To solve the transparency problem, entrant platforms developed and introduced a more advanced technological solution—“ad exchanges.” While the transaction through the ad network occurred via agents and manual workflow, the new ad exchanges offered digital, machine-automated media buying, giving birth to what the industry defined as “programmatic media buying”

Fortunately, demand-side platforms (DSPs) are established to help advertisers manage their campaigns by making contracts with advertisers under specific budgets, ad information, targeted audiences and performance goals.

RTB is also known as programmatic buying, which means that every online ad impression can be evaluated, bought, and sold—all individually, and all instantaneously. Enabling exchanges and buyers to work systematically together to sell and bid on ads, it means that every impression can be cost effective and placed in front of the right person at the right time (Green, 2012). This is the future of all online display advertising.

The introduction of real-time bidding (RTB) (a.k.a. programmatic buying), which allows bidding on a display ad impression as it is generated, means that the display advertising landscape is changing rapidly. Before the emergence of RTB, the display advertising market was mainly divided into premium contracts and ad networks (Yuan et al., 2013). RTB differs fundamentally from sponsored search auctions, which involves bidding against selected keywords (Zhang et al., 2014).

rather than conducting expensive user research, managers can quickly view user response rates and measure the success of a marketing campaign in real-time, enabling more effective planning for the next campaign (Business Zone, 2015).

But what accounts for this mass shift of paradigm? Internet advertising offers precise location-based targeting, and data-driven user’s profiling, segmenting the target market according to preferences, likes and hobbies, as well as retargeting, easy interpretation of results, and more reasonable pricing models. These are unique attributes that are not offered by traditional media before; according to (Scott, 2010), companies that previously bought expensive advertising media like TV or outdoor advertising can now achieve more precise targeting at relatively lower cost.

d impressions are now defined as the time lapse between a user’s browser fetching a webpage with available ad slots and the effective display on the webpage of ads

Ad networks offered a solution to the problem caused by the increasing fragmentation of content –what has been called the “long tail” [3] and the fact that audiences, differently from traditional commercial media, were spread across a number of different small websites.

This is of particular relevance given that ad impressions are the building blocks of the CPM price structure, what marketers pay for.

The automated method of buying and selling ads in large scale, distributed ecosys- tems happens between platforms that act on behalf of traditional actors such as online publishers and marketers (buyers, sellers) and novel actors such as various data brokers and intermediaries. Demand Side Platforms (DSP that act on behalf of marketers), Sup- ply Side Platforms (SSP that act on behalf of publishers) and many Data Management Platforms (DMP) exchange massive flows of data in real time as they seek to buy indi- vidual user attention.

One of the reasons of this success was that ad networks capitalized on the oversupply of publisher inventory; that is, the avail- able ad slots in a publisher’s online space.

One-third of brands, agencies, and publishers are using AI to enhance their first-party data sets

Companies are losing confidence in the accuracy of data received from key ad partners

71% of brands, agencies and publishers are increasing their first-party datasets

72% Expect their ability to use or access browser history, real-time signals, PII (e.g., email, name) and location (e.g., IP address, GPS) to be reduced

Though nine-in-ten expect Google Chrome to deprecate third-party cookies at some point, far less expect that to occur in 2024

What we’re trying to achieve with our core range is radically different to what we achieve with our limited-release programme,” says Pete. “But then the two also work really well together. Limited-release teaches you so many interesting things and allows you to push your knowledge, and then that inevitably feeds back into your core range.”

If there’s any formula for their success, it’s a large dose of curiosity, mixed with a spirit of openness and a desire not to take themselves too seriously. “Pete and I are very curious people, and so we’re always always looking for something new, be it the hops work down in Nelson or yeast research,” Jos says. “We like being quite technical, and diving right into the depths of the ingredients. Then there’s the art and the design and the stories of the beers and the personalities; combine that with collaborating with friends, breweries, artists, chefs or musicians—there’s just no end to the fun or creativity you can have with beer, which I think is the phenomenal thing about it.”

The brewery that started with a 50-litre plant and a 24-beer release spanning 24 weeks has continued to shapeshift and innovate, as well as delight and bamboozle beer drinkers around the globe.

Possibly the most impressive accolade, however, is the bronze medal in the Old Style Gueuze-Lambic category it won at the 2025 Brussels Beer Challenge. It was the first non-Belgian beer to place in the category.

really wanted every single beer to have its own story and its own personality.”

Beyond the liquid itself, BEER’s instantly recognisable branding was also the product of time. Garage Project commissions artists to create its labels, and every can or poster gets a unique treatment. (The brewery has since produced a coffee-table book, The Art of Beer, which collects many examples of its label art, accompanied by stories from the illustrators.)

Our understanding of the impact of picking windows and growing conditions on flavour has increased dramatically over the years,”