In this episode, Ben Putley speaks with Matt Wilke, Head of Digital Partnerships at Mediaplus UK and former programmatic leader who's worked across the Omnicom stack and WPP GroupM side of the industry. For the past three years, he's been working at independent agencies, bringing a unique perspective from both sides of the industry divide, from large holding companies to independents.

As someone who's navigated the evolution of programmatic advertising across different agency models, Matt shares candid insights about what's really broken in the current system and explores how blockchain technology could solve programmatic's biggest problems.

In this episode:

• Why 49% of ad spend disappears before reaching publishers (according to ISBA research)
• Why middlemen who don't add performance value will need to prove their worth or disappear entirely
• Why the open web still represents 50% of UK programmatic spend and where most waste lives
• How blockchain could bring transparency to the programmatic supply chain
• Zero-knowledge proofs for privacy-preserving targeting without cookies
• Why automated market makers could revolutionise ad buying
• The thought experiment: rebuilding programmatic from scratch

A must-listen for anyone working in programmatic advertising, ad tech, or digital media who wants an unvarnished look at the industry's current challenges and potential blockchain solutions.