Sage Journals: Discover world-class research

Abstract

Programmatic advertising describes techniques for automating and optimizing transactions in the audience marketplace. Facilitating real-time bidding for audience impressions and personalized targeting, programmatic technologies are at the leading edge of digital, data-driven advertising. But almost no research considers programmatic advertising within a general history of information technology in commercial media industries. The computerization of advertising and media buying remains curiously unexamined. Using archival sources, this study situates programmatic advertising within a longer trajectory, focusing on the incorporation of electronic data processing into the spot television business, starting in the 1950s. The article makes three contributions: it illustrates that (1) demands for information, data processing, and rapid communications have long been central to advertising and media buying; (2) automation “ad tech” developed gradually through efforts to coordinate and accelerate transactions; and (3) the use of computers to increase efficiency and approach mathematical optimization reformatted calculative resources for media and marketing decisions.

Keywords

Ad tech advertising audience commodity automation critical data studies history of technology new media programmatic

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Advertising Age (1962a) Admen must improve measurement justification of efforts, Jones says. Advertising Age, 1 October, pp. 1, 120.

Advertising Age (1962b) Computers to make media buying more marketing-oriented, 4A’s told. Advertising Age, 19 November, pp. 3, 108.

Advertising Age (1962c) Y&R, BBDO unleash media computerization. Advertising Age, 1 October, pp. 1, 118.

Beer

(2018) Envisioning the power of data analytics. Information, Communication & Society 21(3): 465–479.

Bermejo

(2009) Audience manufacture in historical perspective: from broadcasting to Google. New Media & Society 11(1–2): 133–154.

Bogart

(2000) Buying services and the media marketplace. Journal of Advertising Research 40(5): 37–41.

Broadcasting (1959) Electronic brain for timebuying. Broadcasting, 25 May, pp. 31–32.

Broadcasting (1960) Top 50 agencies … and their 1960 radio-TV billings. Broadcasting, 21 November, pp. 28–29.

Broadcasting (1961a) Automation buying in pilot use at BBDO. Broadcasting, 13 November, p. 9.

10.

Broadcasting (1961b) Media buying: with or without the numbers? Broadcasting, 20 November, pp. 50, 52, 56, 58–59.

11.

Broadcasting (1961c) What computer simulation can do. Broadcasting, 16 October, p. 38.

12.

Broadcasting (1962a) Leo Burnett adopts computer processes. Broadcasting, 15 October, p. 30.

13.

Broadcasting (1962b) Mechanized “dry runs” for ad campaigns. Broadcasting, 28 May, pp. 40, 43–45.

14.

Broadcasting (1962c) Reps surviving greatest crisis. Broadcasting, 26 February, pp. 63–64, 66, 68, 70, 72–73, 76, 80, 82.

15.

Broadcasting (1962d) Two big agencies pack electronic hardware. Broadcasting, 1 October, pp. 34–35.

16.

Broadcasting (1963a) AAAA’s demographic “white paper.” Broadcasting, 15 July, pp. 32–34.

17.

Broadcasting (1963b) Agencies praise H-R move. Broadcasting, 17 June, pp. 45–46.

18.

Broadcasting (1963c) Computers’ future. Broadcasting, 14 January, pp. 43–44.

19.

Broadcasting (1963d) Data processing at H-R in ’64. Broadcasting, 17 June, pp. 44–45.

20.

Broadcasting (1963e) Lavin says TV rates are high. Broadcasting, 25 November, pp. 56–58.

21.

Broadcasting (1963f) NAB convention: computers work praised. Broadcasting, 8 April, pp. 66, 68.

22.

Broadcasting (1963g) Status report: agency automation. Broadcasting, 1 July, p. 32.

23.

Broadcasting (1964) A world of computers plugged in by humans. Broadcasting, 1 June, pp. 30, 32, 34.

24.

Broadcasting (1966a) Are computers worth what they cost? Broadcasting, 13 June, pp. 42–44, 46, 48.

25.

Broadcasting (1966b) Computers in the paper jungle. Broadcasting, 13 June, p. 42.

26.

Broadcasting (1966c) For reps, computers are the rainbow’s end. Broadcasting, 13 June, pp. 50–52, 55.

27.

Broadcasting (1966d) How data processing fits into networking. Broadcasting, 13 June, pp. 48–49.

28.

Broadcasting (1966e) Top 50 agencies … and their 1966 Radio-TV billings. Broadcasting, 28 November, pp. 30–31.

29.

Broadcasting (1967a) Private eyes for TV advertisers. Broadcasting, 11 September, pp. 31–33.

30.

Broadcasting (1967b) Way to make spot buying easy. Broadcasting, 25 September, pp. 31–34.

31.

Broadcasting (1967c) What will television be like in ’72? Broadcasting, 20 November, pp. 39, 42.

32.

Broadcasting (1968a) How TV business has come back. Broadcasting, 25 November, pp. 42–43.

33.

Broadcasting (1968b) SOS accepted by most reps. Broadcasting, 5 February, p. 25.

34.

Broadcasting (1969) Shake-out among the station reps. Broadcasting, 19 May, pp. 66–71.

35.

Broadcasting (1975) Future shock: it’s here now for the reps. Broadcasting, 14 July, pp. 29–30, 32, 34, 36, 40, 42.

36.

Broadcasting (1977) There’s no business like computer business. Broadcasting, 27 June, pp. 47–50, 54–56.

37.

Broadcasting-Telecasting (1956) Univac to invade timebuying, selling. Broadcasting-Telecasting, 19 November, p. 98.

38.

