LEMMA
PIONEERS IN PROGRAMMATIC DOOH
Spearheading DOOH a revolutionary transformation in the Digital Ad industry with Programmatic DOOH
“Every once in a while, a new technology, an old problem, and a big idea turn into an innovation.~ Dean Kamen
LEMMA are the pioneers of Programmatic DOOH in India that have brought a breakthrough in the arena. In an ecosystem dominated by Mobile as a primary medium to display ads, Lemma is introducing the digital industry to a fresh and robust digital medium in the form of Digital out of home screens (DOOH).
Lemma, a pioneer in programmatic, has developed a cloud-based programmatic platform that makes buying & selling of DOOH screens just as easy as mobile or web inventory. They are transforming DOOH into a mainstream digital medium with their programmatic platform that hones DOOH with capabilities similar to mobile and web advertising.
GOING INTO THE DEPTHS OF TECHNICALITY
Programmatic advertising simply involves automated buying and selling of advertising based on data and computer systems. Media Partners use an IoT based Lemma SSP (Supply Side Platform) to make their DOOH advertising inventory available to multiple Demand Side Platform (DSP) and Google DV360platform.
Lemma has its own DSP as well if Brands want to run their campaign directly through the Lemmadashboard. DOOH is now available on the bidder that sells multiple kinds of digital ad space, allowing door ads to be bought and sold on a large scale along with mobile ads, Internet display ads, paid social media and many other kinds.
INCEPTION STORY OF LEMMA
Lemma is the brainchild of Gulab Patil, the Founder, and CEO, who was intrigued by the installations of digital billboards in the city of Pune. He then went on to understand how these systems work & identified that there was a huge gap in the way DOOH media functioned in comparison to other digital mediums like mobile and desktop. Eventually, he realized that this medium hadn’t evolved as a digital medium in its true sense. This triggered the idea of creating a platform that would transform digital out -of -home media into mainstream digital. Gulab saw that with smart cities’ mission & other infrastructural development the DOOH industry in India was only going to get bigger. Thus, Lemma was founded in mid-2017 to overcome this challenge and also to capitalize on the opportunity in hand.
THE CLIENTELE
They extensively work with clients who are digital-first as their technology largely caters to the growing needs within the digital advertising ecosystem. Digital Advertising is a booming industry growing exponentially, resulting in $26Bn spend globally by 2023. They are also working with offline clients as well who see merit in using the technology from the operational efficiency and measurement aspect. The online planners look at this medium as innovative, whereas the offline planners look at this as a modern spin on a traditional medium.
Within a span of 20 months, they’ve worked with some prestigious brands like SBI Life, Durex, Maruti Suzuki, Sony pictures and HP Inc. All of which have been made possible through some reputed and leading ad agencies. To name a few Group M, Performics Resultrix, Dentsu Aegis Network and Ph.D. (Omnicom Media Group).
KEEPING PACE WITH THE MARKET TRENDS
It’s important to acknowledge that industry is everchanging and in order to stay ahead of the curve and match with the competitors, you ought to move with the times for the benefit of long-term business planning. Gulab Patil says, “I am may not be able to read every interesting leadership article but here’s when social media serves as a powerful tool to keep track of the industry updates, so I am well connected to it.” Apart from this, a healthy discussion with his ace business partners from the beginning has helped Lemma to stay ahead of the game as each one of them has over 13+ years of rich experience within the digital industry before onboarding as partners with Lemma.
Programmatic DOOH in India is still at its infancy and a lot of material in terms of Research and Reports are currently unavailable. Hence, they also rely on data gathered through their proprietary analytics tool, which gives them insights into the audience’s behavior & other relevant data gathered throughout IOT Beacons, Lat long data and third-party tools.
To be a part of such a dynamic and vast industry that is changing by the minute, Research and Development area must. The first year of their conception was spent in developing 2 key products, one a robust programmatic tech stack that not just worked independently but also was compatible with different DSP’s like GoogleDV360, MediaMath, AppNexus, etc.
making it a true key programmatic platform and second an IoT based software for digital screens that was compatible with multiple operating systems. This software basically makes any screen programmatic ready allowing media owners to then become a part of the digital ad industry.
DOOH IS CATERING TO THREE DIFFERENT AUDIENCES
Lemma platform is a solution that is not only designed to make DOOH mainstream digital but to also bring in operational and cost efficiencies lacking in the way in which DOOH is transacted today. Programmatic DOOH was an alien concept in our country not heard of tillLemma made its debut. In a nutshell, it is a technology that is presently catering to 3 different audiences and delivering an effective solution to each of the 3.
- Digital Media Agencies and Planners – Coping with the lack of an innovative display environment, since mobile. Programmatic DOOH with Lemma has brought in a new avenue for their digital ads.
- OHH agencies & offline planners – Coping with the tedious and partially manual process involved inDOOH ad planning and ad serving coupled with a lack of transparency in reporting and measurement. Lemma with its single view dashboard has bought in more credibility to the medium.
- Media Owners – Coping with rudimentary content management systems and limited ad revenue sources. Lemma provides instant access to multiple advertisers while enabling media owners to be a part of a$350 Bn Digital ecosystem.
