Programmatic Gets An Agentic Brain

SPEAKER_1 (0:12)

Welcome to AdExchanger Talks, the podcast devoted to examining the issues and trends in advertising and marketing technology that matter most to you.

Sarah Sloops (0:24)

This episode is sponsored by Verve, an ad solution that helps brands activate consumer intent in real time across platforms. As AI reshapes how people plan vacations, Verve helps travel brands show up when it counts.

Allison Schiff (0:47)

I'm Allison Schiff, Editor-in-Chief of AdExchanger, and my guest this week is Scott Ensign, the Chief Strategy Officer at Butler Till, an independent performance agency that's fully employee-owned and women-owned and women-led, so hell yeah.

Butler Till has been right there on the forefront of testing agentic AI in the programmatic supply chain, and we'll get into the details of what happens when you enlist AI agents to plan, activate, and optimize campaigns end-to-end. We'll also talk about the ad context protocol, why it's finally and for the love of God or money, time to move away from a cheap reach mindset, and why human media planners aren't going away, but their jobs are about to change a lot. But before we get started, if you haven't snagged your ticket to programmatic IO yet, you should really get on that. It's taking place September 28th and 29th at the New York Marriott Marquis, and you're going to want to be in that room. Because we've got a seriously good agenda lined up for you with speakers including Chris Kane, Martin Sorrell, Colleen Coulter, the Global Ad Solutions Lead over at OpenAI, Alexa Raff, the CMO of Gwyneth Paltrow's Goop, and Bob Lohr, the President of Horizon Media. We've also got folks from Yum Brands, Dentsu X, the Brand Tech Group, Razorfish, Zoom, Time, PMG, and The Guardian. I don't actually have time to list everyone. You'll just have to visit the event website to see for yourself. Podcast listeners get 10 percent off with the promo code POD10. So what you waiting for? Get your ticket and see you there.

Hey, Scott, welcome to the podcast.

Scott Ensign (2:22)

Hi, Allison. Thanks for having me.

Allison Schiff (2:24)

So you know the drill. What is one thing about you that not a lot of other people already know, and that I couldn't find on your LinkedIn, or by Googling you, or some other, I don't know, duck-duck going you?

Scott Ensign (2:37)

Well, I think this qualifies, although I do talk about it with people a lot, but it's definitely not on my LinkedIn.

During COVID, I have three boys who are older now, and we built an arcade in the basement, and I have pictures, it's pretty cool. Started with a couple of things, an air hockey table, and a vintage Double Dragon arcade cabinet, but it's kind of blossomed into a little ski ball, pop a shot, kind of a full complement of arcade fun down there. So that's something that's a good time. It's always fun to just pop down there, especially when I'm working from home, and I need a moment.

Allison Schiff (3:21)

You're a good dad.

Scott Ensign (3:24)

You know, I try.

Allison Schiff (3:26)

My favorite arcade game of all time is Ski Ball. I love Ski Ball, but also knock hockey.

It's really a tie between the two, yeah. Knock hockey is, and I'm quite good at it, I have to say.

Scott Ensign (3:39)

Nice, yeah, got basically all the games down there, one form or another. You know, it's a home arcade, so it's a little bit scaled down, but it's still a lot of fun.

Allison Schiff (3:48)

I'm assuming you collect quarters from your children.

Scott Ensign (3:53)

The funny thing is the arcade cabinet that I have, the vintage one, which is from 1987 Saturn, somebody's arcade or pizza shop or whatever for 30, 35 years, does still accept quarters and you can set it up to take quarters. So I've thought about bringing it into work and setting it up to have a little side hustle.

Allison Schiff (4:14)

So that's going to be, thank you, my segue from home life into professional life. So I want to properly introduce you. You're the Chief Strategy Officer at Butler Till, Rochester, New York based independent performance agency. It's 100% employee owned, women owned, and women owned and led. And it's a certified B-Core, which is a for-profit business that's verified to meet high standards of social and environmental performance, public transparency, accountability. A lot of things programmatic is not, funnily enough.

I mean, other examples of B-Cores, so people have a frame of reference, like Patagonia, Toms, Ben and Jerry's. But you've been over at Butler Till for a while, since 2018, lots of different hats, VP of Digital Media, then a lot of VP titles, VP of Client Solutions, VP of Strategy and Partnerships.