We create brand-safe environments for users to engage with: Julian Fernando, Teads

As Vice President - Publisher & Platform Solutions (Asia) for Teads, Julian Fernando is inundated with requests from publishers, to the point of having to become extremely selective of who the company works with.

“At ad:tech (held in Delhi in March) we met so many publishers who wanted to come on board. But we have such a stringent process to onboard publishers that half of them won’t even get in. Then they ask ‘are you really in this business to make money?’ Of course, I am, but I also have a promise to the advertiser.”

“We evaluate on a few criteria. If it’s scale, we evaluate on scale; if it’s relevance, we evaluate on relevance, and relevance is most important to us. So, there are different metrics. Honestly, it might look like a super simple process that anyone can do, but no one understands what’s happening behind the scenes and the kind of evaluations we do. Because once we do that, we see the stickiness of return customers and build partnerships that continue over years. And we do it because we want to know whom we’re promising what to,” he says.

Teads operates a cloud-based, omnichannel platform that enables programmatic digital advertising across a global ecosystem of quality digital media. As an end-to-end solution, Teads’ modular platform enables partners to leverage buy-side, sell-side, creative, data and AI optimization technologies. For advertisers and their agencies, it offers a single access point to buy the inventory of many of the world’s leading publishers and content providers.

Fernando says the company believes in building an ecosystem of trust where advertisers who are advertising on Teads are assured certain results, and that’s why they pay top dollar. “It’s not my process, it’s Teads’ global process. And that’s why we’re not competing for 15, 20 cents. We’re expensive because we’re worth it. We've always operated in the premium content space with the simple promise that we will create clean and brand-safe environments for users to engage with,” says Fernando.

And premium content is ideal, because advertisers, publishers, and platforms all have invested heavily in creating quality products, which is what makes consumers come back. Having worked with The Times of India and Indian Express Groups, Fernando’s print background is bolstered by his stints with Yahoo, and operating in the digital ecosystem.

Fernando compares it to arranging a traditional marriage in India, where parents meet and evaluate their offspring’s potential mates. “That’s why I believe if you want to trust a platform, the platform has to trust you back. Once you’ve signed a contract with Teads, you know exactly where your money is going, and whether or not your entire inventory is sold. People come in and say they want to do a test and then they’ll decide. That’s not marriage, that’s dating.”