Programmatic Advertising: Forewarning and avoiding hype-cycle failure

The emergence of new technologies has often been examined through their transition along the hype-cycle. While this has been a useful approach, recent research indicates that not all new technologies follow the pattern of the hype-cycle as originally envisaged by Gartner. Programmatic Advertising (PA) is a multi-billion dollar business that uses web-based technologies to deliver highly personalised adverts to prospective consumers in real time. Despite its rapid growth it has received precious little scholarly attention. This study is therefore of interest to PA system developers and adopters since most have little understanding of its operation and limitations, and are poorly equipped to make informed decisions about its adoption and use. Through the construction of a Concept Map of the system and the development of four future states of Programmatic Advertising development, consumer concerns over the ethical usage of data and the real return on investment are issues that are identified as requiring the immediate attention of platform developers in order to mitigate the deleterious effects of hype-cycle decline. The study proffers two alternative means by which the Programmatic Advertising hype-cycle may develop, and unpacks the socioeconomic mechanisms by which a loss of serendipity may occur in Programmatic Advertising systems. •Programmatic Advertising a technology that is poorly understood and under-researched.•It is balanced at the peak of the hype-cycle and may be entering the ‘trough of disillusionment’.•Concerns over the use of personal data, ROI and the loss of serendipity threaten the technology use.