Deprecated: Return type of WP_Theme::offsetExists($offset) should either be compatible with ArrayAccess::offsetExists(mixed $offset): bool, or the #[\ReturnTypeWillChange] attribute should be used to temporarily suppress the notice in /home/superbeet/dev.beet.tv/wp-includes/class-wp-theme.php on line 554

Deprecated: Return type of WP_Theme::offsetGet($offset) should either be compatible with ArrayAccess::offsetGet(mixed $offset): mixed, or the #[\ReturnTypeWillChange] attribute should be used to temporarily suppress the notice in /home/superbeet/dev.beet.tv/wp-includes/class-wp-theme.php on line 595

Deprecated: Return type of WP_Theme::offsetSet($offset, $value) should either be compatible with ArrayAccess::offsetSet(mixed $offset, mixed $value): void, or the #[\ReturnTypeWillChange] attribute should be used to temporarily suppress the notice in /home/superbeet/dev.beet.tv/wp-includes/class-wp-theme.php on line 535

Deprecated: Return type of WP_Theme::offsetUnset($offset) should either be compatible with ArrayAccess::offsetUnset(mixed $offset): void, or the #[\ReturnTypeWillChange] attribute should be used to temporarily suppress the notice in /home/superbeet/dev.beet.tv/wp-includes/class-wp-theme.php on line 544

Deprecated: Return type of WP_REST_Request::offsetExists($offset) should either be compatible with ArrayAccess::offsetExists(mixed $offset): bool, or the #[\ReturnTypeWillChange] attribute should be used to temporarily suppress the notice in /home/superbeet/dev.beet.tv/wp-includes/rest-api/class-wp-rest-request.php on line 960

Deprecated: Return type of WP_REST_Request::offsetGet($offset) should either be compatible with ArrayAccess::offsetGet(mixed $offset): mixed, or the #[\ReturnTypeWillChange] attribute should be used to temporarily suppress the notice in /home/superbeet/dev.beet.tv/wp-includes/rest-api/class-wp-rest-request.php on line 980

Deprecated: Return type of WP_REST_Request::offsetSet($offset, $value) should either be compatible with ArrayAccess::offsetSet(mixed $offset, mixed $value): void, or the #[\ReturnTypeWillChange] attribute should be used to temporarily suppress the notice in /home/superbeet/dev.beet.tv/wp-includes/rest-api/class-wp-rest-request.php on line 992

Deprecated: Return type of WP_REST_Request::offsetUnset($offset) should either be compatible with ArrayAccess::offsetUnset(mixed $offset): void, or the #[\ReturnTypeWillChange] attribute should be used to temporarily suppress the notice in /home/superbeet/dev.beet.tv/wp-includes/rest-api/class-wp-rest-request.php on line 1003

Deprecated: Return type of WP_Block_List::current() should either be compatible with Iterator::current(): mixed, or the #[\ReturnTypeWillChange] attribute should be used to temporarily suppress the notice in /home/superbeet/dev.beet.tv/wp-includes/class-wp-block-list.php on line 151

Deprecated: Return type of WP_Block_List::next() should either be compatible with Iterator::next(): void, or the #[\ReturnTypeWillChange] attribute should be used to temporarily suppress the notice in /home/superbeet/dev.beet.tv/wp-includes/class-wp-block-list.php on line 175

Deprecated: Return type of WP_Block_List::key() should either be compatible with Iterator::key(): mixed, or the #[\ReturnTypeWillChange] attribute should be used to temporarily suppress the notice in /home/superbeet/dev.beet.tv/wp-includes/class-wp-block-list.php on line 164

Deprecated: Return type of WP_Block_List::valid() should either be compatible with Iterator::valid(): bool, or the #[\ReturnTypeWillChange] attribute should be used to temporarily suppress the notice in /home/superbeet/dev.beet.tv/wp-includes/class-wp-block-list.php on line 186

Deprecated: Return type of WP_Block_List::rewind() should either be compatible with Iterator::rewind(): void, or the #[\ReturnTypeWillChange] attribute should be used to temporarily suppress the notice in /home/superbeet/dev.beet.tv/wp-includes/class-wp-block-list.php on line 138

Deprecated: Return type of WP_Block_List::offsetExists($index) should either be compatible with ArrayAccess::offsetExists(mixed $offset): bool, or the #[\ReturnTypeWillChange] attribute should be used to temporarily suppress the notice in /home/superbeet/dev.beet.tv/wp-includes/class-wp-block-list.php on line 75

Deprecated: Return type of WP_Block_List::offsetGet($index) should either be compatible with ArrayAccess::offsetGet(mixed $offset): mixed, or the #[\ReturnTypeWillChange] attribute should be used to temporarily suppress the notice in /home/superbeet/dev.beet.tv/wp-includes/class-wp-block-list.php on line 89

Deprecated: Return type of WP_Block_List::offsetSet($index, $value) should either be compatible with ArrayAccess::offsetSet(mixed $offset, mixed $value): void, or the #[\ReturnTypeWillChange] attribute should be used to temporarily suppress the notice in /home/superbeet/dev.beet.tv/wp-includes/class-wp-block-list.php on line 110

