“We see a vast ecosystem that uses data and metrics in different ways, not just for currency,” she said in this interview with Beet. TV. “We think there will be many different ways to transact over time.”

Consumer data applications for advertisers include media attribution, conversion events, business outcomes, viewability and fraud prevention. For publishers, consumer data can help to get a better understanding of their audiences.

“If you’re taking the impressions that you’re serving, not only understanding the reach and frequency they might be delivering, but then also getting all the way to business outcomes, you’re able to create that transparency all the way to the bottom line,” Grammier said.

LiveRamp prioritizes authenticated, opt-in data from consenting consumers.

“When we think about responsible media at LiveRamp, we definitely start at the consumer. We to make sure we have their consent” to gather personal and authenticated data, she said. “You ask for their permission, and in that moment, you also capture the information that allows you to potentially to deliver the targeting to them.”

Connected TV platforms not only can glean viewership data from device identifiers and internet protocols (IPs), but also when they collect payment information.

“Most of the inventory is actually authenticated because we are charging for it. We are creating authentication moments,” she said. “The infrastructure, though, really wasn’t built to use that authenticated data originally.”

Advertisers have shifted their media spending to CTV and over-the-top platforms whose viewership provides incremental reach to linear TV.

“We see a lot of reach-maximizing strategies going on, and the consumers’ eyeballs have moved to the CTV platforms,” she said. “There will be a time when we’re all using that authenticated data, that consented data.”

Responsible advertising “goes a step deeper, and it does get into a little bit of the idea of corporate responsibility and corporate welfare, and really making sure our workflows, our transactions are transparent,” Mike Fisher, vice president of advanced TV and audio at Essence, a unit of WPP’s media agency GroupM, said in this interview with Beet.TV.

Making advertising work better for people is a key goal for GroupM’s media-buying framework called “Responsible Investment.” The idea is to create a healthier advertising ecosystem that advances brand safety, data ethics, responsible journalism, sustainability and diversity, equity and inclusion.

As much as advertisers want to ensure they’re reaching consumers with relevant marketing messages, they need to be mindful of people’s demands for privacy and willingness to opt out of data sharing. Advertisers also help to create a positive media environment by supporting the production of quality programming.

“Yes, there are subscription models out there that do work and do create good content, but what a lot of people sometimes forget is that advertising does drive a lot of content production,” Fisher said. “It’s a responsibility for us to ensure not just that advertising is used to deliver a message, but also to deliver strong content and create that content.”

Shift in Viewing Habits

The pandemic led many people to spend more time at home and further embrace streaming services that let them time-shift programming and discover other content. The rapid growth in digital platforms led advertisers to shift from daypart-based media buying and planning to impression-based methods. Streaming has become a major complement to linear TV.

“That means that we as an agency needed to change our approach very quickly as well, understanding that when everybody is at home during the pandemic and wanting to watch primetime content at all hours, every hour of the day became a theoretical ‘prime’ hour,” Fisher said.

The programmatic marketplace has evolved to give advertisers greater flexibility in their media buying, while also being mindful of the consumer experience. That include a reduced ad load, innovative ad units and other opportunities for brands to engage with viewers.

“In order to maintain and preserve a responsible ecosystem, particularly for programmatic, we must always consider the consumer,” Ashley Luongo, senior vice president of advanced TV and programmatic digital sales at NBCUniversal, said in this interview with Beet.TV. “It’s about the on-demand access and meeting consumers where they are, but it’s also about the user experience and keeping that at the center.”

Different Ways to Buy Media

Marketers may have the misconception that the programmatic marketplace consists of the scatter market, without opportunities for placements adjacent to premium content. With private marketplaces (PMPs), programmatic guaranteed or insertion orders, advertisers can now buy ad time in the upfront or scatter market.

“That level of flexibility and activation-agnostic approach affords all partners the ability to transact in the way that best meets their business objectives,” Luongo said.

NBCUniversal has invested billions of dollars in technology and premium content that helps to ensure that advertisers have access to brand-safe premium content through the programmatic marketplace, Luongo said.

“It’s no longer a small slice of an investment that’s peeled or carved out. It’s very intentional, it’s very front and center,” Luongo said. “The opportunity is to leverage programmatic as the most intelligent and sophisticated way of buying available in the marketplace today.”

Digital media companies, advertisers and ad-tech companies have fretted that the loss of tracking  cookies and device identifiers is making audience targeting more difficult. Providers of ad-supported streaming video already work in a cookieless environment that’s mindful of the consumer experience.

“The lessons in a way that smart TV or CTV advertising is creating a standard that all digital advertising has to live up to,” Colin Petrie-Norris, chief executive of streaming video service Xumo, said in this conversation presented by Beet.TV. “The fact that is operating in a cookieless environment has very much direct bearing on how display and mobile and others work.”

Xumo has a responsibility to a variety of constituencies, including viewers, advertisers, electronics manufacturers and content providers, Petrie-Norris said to Mike Fisher, vice president of advanced TV and audio at Essence, a unit of WPP’s GroupM. Xumo’s platform offers viewers with 220 live channels that have been vetted to ensure they are legitimate providers of video content.

