/ Buying Made Better

Games, togetherness, and bold beginnings

It’s been a while since we last spoke. How’ve you been?! Mm hm… mmm hm… mmm hm… Great! Oh, and us? Well, things’ve been crazy! Crazy good.

Back in November, we sponsored the Media Innovation Awards, which was a fantastic event with lots of great people. The Software Company Formerly Known as DDS (or Ω) made a DDS Desktop trivia game to find out just how smart our buyers are. Turns out they’re wicked smart and foiled our mind-bending trivia plans. We had to give prizes… two of them! Didn’t see that coming.

Our big brained winners were Daniel Mak from Media Experts and Katherine Andrikopoulos from ZenithOptimedia. Congrats! Curious to see how you’d do at Are you as Smart as a DDS Buyer? Give it a try here.

This year, we had a bit of news. We got married! Okay, it wasn’t quite as romantic, and we haven’t actually changed our name to Ω, but we did merge with MediaBank. United, we’re called Mediaocean, and we already have lots of plans in the works to improve advertising technology. The big one is called Project OS, and you can check that out here. As we get settled, we’ll keep you up to date on what’s happening.

Finally, drum roll please… eContracts beta has been officially released! We’re starting small with OMD and Shaw. Once they’ve helped us to iron out the kinks, we’ll roll it out to more agencies. If you’re interested in participating, talk to Ebube or Rishma. I’ve heard they accept bribes. Shhh…

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by on April 4, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in eAvails, eBookings, eContracts
Posted by admin on April 4, 2012

http://buyingmadebetter.net/2012/04/games-togetherness-and-bold-beginnings/

DDS’ secret programmer revealed!

There is a long-held bewilderment over the DDS numerological “system”. The question begs to be asked: Using which mathematical conventions can we offer up to 64 products per buyline, 218 products per client, and 208 spots per buyline? But, you didn’t think it was all an accident, did you?! We can finally shed a light on our strange and powerful programming guru, Hugo “Hurley” Reyes.

We thought our star performer was gone for good. Some time ago he left the office with a plan to buy a lottery ticket. He just disappeared and wasn’t heard from again for what seemed like seasons. Suddenly one day, he turns up at the office claiming he had just been lost, and he picked up where he left off. (Although sometimes he scares people a bit when he randomly starts muttering about a smoke monster.)

Well, we all know this lovable guy has our best interests at heart and a new gift to say sorry for making us worry. He is changing the limit of 255 buylines per station and estimate. It’s going to be 499… what can we say? He’s generous, but still a bit weird.

Having 499 buylines per station and estimate means you can work with fewer estimates to complete your buys, and give up the juggling act when it comes to makegoods. There will also be less burden when reporting, not to mention fewer non-sequential estimate numbers to keep track of. Less on your mind means more time to figure out if all these strange DDS numbers add up to something important.

More buylines is coming to your agency soon. Your account rep will contact you when it’s available. Until then, stay tuned.

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by on November 8, 2011  •  Permalink
Posted in Scheduling
Posted by admin on November 8, 2011

http://buyingmadebetter.net/2011/11/dds-secret-programmer-revealed/

1 in 3 buyers reluctantly agrees to prefer eContracts over invisibility

When asked to choose between two superpowers, an unscientific study revealed that 1 in 3 media buyers will, when coaxed, reluctantly but anonymously agree to choose eContracts over invisibility. Yes!

DDS recently met with three of Starcom MediaVest Group’s media buying veterans: Lindsey Talbot, Colleen McQuaid, and Andrea Kelterborn. We discussed DDS Desktop’s eBusiness features and how they improve the media buying process.

As early adopters of eAvails, the group said in spite of a few bumps, it has been well worth making the change to their process. Colleen estimated a time-savings in inputting of up to one month for the summer and fall 2011 buy. Lindsey added, “My group flew through conventional inputting, tracking way ahead of our usual timeline.” With the time saved, her group has already finished P1 posting, which they would normally be starting at the end of August. “That’s for radio AND TV,” Colleen noted.

eBooking was definitely more bittersweet. Although the tool is easy to use, the lack of adoption by stations means that buyers still have to be vigilant with follow-ups after accepting bookings. Andrea was quick to point out that eBooking helps avoid errors and keeps an audit trail of all booking activity. She said, “If the stations knew how much time and effort it saves us, how great it is for us, they would understand why we want to use it.”

Ready to stay ahead of the curve by jumping on eContracts when it’s available, the trio has already gotten to work prepping their buys by adding contract numbers. There is much anticipation that eContracts will eliminate discrepancies and save time. Lindsey points out, “People can’t just accept everything on a contract, which is going to be so easy to do. The process of buying, maintaining, and negotiating can’t be replaced. But it will definitely reduce the manual labour part of the day.”