Deprecated: Return type of WP_Block_List::offsetUnset($index) should either be compatible with ArrayAccess::offsetUnset(mixed $offset): void, or the #[\ReturnTypeWillChange] attribute should be used to temporarily suppress the notice in /home/superbeet/dev.beet.tv/wp-includes/class-wp-block-list.php on line 127

Deprecated: Return type of WP_Block_List::count() should either be compatible with Countable::count(): int, or the #[\ReturnTypeWillChange] attribute should be used to temporarily suppress the notice in /home/superbeet/dev.beet.tv/wp-includes/class-wp-block-list.php on line 199

Deprecated: DateTime::__construct(): Passing null to parameter #1 ($datetime) of type string is deprecated in /home/superbeet/dev.beet.tv/wp-includes/script-loader.php on line 333

Deprecated: Return type of Requests_Cookie_Jar::offsetExists($key) should either be compatible with ArrayAccess::offsetExists(mixed $offset): bool, or the #[\ReturnTypeWillChange] attribute should be used to temporarily suppress the notice in /home/superbeet/dev.beet.tv/wp-includes/Requests/Cookie/Jar.php on line 63

Deprecated: Return type of Requests_Cookie_Jar::offsetGet($key) should either be compatible with ArrayAccess::offsetGet(mixed $offset): mixed, or the #[\ReturnTypeWillChange] attribute should be used to temporarily suppress the notice in /home/superbeet/dev.beet.tv/wp-includes/Requests/Cookie/Jar.php on line 73

Deprecated: Return type of Requests_Cookie_Jar::offsetSet($key, $value) should either be compatible with ArrayAccess::offsetSet(mixed $offset, mixed $value): void, or the #[\ReturnTypeWillChange] attribute should be used to temporarily suppress the notice in /home/superbeet/dev.beet.tv/wp-includes/Requests/Cookie/Jar.php on line 89

Deprecated: Return type of Requests_Cookie_Jar::offsetUnset($key) should either be compatible with ArrayAccess::offsetUnset(mixed $offset): void, or the #[\ReturnTypeWillChange] attribute should be used to temporarily suppress the notice in /home/superbeet/dev.beet.tv/wp-includes/Requests/Cookie/Jar.php on line 102

Deprecated: Return type of Requests_Cookie_Jar::getIterator() should either be compatible with IteratorAggregate::getIterator(): Traversable, or the #[\ReturnTypeWillChange] attribute should be used to temporarily suppress the notice in /home/superbeet/dev.beet.tv/wp-includes/Requests/Cookie/Jar.php on line 111

Deprecated: Return type of Requests_Utility_CaseInsensitiveDictionary::offsetExists($key) should either be compatible with ArrayAccess::offsetExists(mixed $offset): bool, or the #[\ReturnTypeWillChange] attribute should be used to temporarily suppress the notice in /home/superbeet/dev.beet.tv/wp-includes/Requests/Utility/CaseInsensitiveDictionary.php on line 40

Deprecated: Return type of Requests_Utility_CaseInsensitiveDictionary::offsetGet($key) should either be compatible with ArrayAccess::offsetGet(mixed $offset): mixed, or the #[\ReturnTypeWillChange] attribute should be used to temporarily suppress the notice in /home/superbeet/dev.beet.tv/wp-includes/Requests/Utility/CaseInsensitiveDictionary.php on line 51

Deprecated: Return type of Requests_Utility_CaseInsensitiveDictionary::offsetSet($key, $value) should either be compatible with ArrayAccess::offsetSet(mixed $offset, mixed $value): void, or the #[\ReturnTypeWillChange] attribute should be used to temporarily suppress the notice in /home/superbeet/dev.beet.tv/wp-includes/Requests/Utility/CaseInsensitiveDictionary.php on line 68

Deprecated: Return type of Requests_Utility_CaseInsensitiveDictionary::offsetUnset($key) should either be compatible with ArrayAccess::offsetUnset(mixed $offset): void, or the #[\ReturnTypeWillChange] attribute should be used to temporarily suppress the notice in /home/superbeet/dev.beet.tv/wp-includes/Requests/Utility/CaseInsensitiveDictionary.php on line 82

Deprecated: Return type of Requests_Utility_CaseInsensitiveDictionary::getIterator() should either be compatible with IteratorAggregate::getIterator(): Traversable, or the #[\ReturnTypeWillChange] attribute should be used to temporarily suppress the notice in /home/superbeet/dev.beet.tv/wp-includes/Requests/Utility/CaseInsensitiveDictionary.php on line 91

Deprecated: trim(): Passing null to parameter #1 ($string) of type string is deprecated in /home/superbeet/dev.beet.tv/wp-includes/class-wp.php on line 173

Deprecated: ltrim(): Passing null to parameter #1 ($string) of type string is deprecated in /home/superbeet/dev.beet.tv/wp-includes/wp-db.php on line 3030

Warning: Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /home/superbeet/dev.beet.tv/wp-includes/class-wp-theme.php:9) in /home/superbeet/dev.beet.tv/wp-includes/feed-rss2.php on line 8
Ashley Swartz – Beet.TV https://dev.beet.tv The root to the media revolution Mon, 28 Jun 2021 13:00:42 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=5.8.7 #BeetCast Replay: Andre Swanston: Angels Saved My Start-up as VC’s Shut the Door https://dev.beet.tv/2021/06/andre-swanston-angels-saved-my-start-up-as-vcs-shut-the-door.html Mon, 28 Jun 2021 11:25:46 +0000 https://www.beet.tv/?p=74650 He had a successful exit when his start-up Tru Optik was sold to data giant Transunion last year.   But it was  tough sledding, building an advanced media data business five years ago.  Now a super-hot sector, Andre was ahead of his time.