“We have to treat their brand as if it was our own.  We have an obligation to them to make sure they get the scale, get the reach which advertisers enjoy; to use data to appropriately target users; and also to manage ad experience,” Petrie-Norris said. “We do a lot of work optimizing the ad experience, and making sure that we’re not overdoing the ads. It does work better when you can serve fewer ads which are more relevant. You can more engagement, more return users.”

Trusted Media Partners

Advertisers have grown more concerned about ad fraud amid discoveries of illegitimate CTV providers that spoof valid household internet addresses and generate fake viewership numbers. Petrie-Norris recommends that advertiser work with trusted partners and third-party verification providers to avoid this activity.

“The solution is: know who you’re buying from. Having a good guide who can take you through that is incredibly important for that,” he said. “The issues that the industry is faced with are on the decline relative to the scale emerging from the robust, reputable players.”

Comcast Integrations

Comcast last year acquired Xumo as part of a broader expansion into streaming video, which has become a popular way to see programming without a cable or satellite TV subscription. With Comcast’s backing, Xumo has plans to offer a broader range of programming.

“We are very encouraged by the future in front of us in terms of as we start to bring all of that muscle to bear in the space, we’re going to see very exciting things to come,” Petrie-Norris said. “We’ve earned a place in people’s living room during the pandemic, but now we have to show that we can continue to provide them and earn their time.”

Making advertising work better for people is at the heart of an effort by GroupM to promote a media-buying framework it calls “Responsible Investment.” The idea is to create a healthier advertising ecosystem that advances brand safety, data ethics, responsible journalism, sustainability and diversity, equity and inclusion.

LOS ANGELES – Automated bidding for commercial time is becoming more predominant as advertisers demand more flexibility in their over-the-top (OTT) and connected (CTV) media buys. That shift comes as video publishers seek to monetize their growing audiences for higher-quality programming.

“The programmatic CTV landscape has changed dramatically just in a handful of years,” Nicole Scaglione, global vice president of OTT and CTV business at sell-side platform PubMatic, said in this interview with Beet.TV. “What we’re seeing now is more and more publishers emerging, more and more quality content coming into the programmatic marketplaces.”

PubMatic last year introduced OpenWrap OTT to provide header bidding for ad placements on CTV and OTT platforms. Header bidding an automated auction technology that lets publishers offer their ad inventories on several demand-side platforms (DSPs) and receive multiple bids simultaneously.

“We want to help publishers monetize every single possible impression in a CTV marketplace, and we know that one of the best, cleanest ways to do that is through a header product,” Scaglione said.

Source: eMarketer

Amid growing concerns about ad fraud, PubMatic extended its fraud-free guarantee to CTV platforms. The company also has taken steps to partner with third-party companies like Samba TV, which provides a multisource panel for advertising measurement.

“These are thoughtful, research-based solutions as we’re watching the CTV marketplace change and evolve over time and develop,” Scaglione said.

Publishers are looking for monetization solutions that are adaptable and forward-thinking, and provide support for different business needs, she said.

“Publishers are really busy developing great content and engaging with their audiences, and very few publishers have the luxury of being both content providers and also ad-tech platforms,” Scaglione said. “That’s our responsibility: to take that stress away from them, and be brilliant at the basics of monetization.”

As a sell-side platform (SSP) that represents publishers, PubMatic is a key part of the advertising supply chain. The media marketplace is undergoing a significant transformation as marketers look for ways to reach target audiences while respecting consumer privacy.

“We’re seeing activation of data shift to the supply side as it’s closer to the source, in many cases,” said Kyle Dozeman, chief revenue officer for the Americas at sell-side platform PubMatic, in this conversation presented by Beet.TV. “Our focus has been on building tools that allow publishers and data owners to directly connect their data to media, and share that with the brands that they work with.”

Dozeman recently shared his insights about the changing media ecosystem with Adam Gerber, global chief media officer at Essence, a unit of WPP’s GroupM. The agency’s “Responsible Investment” framework aims to advance brand safety, data ethics, responsible journalism, sustainability and diversity, equity and inclusion.

Supporting Diverse Publishers

A key challenge for marketers is finding ad inventory among smaller, independent publications that have relied on advertising revenue to finance their journalism. Dozeman said PubMatic has worked to help access that inventory.

“We use a lot of our partners in different parts of our business in ensuring material portions of our dollars are going to companies that have diverse leadership and strong foundations and principles around equity and inclusion,” he said. PubMatic “is leaning in with buyers who care about this, and helping them get more connected with diverse publishers.”

Environmental Sustainability

Dozeman and Gerber agreed that the digital advertising ecosystem needs to become more mindful about energy use. The computer servers that form the backbone of the digital ad marketplace consume significant amounts of energy.

“We are cognizant of that fact, and we’re going to start evaluating partners and our supply chain – and try to generate some good results,” Gerber said.

