Dive Brief: 

• A CMO Club poll of 600 CMOs revealed that nearly half, 46.2%, are planning to evaluate working directly with a demand side ad-buying platform rather than with an agency. 
• The evaluating CMOs are on top of the 15.6% of CMOs that are already working with a DSP for programmatic ad buying. 
• The shift comes from brands' ability to harness their own data for the use of media buys, which eliminates a lot of the need for a middleman. By working directly with a DSP, brands can often get a better deal. 

Dive Insight: 

This poll is just another example of a shift that is happening on the whole in the advertising industry. It makes sense, in almost any business, to eliminate a middle man if it saves money. If it catches on, agencies will have to find other ways to provide value in order to compensate.