While he made early progress with product development and industry partnerships, funded from a few early stage angel investors, access to venture capital was nearly impossible.  While he says the adtech industry was open to him, he was shut out by VC’s — unable to even to get preliminary pitch meetings.  He blames racial bias.

With VC’s investing less than 1 % in Black-founded start-ups, Andre is committed to changing the equation both by his example, advocacy and now personal investing in promising companies.

This is one of the topics covered in a wide ranging podcast session moderated by guest host Ashley Swartz, CEO of Furious Corp.  They cover a number topics including the transformation of TV, the background and promise of the acquisition by Transunion.

Editor’s Note: This episode was published in January of the year.   It is as compelling and important as ever, so we are republishing it this week.

Please subscribe to the #BeetCast on your favorite podcast service.

The BeetCast is sponsored by Mediaocean.

]]>
Beet.TV
“Walled Gardens” Are Replicating, Presenting Buyers with a Tangled Landscape, #BeetCast Podcasat https://dev.beet.tv/2021/03/jesse.html Mon, 08 Mar 2021 00:36:38 +0000 https://www.beet.tv/?p=72233 The introduction of big, complex streaming video services, which are not interoperable, are creating new closed ecosystems or “walled gardens” – presenting new challenges to buyers.

This is one of the many topics covered in this episode of the #BeetCast with guest host Jesse Redniss and Ashley Swartz.  They also cover video pricing, inventory, privacy and data. Lots to unpack from these industry veterans and long time colleagues.

Swartz is founder and CEO of Furious Corp, an TV advertising infrastructure play. Redniss, a longtime advanced TV executive at NBCU and Turner/Warner Media, co-founded Brave Ventures, a media consulting and advisory firm.

Please subscribe to the #BeetCast on your favorite podcast service. The BeetCast is sponsored by Tru Optik, a TransUnion company.

]]>
Beet.TV
Data Collaboration Is Central to the Digital Future, Transunion’s Matt Spiegel https://dev.beet.tv/2021/02/spiegel-3.html Mon, 01 Mar 2021 03:31:18 +0000 https://www.beet.tv/?p=72050 Data will redefine the value of media brands and the efficiency of media buys for marketers. To make this happen, data collaboration is essential, says Matt Spiegel, EVP of the Media Vertical at TransUnion, in this Beet.TV podcast moderated by Ashley Swartz, CEO of Furious Corp and contributor to Beet.TV.

Creating a unified identity graph, and establishing “clean rooms” and interoperable marketplaces – all the while in a privacy compliant manner – are some of the industry topics discussed here.

Please subscribe to the #BeetCast on your favorite podcast service.  The BeetCast is sponsored by Tru Optik, a TransUnion company.

]]>
Beet.TV
Andre Swanston: Angels Saved My Start-up as VC’s Shut the Door https://dev.beet.tv/2021/01/angels.html Wed, 06 Jan 2021 13:47:29 +0000 https://www.beet.tv/?p=70926 He had a successful exit when his start-up Tru Optik was sold to data giant Transunion last year.   But it was  tough sledding, building an advanced media data business five years ago.  Now a super-hot sector, Andre was ahead of his time.

While he made early progress with product development and industry partnerships, funded from a few early stage angel investors, access to venture capital was nearly impossible.  While he says the adtech industry was open to him, he was shut out by VC’s — unable to even to get preliminary pitch meetings.  He blames racial bias.

With VC’s investing less than 1 % in Black-founded start-ups, Andre is committed to changing the equation both by his example, advocacy and now personal investing in promising companies.

This is one of the topics covered in a wide ranging podcast session moderated by guest host Ashley Swartz, CEO of Furious Corp.  They cover a number topics including the transformation of TV, the background and promise of the acquisition by Transunion.

Please subscribe to the #BeetCast on your favorite podcast service.

The #BeetCast is sponsored by Tru Optik, a Transunion company.

]]>
Beet.TV
BeetCast Episode 4: Don’t Write Off Linear TV, Simulmedia’s Dave Morgan https://dev.beet.tv/2020/11/dave-morgan-4.html Mon, 30 Nov 2020 12:47:41 +0000 https://www.beet.tv/?p=69977 While the media industry’s enthusiasm for addressable TV is building, it will remain a relatively small part of the TV advertising pie, says Dave Morgan, CEO and Founder of Simulmedia in this podcast.

This episode of the BeetCast is hosted by Ashley Swartz, CEO and founder of Furious Corp and a longtime Beet.TV contributor.

Linear TV provides the reach and value that advertisers want.   Furthermore steaming is not for everyone as a third of the country doesn’t have fixed broadband, Morgan notes.

While overall viewership for linear TV will continue to decline, CPM’s will rise and the overall marketing spend on TV will remain relatively stable, he predicts.

Please subscribe to the #BeetCast on your favorite podcast service.

The #BeetCast is sponsored by Tru Optik, a Transunion company.

