For the Unsung Heroes of Digital Media

The roots of digital ad operations are not the most glamorous.

They were the frazzled, they were the stressed—the original ad ops professionals would fret in cubicles for countless hours, struggling to get advertising to appear on websites. Under pressure to monetize fast-growing online traffic (or—on the agency side—ensure ads appeared on all the sites they were supposed to), they still managed to find time to jury-rig systems and set up processes to make their lives somewhat more manageable.

But were they rewarded for these gallant efforts? No—just like Rodney Dangerfield, ops got no respect, no respect at all. On the publisher side, the department would be overlooked for sales people that brought home checks. On the agency side, the media planners that holding the purse strings received all the attention.

Often the ops department would be seen as a cost center, when in truth ops professionals were quietly pushing the industry forward by mastering nascent technologies like programmatic.

As the role of operations has grown more prominent and expanded to previously unrelated areas, AdMonsters has tried to adjust the scope of its conferences to cover the ever-widening breadth of operations. This is most true with our yearly big-tent conference Ops in NYC, where hundreds of publisher, brand, agency, and tech provider representatives of all stripes debate and collaborate in building the future of digital media.

And new at this year’s Ops is the AdMonsters Power List, which looks to recognize individuals who are revolutionizing the digital media world through advertising, marketing, and monetization efforts. Just like the ad ops people whose toil ended laying the foundation for the digital ad ecosystem, we aim to recognize the unsung heroes—the people behind the scenes pushing the industry forward.

However, we’re not looking for just ops people—we’d like the Power List to represent a true cross-section of the industry, with a variety of roles from brands, agencies, publishers, and tech providers.

Areas of distinction include:

• Cultivating new revenue streams;
• Building or adopting cutting-edge technology;
• Developing better-received advertising at scale;
• Inserting efficiencies into the complex transaction process;
• Re-organizing teams and departments;
• and more.

Media technology is changing at a clip; how brands reach consumers and publishers monetize their content must follow suit. We invite you to nominate the person or people you think are transforming the digital media and advertising space, and just how they’re changing our industry for the better.

It’s time they get the attention they deserve, because they are the true power behind digital media.