Ooyala’s SVP Ad Tech Sorosh Tavakoli talks simplicity and transparency in the market
This is part of an ongoing Q&A series from Eastwick’s Ad Tech practice. Every month we will be profiling advertising and digital media influencers to get an unfiltered glimpse or their professional and personal lives. If there is someone you’d like to see us profile, please email adtech@eastwick.com
What challenges do you feel advertising/marketing technology companies should be focused on solving right now?
New technology has brought a new world of both challenges and opportunities to media companies and brands alike. However, in order to help our customers, we have to keep our focus on what really drives value. Providing technology is a part of this but we also need to look at helping them figure out their strategies, their broader direction and how to really utilize all that technology available to achieve their business objectives. More than ever we have to help our customers keep things simple.
Who do you think is the most influential person in ad tech? Why?
Terry “Luma scape” Kawaja given his ability to market the ad tech industry (as well as himself) through either his logo madness slides, his viral Youtube videos from Cannes or his amazing Media Summit events. Nobody beats that.
What do you think will be the biggest trend in the next 5 years?
The commoditization of ad tech which will help brands spend less money while publishers making more. Also, ad tech will become more transparent making arbitrage much harder while software fees will increasingly take over from managed service black boxes. Great software will achieve increased scale, push prices down, and help this market mature.
What is something people may not know about you?
I speak 6 languages and my 18 month old son is already exposed to 4 languages every day.