]]>
Beet.TV
EDO’s Scott Grunther: Don’t Ignore Insights at the Middle of the Funnel https://dev.beet.tv/2020/03/edos-scott-grunther-dont-ignore-insights-at-the-middle-of-the-funnel.html Tue, 24 Mar 2020 00:51:03 +0000 https://www.beet.tv/?p=65566 There’s currently great potential to evolve and enhance linear TV measurement in a way that could b currency-grade. In a Beet.TV townhall interview with Ashley J. Swartz, CEO and founder of Furious Corp, Scott Grunther, CRO of EDO, explained how defining impact and reaching scale are important steps.

Grunther says that EDO is focused on how to capture the moment of impact for an ad, and specifically how to capture impact at the middle of the funnel.

“Everyone was at the top and hopped right to the bottom and attribution is terrific,” Grunther says. “But there is the ability in the middle of that funnel to capture impact when viewers are engaged and want to take an action. How do you capture that?”

The way he thinks of impact right now is the moment in which the viewer moves from passive to active. There’s exposure, attention, engagement and outcome, all of which are important and all are different measures of impact, but ignoring the middle-funnel metrics would mean losing out on a lot of key insights.

Part of finding a measurement that could be currency-grade requires thinking about scale. For the TV industry, this means being able to measure a small program on a cable network the same way that we measure a huge tentpole event like the Super Bowl.

“It’s basically being able to apply measurements and metrics to the entirety of programming regardless of how large or small the audience is,” Grunther says.

Reaching scale may be a huge step, but Grunther doesn’t necessarily believe that it will make the transacting process seamless. The buy side will look for accountability and proof of performance. Sellers, on the other hand, don’t want to guarantee anything that they don’t have to.

“In there lies this sort of conundrum and that is if you’re guaranteeing on outcomes or impact or other forms of effectiveness, it’s going to come down to what’s in it for both sides that is valuable for both,” Grunther says. “So I think we can get there, but ultimately the sellers are going to have to feel enough pressure from the buyers to basically adjust the way that they guarantee deals or conduct business.”

This video was produced  at the Beet Retreat San Juan 2020 sponsored by 605, DISH Media, NBCU, Roundel & Tubi.  For more videos from the series, please visit this landing page

]]>
Beet.TV
Ashley J. Swartz: ‘Work at a Distance, Yet Connect in a Meaningful Way’ https://dev.beet.tv/2020/03/furious-corps-ashley-j-swartz-work-at-a-distance-yet-connect-in-a-meaningful-way.html Sat, 14 Mar 2020 20:52:44 +0000 https://www.beet.tv/?p=65420 VIA BEETCAM– The media industry is reimagining what it looks like going forward given the Coronavirus pandemic. In an interview via BeetCam, Ashley J. Swartz, CEO and founder of Furious Corp., discussed some of the upsides and challenges involved with shifting the industry to working from home.

There are no longer tools in the arsenal to maintain the face-to-face culture of the industry, so companies must reimagine how to connect, do business, and continue to serve brands, audiences, and consumers. Furious Corp. has successfully grown over six years having been run remotely, and Swartz believes that the first piece is building a culture around working from home.

“Our muscle memory is to work at a distance yet figure out a way to connect in a meaningful way to do good business and to foster and ultimately infuse a creative process with goodness even though we’re not sitting side by side,” Swartz says.

An upside to working from home is that there is a huge opportunity to get things done. While watercooler conversation may be sorely missed, not only can it be substituted by programs like Slack, but it can now be time used to be more productive.

“There’s an immense and incredible opportunity for productivity,” Swartz said. “There’s also an immense and incredible opportunity to sort of narrowcast the boundaries of work.”

Without commutes, or stopping to get coffee, or other routine time-sucks, there’s more time to get important work done. The toolkit that companies have today, whether it’s Slack or Zoom, also allows for greater collaboration. Swartz believes that this is especially true for one-on-one dialogue.

“I have more substantive, meaningful dialogue because I’m reaching out to them with intention,” Swartz says. “And I’m reaching out to them in such a way that it’s purpose-driven and so there’s more substance and more meaning in the communication and ultimately we get more done together as a result.”

In working with large companies, workers now have the opportunity to escape the “meeting hell”. This gives workers much more control and autonomy over what their days look like.

There are some risks involved though. Swartz worries that young workers who are new to the industry especially will not have the support that they need.

“Make sure you stay connected with those junior folks in your organization,” Swartz says. “They need support, they need guidance, they need to feel connected. They have not been equipped with a toolkit and the life experience or professional experience to go off on their own on an island and just continue to do their job every day.”

Swartz also warns that individual workers may start to feel a loss in camaraderie, identity within the organization, and an overall connectedness to a team. This is up to all stakeholders in a company to keep afloat.

“I really think that’s our shared responsibility to make sure that we maintain the excitement, the passion, the vigor about our industry, and we continue to push the agenda and innovation forward.” Swartz said.

Swartz was interviewed remotely at home via the BeetCam powered by Zoom.

]]>
Beet.TV
Omnicom’s Steuer: The Industry Needs Standardization of Measurement https://dev.beet.tv/2020/03/omnicoms-steuer-the-industry-needs-standardization-of-measurement.html Tue, 03 Mar 2020 00:56:15 +0000 https://www.beet.tv/?p=65179 SAN JUAN, PR– In a landscape that values data, measurement, ROI, and other affirming selling points, why is it so hard to navigate? In a town hall with Ashley J. Swartz, CEO and founder of Furious Corp. at the Beet Retreat in San Juan, Jonathan Steuer, chief research officer at Omnicom Media Group, explored how the industry got to this space and how it can work to make it more accessible.