Broadcasting-Telecasting (1957) Automation speeds up spot sales. Broadcasting-Telecasting, 7 October, pp. 70, 72.

39.

Callon

Muniesa

(2005) Economic markets as calculative collective devices. Organizational Studies 26(8): 1229–1250.

40.

Carah

(2017) Algorithmic brands: a decade of brand experiments with mobile and social media. New Media & Society 19(3): 384–400.

41.

Corrigan

(2018) Making implicit methods explicit: trade press analysis in the political economy of communication. International Journal of Communication 12: 2751–2772.

42.

Cortada

(2004) The Digital Hand, Volume II: How Computers Changed the Work of American Financial, Telecommunications, Media, and Entertainment Industries. New York: Oxford University Press.

43.

Crain

(2018) A critical political economy of web advertising history. In: Brügger

N and

Milligan

(eds) The SAGE Handbook of Web History. Los Angeles, CA: SAGE, pp. 397–410.

44.

Fisher

(2018) US programmatic ad spending forecast 2018. eMarketer, 5 April. Available at: https://content-na1.emarketer.com/us-programmatic-ad-spending-forecast-2018

45.

Fortune (1965) The battle of the computer marketeers. Fortune, 1 January, pp. 171–172.

46.

Frank

(1997) The Conquest of Cool: Business Culture, Counterculture, and the Rise of Hip Consumerism. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

47.

Gibson

(1979) The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

48.

Hallinan

Striphas

(2014) Recommended for you: the Netflix Prize and the production of algorithmic culture. New Media & Society 18(1): 117–137.

49.

Heady

(1962a) Computers bring new dimension to ad field. Advertising Age, 10 December, pp. 3, 88–90.

50.

Heady

(1962b) Computers taking over media-market selection. Advertising Age, 17 December, pp. 3, 25.

51.

Hirsch

(1973) Media department goes computerized for savings in expense and time. Broadcasting, 7 May, p. 18.

52.

Hutchby

(2001) Technologies, texts and affordances. Sociology 35(2): 441–456.

53.

J. Walter Thompson (JWT) (1962) JWT orders advanced computer from RCA. J. Walter Thompson Company News, 12 September, pp. 1, 3.

54.

J. Walter Thompson (JWT) (1963) Walter Herman—the man behind the machine. J. Walter Thompson Company News, 23 January, p. n.p.

55.

J. Walter Thompson (JWT) (1969) Welty: “The computer as a tool used in media planning is here to stay.” J. Walter Thompson Company News, 31 January, p. n.p.

56.

Katz

(1991) How major U.S. advertising agencies are coping with data overload. Journal of Advertising Research 31(1): 7–16.

57.

Lux

(1974) Computer power: taking the machete to advertising’s paper jungle. Broadcasting, 24 June, p. 22.

58.

McKibbin

(1971) Computerization, the great equalizer. Broadcasting, 24 May, p. 18.

59.

McStay

(2016) Digital Advertising. 2nd ed. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

60.

Mager

(2012) Algorithmic ideology: how capitalist society shapes search engines. Information, Communication & Society 15(5): 769–787.

61.

Marvin

(1988) When Old Technologies Were New. New York: Oxford University Press.

62.

Meehan

(1984) Ratings and the institutional approach: a third answer to the commodity question. Critical Studies in Mass Communication 1(2): 216–225.

63.

Nadler

Crain

Donovan

(2018) Weaponizing the digital influence machine: the political perils of online ad tech. Data & Society. Available at: https://datasociety.net/output/weaponizing-the-digital-influence-machine/

64.

Napoli

(2011) Audience Evolution: New Technologies and the Transformation of Media Audiences. New York: Columbia University Press.

65.

Ochs

(1967) Computer technology: the potential revolution in media buying. Broadcasting, 27 November, p. 20.

66.

Orlikowski

(2000) Using technology and constituting structures: a practice lens for studying technology in organizations. Organization Science 11(4): 404–428.

67.

Parikka

(2012) What Is Media Archaeology? Malden, MA: Polity Press.

68.

Peters

(2009) And lead us not into believing the new is new: a bibliographic case for new media history. New Media & Society 11(1–2): 13–30.

69.

Rayport

(2015) Is programmatic advertising the future of marketing? Harvard Business Review, 22 June. Available at: https://hbr.org/2015/06/is-programmatic-advertising-the-future-of-marketing

70.

Simko

(1971) New technology for an “old” problem. Broadcasting, 8 November, p. 14.

71.

Sinclair

(1957) “Automation buying” era dawns on agency row. The Billboard, 16 September, pp. 1, 13.

72.

Smythe

(1977) Communications: blindspot of Western Marxism. Canadian Journal of Political and Social Theory 1(3): 1–27.

73.

Stevenson

(2016) Data, Trust, and Transparency in Personalized Advertising. PhD Thesis, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI.

74.

Turow

(2011) The Daily You. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

75.

Turow

Couldry

(2018) Media as data extraction: towards a new map of a transformed communications field. Journal of Communication 68(2): 415–423.

76.

U.S. Census Bureau (1970) Statistical Abstract of the United States. Washington, DC: USGPO.

77.

Yates

(2000) Business use of information and technology during the industrial age. In: Chandler

Cortada

(eds) A Nation Transformed by Information. New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 107–135.

78.

Zaloom

(2006) Markets and machines: work in the technological sensoryscapes of finance. American Quarterly 58(3): 815–837.

79.

Zuboff

(2015) Big other: surveillance capitalism and the prospects of an information civilization. Journal of Information Technology 30(1): 75–90.

Automating the audience commodity: The unacknowledged ancestry of programmatic advertising

Abstract

Keywords

Get full access to this article

References