What is clear is that these three ladies know what they’re talking about when it comes to DDS Desktop. To these fearless embracers of change, we say, “Thanks to Lindsey, Colleen, and Andrea!”

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by on August 30, 2011  •  Permalink
Posted in eAvails, eBookings, eContracts
Posted by admin on August 30, 2011

http://buyingmadebetter.net/2011/08/1-in-3-buyers-reluctantly-agrees-to-prefer-econtracts-over-invisibility/

Alpha-Beta Soup

The long wait to see eContracts is finally over, and the verdict so far is, “It’s deeelicious!” (Which we don’t really understand, but we’ll take it.)

We’ve done the big reveal with three agencies so far, and the reaction has been very positive. Plus, they’ve been offering great feedback and ideas for present and future ingredients. So, if you haven’t signed up for an Alpha demo yet, remember: you have to speak now, or forever eat cold soup.

Recruitment of Beta testers is now underway. If you think you can run eContracts through its paces on one or two clients, we’d love to hear from you. We are going to provide a healthy, robust application with lots of fully tested, working functionality. But, buyers beware: there will be some bugs, and a key element of Beta testing is your commitment to report bugs so we can get them fixed. On the good side, you’re going to get a big jump on reducing your discrepancy resolution load.

Stay tuned for an official date for Beta to begin, but expect it in early October. To learn more about what’s involved, call us; we love to talk about our ABeCs: Alpha demos, Beta testing, and eContracts.

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by on August 16, 2011  •  Permalink
Posted in eContracts
Posted by admin on August 16, 2011

http://buyingmadebetter.net/2011/08/alpha-beta-soup-2/

Find station contracts where and when you want them

Your inbox in the sky

Who has time to keep track of a zillion contract revisions across clients and stations? And, the ol’ hunt-and-peck through emails routine… no, thank you. Let’s just pick a spot and keep them all there. But where? How?

We created an XML version of a station contract. (Sounds boring, doesn’t it? This gets better, don’t worry!)  Broadcasters can upload contract revisions as XML files straight into an “inbox in the sky”, which you’ll know as your Contract Inbox. You don’t do a thing but pick them up. Like emails, the contracts just sit and wait until you’re good n’ ready to look at them.

When you open a contract, you’ll see makegoods, new spots, bonus spots, and day/time changes. All the good stuff. Plus, preemptions and cancelled spots too.

Contract types that can’t be processed just yet? Non-airtime charges, log-fill bonus, partial contracts, and contracts that support post-buy analysis.

After processing, accepted changes are written to your buy and rejected lines can be saved as a report. Which means you’ll have to contact your rep about rejections the way you do it now. But, did we mention your buy getting updated just like that? Plus, the processed contract will continue to live in the inbox with all your other contracts, in case you ever need it again. Contracts looking for you instead of the other way around… so much easier.

Like what you’re hearing? This is just phase one. What will we think of next? Stay tuned.

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by on July 25, 2011  •  Permalink
Posted in eContracts
Posted by admin on July 25, 2011

http://buyingmadebetter.net/2011/07/find-station-contracts-where-and-when-you-want-them/

How’s that discrepancy resolution process working out?

It seems you have two choices for dealing with contract revisions and the resulting avalanche of invoice discrepancies: grow more arms or find a better way. We don’t want to force you one way or the other, but hear us out.

Right now, the manual process takes too long and the number of contract changes is overwhelming. So, most of the time, revisions aren’t processed until a station invoice comes in and you’re forced to spend time resolving discrepancies that shouldn’t even exist. Meh.

Alternatively, stations can send their contract revisions electronically (we talked to them, and they’re good to go). You can import the files right into Buy Maintenance, where they can be compared to your existing buy. A list of changes will be displayed so you can quickly review them and make sure they work for your client’s goals. Then, you can accept all or some of the revised contract and have the buy automatically updated. When the station invoice comes in, you have that much more time for coffee breaks… or the other piles on your desk.

Having said all that, extra arms would be pretty useful for scratching four body parts at once or playing the guitar while texting. So, don’t rush to decide.

In the meantime, we’ll be putting the polish on our alpha version of electronic contracts, which will be unveiled in August. Plus, Bell and Shaw are getting ready to produce electronic contracts for our beta version this fall, so you can get your hands on it. So, check back here for more info as we remember it.

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by on June 29, 2011  •  Permalink
Posted in eContracts
Posted by admin on June 29, 2011

http://buyingmadebetter.net/2011/06/hello-world/