There are two forces that got the industry to where it is today. One is the promise of digital and how the way that digital optimization has worked has led us down a dangerous path where optimization is about short-term campaigns simply proving that something worked. In turn, the data that is yielded has shown short-term gains and ignored the big picture.

“The data that we buy and use has been focused more on showing short-term gains because they’re easy to show than thinking about how data fits into a broader audience strategy that looks holistically at the whole marketing funnel, the consumer journey, the true inventory optimization,” Steuer said.

The industry is also still operating in a world of measurement that was designed for a TV ecosystem in which there were three TV networks and where rating numbers felt like an accurate representation. Now, this ecosystem has evolved.

Accuracy now comes from counting each atomic exposure, including delivery and and outcomes.

“If you skip that counting step and go directly to the, ‘we’re going to do it on an outcome’, you necessarily sort of collapse the entire conversation into, ‘This campaign did awesome because more people bought beds or beer or subscribed to a newspaper,’” Steuer said.

In order to make this more accessible and more realistic, Steuer explained that it’s about simplification and standardization. The industry has been so fragmented that there is no standard interface or data set or way of looking at outcomes.

“You need a standard underlying data set that everyone can trade on so that instead of worrying about the information gradients around who has what data and who can do what better than the other folks, you can at least look at reach and frequency across everybody,” Steuer said.

This video was produced  at the Beet Retreat San Juan 2020 sponsored by 605, DISH Media, NBCU, Roundel & Tubi.   For more videos from the series, please visit this landing page

]]>
Beet.TV
Furious’s Swartz: Sellers Must Focus on Portfolio Optimization https://dev.beet.tv/2020/02/furiouss-swartz-sellers-must-focus-on-portfolio-optimization.html Mon, 17 Feb 2020 19:18:49 +0000 https://www.beet.tv/?p=65011 SAN JUAN, PR – Today, addressable TV inventory is a limited commodity that fetches a high price, and programmers and distributors tend to sell as much of it as they possibly can. But this approach won’t always increase the value of a linear TV portfolio and may even cause the value of spot inventory to take a hit.

“The cannibalization of your traditional spot business as a result of cherry-picking impressions or addressable units means you’ve increased your effective CPM, but you haven’t increased your top-line revenue at the end of the quarter or fiscal period,” says Ashley J. Swartz, CEO of Furious Corp.

To optimize the value of their entire portfolio, traditional TV sellers need to develop a better suite of tools and applications to drive ad-decisioning instead of relying on new products to fuel revenue growth. This is especially important when new offerings like addressable are rolled out; sellers need to be aware of the pricing implications for their existing inventory.

Ad-decisioning is gradually becoming more data-driven, though the “if greater than” rule often still prevails, meaning the available inventory that can fetch the highest price is served by default. (That’s how sellers can end up over-indexing on addressable and depress the value of high-performing spot inventory.)

“We see this arc of maturation in how we’re packaging linear inventory, where today it’s really about leveraging data to drive better pricing decisions and automate existing processes like rate cards,” Swartz says. “Eventually we’ll get to a place where we’re dynamically pricing and dynamically building plans and campaigns.”

But though demand for addressability and impression-based TV buying is increasing, it’s important to remember that advertisers still also want reach and frequency.

“We all know that a spot-driven, Nielsen-guaranteed business isn’t going away,” she says.

This video was produced  at the Beet Retreat San Juan 2020 sponsored by 605, DISH Media, NBCU, Roundel & Tubi.   For more videos from the series, please visit this landing page

]]>
Beet.TV
Horizon Media’s Campanelli: ‘First-Party Data Is the Holy Grail’ https://dev.beet.tv/2019/11/horizon-medias-campanelli-first-party-data-is-the-holy-grail.html Fri, 22 Nov 2019 03:22:25 +0000 https://www.beet.tv/?p=63726 Addressable TV puts audience data and insight at the center of buyer and seller strategies, helping them to better target the people most likely to resonate with ad spots on both linear TV and, increasingly, OTT platforms. That’s helped inform smarter buys and has led to more transparency into how ads are performing and the metrics they’re driving. That’s made for good business. But too much of a good thing can turn sour.

In conversation with Furious Corp. founder and CEO Ashley Swartz at the Beet Retreat in New York City hosted by Horizon Media, the agency’s evp and co-chief investment officer David Campanelli said that the top of the funnel still matters. Relying too much on data can leave a portion of potential customers off the table.

“As we get more specific and more addressable in media, do we lose that reach aspect, particularly in linear TV? What [linear TV] does well is reach massive amounts of people at one time with a 30-second ad,” Campanelli told Swartz. “Going too far down the addressable road, you’ll miss segments of the population that are potential consumers. There is still a role for that.”

The key, Campanelli says, is finding a way to make decisions using both traditional metrics, like Nielsen, and advanced TV metrics that paint more specific portraits of the customer. The more those two sides of the customer data coin – which incorporate top-to-bottom of the funnel reach – can merge, the more value that will be created, he argues.