Supply Chain Transparency

Advertisers also are demanding greater transparency in the digital ad marketplace, not only to ensure they’re reaching the right audiences, but also to avoid losses to ad fraud. Dozeman said PubMatic is focused on quality publisher partners that are reliable.

“We know that brands need complete confidence,” Dozeman said. “Some vendors catch things that others don’t. We want to make sure we’re honoring whatever a brand uses for their source of truth.”

This video is part of the Global Forum on Responsible Media produced by Beet.TV, GroupM with the 4A’s. This track on cross-screen measurement is sponsored by Nielsen. For more videos on this topic, visit this page.  

The entire Forum can be watched on-demand here, and all videos from this project can be found here. 

This video is a summary of interviews with executive who spoke in the TV transformation track presented by PubMatic, the sell-side platform (SSP) for programmatic advertising: 

 1. TV’s advertising model needs overhaul

Many consumers have shown a greater preference for streaming services that don’t carry ads, a trend that will challenge ad-supported channels to improve the consumer experience. The future of ad-supported TV depends on it. 

Instead of loading up on advertising that becomes a nuisance and pushes audiences to pay for ad-free programming, media outlets will have to focus on improving the consumer experience, said Adam Gerber, global chief investment officer at Essence, a unit of WPP’s GroupM.

2. Prioritize consumer experience

Media outlets also recognize the importance of giving consumers greater flexibility in controlling the viewing experience. Improvements to the consumer experience can include a reduced ad load, innovations in ad units and other opportunities to engage viewers. Combining the efficiencies of programmatic buying with premium content at scale is a key goal.  

“It’s about on-demand access and meeting consumers where they are, but it’s also about the user experience and keeping that at the center,” said Ashley Luongo, senior vice president of advanced TV and programmatic digital sales at NBCUniversal.

3. Brands want to buy premium inventory programmatically

The upfront market traditionally has been one of the best ways for media buyers to reserve premium inventory. But the marketplace is changing amid a shift in viewing habits and the growth of quality content that’s available in the programmatic market.  

Buyers awakening to idea of wanting security of reserving scarce, premium inventory, but want a biddable environment, said Nicole Scaglione, global vice president of OTT and CTV business at PubMatic.

4. Data and metrics offer more than a cross-screen currency

Consumers are viewing content among a wider variety of connected devices, spurring discussion about a cross-screen currency for measurement. But data and metrics can be used for more than just a currency, said Christine Grammier, head of TV measurement at data connectivity platform LiveRamp.

5. Pandemic will have lasting effects on media buying

Millions of people were stuck at home during the pandemic, spurring a significant shift in their media consumption habits. Advertisers have responded by de-emphasizing dayparts as people spend more time with streaming platforms. 

“When everybody’s at home during the pandemic and wanting to watch primetime content at all hours, every hour of the day became a theoretical prime hour,” said Mike Fisher, vice president of advanced TV and audio at Essence. “It changed up the way we did our planning and our buying.” 

This video is part of the Global Forum on Responsible Media produced by Beet.TV, GroupM with the 4A’s. For more videos on this topic, visit this page.  

The entire Forum can be watched on-demand here, and all videos from this project can be found here. 

“There’s one over-arching thing we all need to recognize, which is that the old model doesn’t work,” Adam Gerber, global chief investment officer at Essence, a unit of WPP’s GroupM, said in this interview with Beet.TV. “We’ve got a polluted environment — the tremendous amounts of advertising that just isn’t relevant or useful to viewers anymore.”

Making advertising work better for people is at the heart of an effort by GroupM to promote a media-buying framework it calls “Responsible Investment.” The idea is to create a healthier advertising ecosystem that advances brand safety, data ethics, responsible journalism, sustainability and diversity, equity and inclusion.

As higher-income households subscribe to paid services that don’t carry ads and lower-income consumers stick with free, ad-supported channels, the media marketplace will reflect a growing divide. That’s worrisome.

“We’re moving to a world of have’s and have-not’s,” Gerber said. “Increasingly, we’re going to have a population that can afford to avoid advertising, and to experience their video content à la carte and without interruption — which limits brands’ abilities to engage with them.”

That group also will have access to higher-quality news, information and entertainment, deepening the digital divide with others.

“We’re going to have an environment where large swathes of the population just don’t have access to some of the best premium content available because it’s all behind paywalls,” Gerber said. “That’s what really concerns me — whether it’s delivery of news, delivery of thought-provoking dramas, documentaries or just entertainment that helps people escape.”

Instead of loading up on advertising that becomes a nuisance and pushes audiences to pay for ad-free programming, media outlets will have to focus on improving the consumer experience.

“We need to make massive changes to ad load, and more importantly, we need to recognize that the old, legacy model of individual publishers selling their own inventory does not accommodate a world where we are mutually trying to reduce the ad load to the lowest degree possible,” Gerber said. “Advertisers need all of their partners on the sell side to work together to help us optimize campaigns — not within their own siloed portfolios, but across the entire ecosystem.”