PEOPLE ARE PEOPLE NOT COOKIES - how to sell curation to an agency planner.

I may have been hanging out with the wrong people, or maybe that is the right people, I'll let you judge that, but lately, my feed seems to be full of nothing but articles and opinions about CURATION —which I am led to believe, well, which I know, is the latest thing in ad-tech and programmatic.?

Now, although these days I am what some might call a fluffy brand guy, living a lot of the time in the world of creative and brands, given my background and heritage in digital and data, (you can look me up on here obviously) it has piqued my interest.

So I?thought I would take a few minutes out of my lunch break today, to share my POV as an agency planner and one who frankly doesn't care about the technology, jargon or ad-tech acronyms as it were, and as such what I might want to hear when it comes to curation as the cure if you were pitching it to me.

So, surfing through all the bullshit bingo that is already attached to the word curation and seriously ad-tech friends you are doing yourselves no favours with it, nor are you by often forgetting the importance of a story and making it simple, if you're going to convince me of curation as a cure then try this.

Starting with that brutal simplicity, something I am obsessed with, the core benefit of curation seems to me to be that it adheres to the simple and so far ignored principle in programmatic: that people are people and not cookies, as I used to say and still do.

So talk to me about this and the human benefit, because when you start with technology as the answer, you instantly fail.

Start with the consumer, the end user, whom we are so desperate to connect with.

And furthermore, it is not just about connecting but also about emotionally impacting and affecting them to think, feel, and probably do something. Let me know how you can do this, and I will lean forward and listen to you.

And at this point, fight hard to avoid then adding the complexity, the bullshit bingo and over-promises of the past; tell me the truth about what and whom you can understand, tell me the why and then when this is real, not fiction give me that deal ID that gets me these real people.

SECONDLY, tell me where you're going to find them and, more critically, how you're going to help me curate my story for them.

Please note the use of curate here and story, too.

Please tell me how I?can dial in content and context.

Storytelling matters here, not inventory or eyeballs, and ad tech often forgets this, along with the importance of timing.

As the famous toilet graffiti says, don't beam me up yet Scotty, I am taking a shi.........?insightful if a bit crude perhaps.

THIRDLY and finally, feel free to tell me any other upsides here, be that less carbon or better brand safety. But going back to why I am doing this, the reality is these are more likely just table stakes, not USPs, and would not be the starting point for me as a brand planner and custodian of a client's all-important story.

And when you're telling me all this, drop the jargon, the complexity, the smoke and mirrors, and the cortisol-inducing complexity, too.

Tell me a simple story, talk to me, and maybe even drop the PowerPoint and wiring diagrams, too—I don't care.

All it does is raise my doubts that you have something that works.

So that is my non-AdTech take on selling me your ad-tech curation, be it from someone who understands the space but will let you judge that or challenge me in the comments.

As I have said before, not least commenting recently on an article from my old friend Fern Potter at Multilocal , someone who gets this more than most, we are at an inflection point here, a real opportunity perhaps, but for once, the ad-tech world needs to try and not snatch defeat from the jaws of victory once again, and let curation be just another thing that once was, and above all start from the perspective that people are people and not cookies.?