And of course, as the top metric for Horizon Media is to drive business outcomes for clients, the value of the media buy has to match up for premium prices. As more agencies, including Horizon Media, build out their own data systems, the price of services increase. The investment has to be worth it, but Campanelli says the shift in emphasis from third- to first-party data is only going to continue.

“What we’re learning more and more is first-party data – good, valuable first-party data – is the holy grail, the way to go,” says Campanelli. “Third-party data is not as accurate as we had hoped. Leaning more into first-party matches and developing our own Horizon data practice and platform to match that and push that out to vendors is where we think it’s going in the future.”

Beet Retreat In The City @ Horizon Media is presented by 605 and Spectrum Reach. For more videos from the event, please visit this page

]]>
Beet.TV
Comcast Reports Big Increase in TV Viewing with VOD Surging 36% Year-Over-Year https://dev.beet.tv/2019/09/comcast-furious-corp-brendan-condonashley-swartz.html Thu, 05 Sep 2019 14:25:08 +0000 https://www.beet.tv/?p=61952 Comcast’s cable TV ad sales unit is launching a new agency dedicated to making creative ad assets for smaller advertisers.

Speaking at Beet Retreat in the City, “We’re Going Local!” , Brendan Condon,  Comcast Spotlight CEO, said: “If you don’t have good creative, your ad’s not going to work … especially when you’re thinking about attribution to digital.

“In the tier of marketers that are mid- to smaller-size, either they don’t have good creative and they need some advice and insights or they don’t have television creative at all.

“We created a team and then we’ll be launching this officially in the next couple of weeks, whereby they’re exclusively focused on being a full-service creative agency for these marketers.”

Successive Beet Retreats have heard of mixed reception for advanced TV advertising techniques, with some large brands slow to put spend in to addressable TV. Lately, however, smaller, direct-to-consumer brands have been adding to their digital ad spend with TV, whilst local cable providers are getting tooled-up to support addressable tactics, including with technology that can attribute consumers’ online actions to their TV ad exposure.

All of that new toolset would seem to require some hand-holding. “In an effort to show that it’s not that hard, we can do that for you and therefore get you on to television,” Condon said.

The move follows a busy month from Comcast Spotlight. Condon spoke with Furious Corp CEO Ashley J. Swartz at Beet Retreat in the City.

Research: viewing booming

Comcast Spotlight just published its Q1 TV Viewership Report, finding TV viewership is at a two-year high, reversing the trend of decline that Comcast Spotlight has seen since it began tracking this data in 2017. The report analyzed nine billion hours of cumulative Comcast platform viewing.

“Not only are (viewers) watching it more but (also) for longer periods of time,” Condon said.” The average television viewer in the Comcast household is watching television for about six hours and 25 minutes every day. It’s remarkable.”

“In 2019, we saw twice the amount of volume in terms of VOD (versus 2016). And that’s up 36% over the prior year.”

Web attribution for TV ads

Spotlight just launched Instant Impact, an analytics software platform that shows the impact on web traffic from airing an ad on Comcast, within 30 minutes of transmission. Initially, Comcast Spotlight rolled it out to car sales advertisers. But now Instant Impact is about to gain wider impact, sold to other kinds of brands.

Condon said he wants local advertisers to start adopting a “marketing funnel” approach, the same way big brands do, which requires drawing a line between initial awareness and measuring an end sale.

“We went all the way down to the local marketplace as well and said, Hey, that should hold true for them as well.” Instant Impact was conceived to answer the question: “How do you prove that the funnel actually works?”

Political campaigns need diversity

With a 2020 presidential election season gearing up, TV ad campaigns will be a focus again. This time, more than ever, household addressability based on available voter data will be well-used tactic. Now couple that with attribution technology which can actually illustrate the online outcomes of candidates TV ads.

But, from its analysis of the 2018 mid-terms, Condon’s TV Viewership Report, showed a broad approach can work best.

“Actually, the winning candidates spent money and time on the top three news networks. They spent less money on the primetime day parts. They spent less money in terms of shorter campaigns. The winners … needed to diversify their network selection. They need to diversify the day parts.

“Fourteen percent of our viewers are watching only the top five networks. That’s 86% of watching everything else. On average, the households are watching 34 different networks in any given month.”

This video is part of a series from the Beet Retreat in the City, “We’re Going Local!” hosted by GroupM Worldwide and sponsored by Amobee, Comcast Spotlight, TVSquared and WideOrbit. Please visit this page for additional segments.

]]>
Beet.TV
Attribution Will Bring ‘Significant’ Ad Spend Back To Local TV: TVSquared’s Kinsella https://dev.beet.tv/2019/09/tvsquared-furious-corp-jo-kinsellaashley-swartz.html Thu, 05 Sep 2019 04:14:46 +0000 https://www.beet.tv/?p=61922 The emergence of digital attribution technologies plugged in to local TV ad sales promises to bring “significant” levels of ad spending back to local TV operators.

That is according to an executive whose software company’s insights have been encouraging hundreds of advertisers to greatly increase their spending in the medium.

TVSquared helps power Instant Impact, an analytics platform at Comcast Cable’s Spotlight ad sales unit which shows the impact on web traffic from airing an ad on Comcast, within 30 minutes of transmission.

The relationship started with a proof-of-concept in three to five markets, followed with a pilot involving 25 advertisers and the full roll-out was announced this month. Comcast Spotlight has also said it intends to apply Instant Impact to more customer types outside of automotive.

