - or where it wants to go. Because Google and Facebook are suddenly vulnerable in a way they’ve never been. Apple seems to have wreaked completely havoc on these company’s attribution advantage.

Facebook is only attempting to turn itself into TikTok, hoping that works for billions of consumers and 10 million or so advertisers, all while trying to rearchitect its ad infrastructure on the fly.

Meanwhile, Google has offered to sort of-not-really break itself up to keep the feds off its back. It may have to give up its ad tech business in some fashion.

So what a big opening for TTD, right? Well, I keep having to remind myself that -duh- as much as folks like myself like to lump the company in as a potential duopoly- disrupter, TTD does not have a consumer facing business that it can sell ads for. It’s never going to be more than an ad tech company that collects cuts or flat fees from the ad buyers and sellers, unless it radically changes strategy.

Which is more than ok, in Dederick’s eyes. “Our endgame,” he said. “Is that we just want a big percentage of that trillion dollar market we think is going to represent the majority of digital media spending.”
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By the way, you may have noticed, I have a new sponsor this week. I’m thrilled to be working with OpenAP to produce a six-part podcast series on the future of TV advertising. Check out episode 1, featuring dentsu’s Doug Rozen, here.

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