Lemma platform is rich in features and a game-changer. It displays high performance with the capability of being able to process billions of impressions within a single minute. Adding on, they also have some cutting-edge technology that makes them compatible with DSPs like google DV360 and others. The showstopper feature, however, would be their data management platform(DMP)wherein the platform is capable of ingesting vast amounts of data gathered through IoT beacons. Lat-long fencing and third-party platforms which then allow advertisers to repurpose this for any digital campaign in the future, thus enabling cross-device strategies.
A SMALL YET SMART AND STRONG TEAM
To illuminate the importance of teamwork, Henry Ford rightly said, “If everyone is moving forward together, then success takes care of itself.”
Moving on the same lines, Gulab understands well the importance of workforce and team coordination.
He says, “I don’t ever feel that I am with my employees. Weare a family of 35 members. A small yet smart and strong team, helping me to run this business setup, successfully. A startup is always a challenge where everyone feels a little strained especially when we are doing so well, and as a leader, it is my responsibility to ensure they don’t feel burdened & underappreciated, or more importantly demotivated at any given point of time. “
Like any other company, they encourage occasional team lunches and celebrate festivals and encourage gatherings. In addition to this, they have bi-annual meet-ups to ensure employees working remotely from Mumbai, Delhi & Bangalore to connect with the team here in Pune.
The CEO says, “On a regular basis, however, every time I am in the office, I ensure we do the usual catching up and charcha over chai like they say and I pay keen attention to any problem that my team may be experiencing.”
I2O FORMULA FOR BUILDING A HEALTHY
WORK CULTURE Holding onto the values and ethics is quite essential in personal relationships and for carving a professional foundation. We can’t neglect them.
At Lemma, the ethics and values are paid proper heed to construct a positive working environment. Thereby, Gulab Patil encourages people with the I2O formula that helped him to build a healthy work culture.I2O denotes the following core values:
- Innovation: Think and implement new ideas that have the potential to change the world.
- Integrity: Show honesty and strong moral principles.
- Ownership: Take the responsibility as their own.
“I2O formula is helping me to align every person in the organization with my Vision and creating an identity for Lemma as an organization. This principle is also helping me to build good internal and external (client) relations.”~Gulab Patil
PASSION FOR INNOVATION KEEPS THE MANGOING
The entrepreneur follows the strategy – ‘Know your audience first before implementing a complete product’.For Lemma, he understood initially what the market need is and then defined a technology development plan.
Innovation and experimentation are the quintessential attributes for any business or company. Taking into consideration these crucial aspects, LEMMA during the stage of Product Development creates the basic sample product to discover the market needs. After the in-depth analysis, they frame a proper and structured product Development Plan.
The clients’ interest and their custom requirements motivate them to bring more innovations in product development. They keep learning new technologies and frameworks to implement the same and improve platform performance and stability. This also helps to bring creativity and inspiration to the team. Gulab Patil enthusiastically states,
“Passion for innovation is what keeps me going and I am lucky to have found employees and partners who share similar interests.”
AN INSIGHT OF THE ENTREPRENEUR’S STRUGGLES
Coming from a very humble background, Gulab’s father was a farmer and he was the only son to his parents. With much struggle in the earlier days, he with gratitude to them says,
“My parents gave me the most valuable gifti.e. education. Like Mr.Kalam said “you could be robbed of riches but not your knowledge” and this has shaped my life for the better.”
Henceforth, the maestro’s passion to keep learning and trying something new has resulted in Lemma; innovation born out of his curiosity and the ever-growing thirst for knowledge.
BE THE BETTER VERSION OF YOURSELF THAN TO BE APART OF THIS RAT RACE
In a world full of competition and a life that’s turned to nothing more than a rat race, Gulab encourages everyone to not compete with others but to just be better versions of yourself. Your success is to believe in your potential and one should measure his or her success from the last achievement to the current, rather than trying to measure success with other achievements.
The CEO optimistically says, “I am happy if my story does inspire someone but my message to him/her is to become better versions of themselves which would keep you going and happy in the long run. Beating Competition provides temporary joy but outdoing oneself is a reward for a lifetime.”
FEATHERS IN THE CAP
Lemma is the first company worldwide to be IAB compliant for DOOH. Defacto, they are pioneers in programmatic DOOH in India with the capability of running campaigns through leading DSPs as their USP sets them apart from others. This basically concludes that theirs is the only technology that allows DOOH screens to be used as a truly digital medium. They have recently won the gold for Best TechnologyProvider Programmatic Advertising Services code Studio 2019 India Technology Awards &Conference.
While they have spearheaded the effort in India, they are simultaneously catering to the programmatic DOOH demand in other countries as well. A very recent milestone is the first programmatic DOOH campaign in Indonesia for HP Inc. was launched with Lemma. They’ve also partnered with AdSparcin Australia to cater to programmatic DOOHdemand flowing in from NZ and AU. Global partnerships and expansion are the focal areas that they strive to empower.
“If you have an idea don’t hold back. Set a clear vision and aspire to attain it. Never doubt your idea for its worth is more than what others may value it .”~ Gulab Patil