Jo Kinsella, TVSquared chief revenue officer, spoke with Ashley J. Swartz, CEO, Furious Corp, in this recorded discussion at Beet Retreat in the City, “We’re Going Local!” in August.

TV is resurgent

“Television, to me, has the opportunity to thrive, not just survive now,” Swartz said.

“(In TV), we’re really not … losing money to digital,” Kinsella concurred. “We see (advertising) people coming back all the time. We have advertisers on the platform in 72 different countries right now, soon to be probably up at a hundred countries.”

She said one advertiser on the platform, which spent $1 million on TV three years ago, this year plans to spend $40 million.

Attribution unlocks value

The “game-changer” is attribution technology. Historically, TV has been viewed as a brand-building medium, at the top of marketing funnels; it has been difficult to prove how television commercials prompt actions like store visitation or, particularly, purchase.

That has caused many marketers to turn away from linear local TV, finding they can get results and proven effectiveness in digital channels.

“Now we can measure it and make it accountable,” Kinsella said. “We’ve seen advertisers double their spend, double their commitment, saying, ‘I’m not just going to advertise for three months, I’m not just going to do a Pulse campaign, I’m going to do an annual commitment, because now you’ve shown me that TV. is working’.”

An incremental comeback

Kinsella doesn’t expect the return of ad flow to local TV will happen overnight. Rather than place all their money on black, she imagines ad buyers making iterative changes, testing to discover exactly how TV can demonstrably fuel performance.

“When they’ve done that for a couple of months and they see that it’s driving more response, whatever the response might be, they say, ‘Oh, this is working, let’s keep doing it’. We have clients that have been optimizing now weekly, monthly… for three, four, five years.”

The future is measurable

Kinsella acknowledges that many in TV land are “terrified” of data-driven, automated TV ad sales. But she expects they will come around when all kinds of TV are made measurable.

“It just changes the whole TV ecosystem, if we can now measure everything, whether it’s a digital platform or a linear platform,” she says.

“It’s about serving up an analytics platform that allows our clients to choose their KPIs and to tie TV performance, whether it’s linear or digital, back to business outcomes. That’s the future.”

This video is part of a series from the Beet Retreat in the City, “We’re Going Local!” hosted by GroupM Worldwide and sponsored by Amobee, Comcast Spotlight, TVSquared and WideOrbit. Please visit this page for additional segments.

]]>
Beet.TV
Full Throttle For Addressable: Hulu, DISH & Comcast Execs’ Panel Debate https://dev.beet.tv/2019/09/hulu-furious-corp-dish-network-jennifer-donohueashley-swartzsean-robertson.html Mon, 02 Sep 2019 22:55:18 +0000 https://www.beet.tv/?p=62006 Major TV platforms are intent on selling ads targeted at individual households. They just would like to see a few industrial changes in order to fully realize that dream.

In a panel discussion at Beet Retreat in the City, “We’re Going Local!”, three TV platform representatives discussed their take on “addressable” TV.

Ahead of next year’s 2020 US presidential election, two of them said that electoral candidates are big customers for local addressable TV ad campaigns.

Ashley Swartz, Furious Corp CEO, led the discussion with:

  • Jennifer Donohue, Hulu VP local advertising sales
  • Sean Robertson, DISH Network General Manager, Addressable & Programmatic at Dish Network
  • Andrea Zapata, Comcast Spotlight VP research and insights

DISH talks politics

“We started this addressable journey seven years ago,” Robertson said. “We have the set top box data. Let’s use that to make our advertisers more enabled and more capable to reach a target audience.

“One of the early adopters to addressable was the political marketplace. It’s not (for them) enough to do (targeting by) age, gender and geo because you and your neighbor will have different politics.

“We looked to streamline that process and formed a joint venture (with DirecTV) called D2 where all political dollars to our two firms on an addressable scale are coming through one joint department.”

Comcast looks ahead

“Comcast has invested in technologies like blockchain, Blockgraph,” said Zapata. “I mean we are really looking at making sure like right now in the local space, we’re doing BYOD (Bring Your Own Data) actually for political ads. We are doing some really cool things in the local space.

“In five years what I would really like to see is, ‘How do we get addressable? How do we get national, how do we get geo all actually bought from the same team?’ It’s audience focused, it’s platform agnostic, it’s network agnostic. And there’s a currency that actually looks at (it) impression-based and de-dupes (audiences).

Hulu re-thinks ads

“At Hulu, the nice thing about our local team is that we can execute with an ease on the client side,” Donohue said. “You can buy every DMA (designated market area) in the United States or you can buy down to one zip code.

“It doesn’t just have to be a 15-second spot or 30-second spot. You could use our ads selector, make a decision. The viewer could decide, “I’m going to watch a two-minute commercial and then be ad free, a binge ad or a pause ad.”

This video is part of a series from the Beet Retreat in the City, “We’re Going Local!” hosted by GroupM Worldwide and sponsored by Amobee, Comcast Spotlight, TVSquared and WideOrbit. Please visit this page for additional segments.

]]>
Beet.TV
Three Steps To Unlock Future TV Ads: GroupM’s Castree https://dev.beet.tv/2019/08/groupm-furious-corp-tim-castreeashley-swartz.html Thu, 22 Aug 2019 17:45:13 +0000 https://www.beet.tv/?p=61927 Ongoing data mismatches and the wish of some tech vendors to own the ecosystem mean the true opportunities for selling TV ads using advanced digital techniques have “plateaued”.

