Is curation the ad industry’s saving grace?

The ad-tech world loves a good buzzword, and 'curation' is its latest shiny object. 

Digital advertising companies are trotting out this fancy term, pitching it as a solution to the age-old problem of dodgy ad placements across the internet.

We all remember the X conundrum from this year. Let’s just say running alongside graphic, racist, xenophobic, hateful content is not a part of most brands' larger strategy.

But let’s call curation what it is: a rebranding of old-school ad networks with a fresh coat of paint.

While ad giants like The Trade Desk, Xandr, Index Exchange, and OpenX push curated packages of premium publishers and tailored algorithms, it’s hard to shake the feeling that we’ve seen this all before.

What exactly is curation, anyway?

Let’s not get too carried away—it’s not a new product, but more of a concept.

In essence, curation in ad tech refers to private marketplaces where advertisers get access to a carefully selected list of publishers and audiences. Theoretically, this filters out the riff raff.

Think of it as an exclusive club. One where the bouncer decides if your ads will appear next to The New York Times or a blog run out of someone’s basement.

Matthew McIntyre of GroupM’s Choreograph sees right through the spin, likening curation to a repackaged ad network. He even created a Chrome extension that replaces the word 'curation' with 'ad network' for good measure.

Call it cynical, but if it sounds like an ad network and smells like an ad network… well, you get the idea.

The push for premium (and the perks for publishers)

There’s no doubt the industry is feeling the heat. Advertisers are fed up with wasted dollars and seeing their ads appear on questionable sites. The Trade Desk, for example, rolled out a curated offering called SP500+. This narrows placements down to a hand-picked list of 500 premium publishers, including major names like The New York Times. 

Not to be left out, Yahoo promises a 'direct path' to MFA-free publishers like News Corp and ESPN. Chalice AI even launched its own curation tool, Chalice PMPs. It aims to target high-quality inventory using sophisticated data from partners like LiveRamp.

Big brands like Coca-Cola are jumping on board, citing curation as a way to better control ad quality. After all, when your ad budget is as fizzy as a Coke, you want to make sure it doesn’t end up plastered next to controversial content.

Curation' a double-edged sword?

Sure, sending ad dollars to premium sites could help clean up the internet’s ad clutter. But there’s a flip side—by funnelling more money to a select few publishers, smaller voices may be squeezed out.

Matt Barash, a former exec at Index Exchange, told Marketing Brew that curation is 'another nail in the coffin of the open web.'

The curated approach hands more power to a few big players while leaving the 'long tail' publishers struggling to stay afloat.

For small publishers, this could mean fewer ad opportunities, while the premium sites bask in their new-found ad spend glory. It's a bit like a VIP section at the club—the bouncers let in the A-listers, while everyone else waits behind the velvet rope, wondering if they’ll ever get in.

And if you know anything about being a punter – you usually don’t.

Can curation fix what’s broken?

There’s a reason why programmatic advertising embraced the open web in the first place. It was efficient and promised scale. But it hasn't always delivered on that promise.

Recent reports revealed that $10 billion was spent on made-for-advertising (MFA) sites between September 2022 and January 2023. Even as the industry tries to address these issues, sketchy sites continue to find their way into ad inventories.

Curation claims to offer a fix, but is it just a band-aid? Even reputable sites like Forbes and Gannett have monetised less-than-stellar content. So there’s no guarantee that curated placements will be free of junk. It’s one thing to slap a premium label on something; it’s another to deliver quality consistently.

An actual trend? Or a mere whisper?

Despite all the buzz, I’m lowkey sceptical that curation is truly gaining traction.

It’s likely that there’s more discussion from the industry than there is interest from real world clients. Hearsay, if you will.

Sure, curating your ad spend sounds nice, in theory, but it doesn’t always fit into a broader media strategy.

For brands that want a guarantee of running ads in specific places, curation works. But for everyone else, it’s just another option in a crowded space.

So is 'curation' here to stay?

Curation might be the ad-tech industry’s latest attempt to convince advertisers it has all the answers, but the reality is murkier.

While there’s some value in being more selective, it’s not the one-size-fits-all solution it’s hyped up to be. More than anything, it feels like a familiar story: ad-tech companies promise a 'new' way forward while leaning on tried-and-true methods.

So, is curation just another shiny new buzzword? Or could it actually drive a meaningful shift in advertising?

Time will tell. But for now, it’s worth questioning whether this rebranded approach can truly solve the problems it’s supposed to fix—or if it’s just putting a bow on an old gift and calling it new.

-Sophie, Writer