That is according to the North America boss of the world’s largest media-buying agency, GroupM.

Tim Castree, GroupM North America CEO, in this video with Beet.TV, says traditional TV, therefore, remains robust with plenty of remaining upside to sell data-optimized traditional TV ad campaigns.

He is calling for “open” standards to change the game.

Castree spoke with Ashley J. Swartz, CEO, Furious Corp, in this recorded discussion at Beet Retreat in the City, “We’re Going Local!” in August.

Three steps to pace

Castree is calling for three things to accelerate adoption:

  1. “A simple standard … to agree … to measure all screens on an impression basis.”
  2. Agreed “data portability back to the customer’s definition of how they want to look at audience”.
  3. “The ability to define what data I’m going to use to build my advanced audience targeting set.”

Simple standards

Swartz described Castree’s vision for a common standard as “ensuring that they have a UID that allows them to identify unduplicated reach across multiple supply sources.”

He added: “Within that (standard), we’re (need) to understand, who have we reached perhaps, and at what level of certainty, and who have we reached for certain.

“We want to bring other data into systems where we care about people as the central kind of units that we measure things around. I think we can do a lot more with television than we are today.”

Bundling holding back addressable

Castree accused certain vendors of acting in their own best interests.

“We’ve had a lot of systems … a lot of companies trying to bundle data, technology, and inventory, and not bring it back to us,” he said. “(But,) we (at agencies) want to buy that in a disaggregated way.

“Bring the data back to us, so we can de-duplicate it and look across that”

Coming soon?

Some of these challenges may seem big. But Castree is confident. “I think we can get all those three things done in the next year,” he said.

That is because it isn’t the technology holding back adoption, it is protectionism.

“When we don’t operate this way, we give a massive advantage to the walled gardens (Google, Facebook and Amazon).”

And GroupM seems intent on the industry building common standards in an open way.

“Our goal at GroupM is to have an approach … which is not some locked-in GroupM standard.”

This video is part of a series from the Beet Retreat in the City, “We’re Going Local!” hosted by GroupM Worldwide and sponsored by Amobee, Comcast Spotlight, TVSquared and WideOrbit. Please visit this page for additional segments.

]]>
Beet.TV
Swartz’s Four Takeaways From Beet Retreat In The City https://dev.beet.tv/2019/08/furious-corp-ashley-swartz.html Fri, 09 Aug 2019 12:55:52 +0000 https://www.beet.tv/?p=61752 After 11 sessions, audience debate and a reception at the new headquarters of GroupM Worldwide at f the World Trade Center, what did it all boil down to?

On August 7, Beet.TV convened executives from advertising, media and technology companies for Beet Retreat in the City, “We’re Going Local!”, an afternoon of hashing-out how new technology can help local TV grow ad spend by giving advertisers new performance super-powers.

What did it add up to? In this video interview with Beet.TV, Ashley Swartz, Furious Corp CEO, who moderated a panel at the event, offers up her takeaways…

1. Collaboration

“There was a unified consensus within all of the large companies that participated here. It requires that we all work together to make it easier for buyers to buy and easier for buyers to aggregate audiences and make sure that they are reaching unique audiences in every dollar they spend.”

2. Data insights

“What I got to at the end of the great sessions in the panels … was that data is not just about driving dollars and targeting and actually execution of addressable. It’s really about taking a step back and leveraging data ultimately to enhance the value of the ecosystem.”

3. Protect this house

“(There is a need to) protect the preciousness of your audiences and ensure that television continues to rise above the noise that is digital … The things that make television great need to be protected while we move into this new world of data-driven television.”

4. Content still matters

“It is about programming. Even if you’re reaching the right audience, that audience is not captive. If you don’t have them at that moment of time … regardless of how precise and targeted the data with which you decided to reach that person at that moment, it doesn’t matter if they’re not actually engaged and paying attention.”

This video is part of a series from the Beet Retreat in the City, “We’re Going Local!” hosted by GroupM Worldwide and sponsored by Amobee, Comcast Spotlight, TVSquared and WideOrbit.   Please visit this page for additional segments. 

]]>
Beet.TV
‘Real-Time TV Does Not Exist’: Dish, Videa, Google, Experian Discuss https://dev.beet.tv/2019/01/dish-network-furious-corp-videa-google-experian-thursday-panel-1jim-dantoniashley-swartzarchie-gianunzipeter-dolchinbrad-danaher.html Sun, 20 Jan 2019 14:54:56 +0000 https://www.beet.tv/?p=58308 SAN JUAN — It was billed as the revolution for television ad sales – the emerging prospect of using internet-connected platforms and audience viewing data to plan, execute and measure TV ad campaigns in real-time.

After all, “programmatic” advertising unleashed “real-time bidding” (RTB) on to the world several years ago now. Today, real-time auctions for display ads are commonplace and many hope for a similar arrival in TV and video.

But a panel discussion at Beet Retreat discussed ongoing inertia in a $70 billion US TV advertising business where the legacy medium is proving reluctant to change…

DISH Network director, ad sales, Dish Media, Jim D’Antoni:

D’Antoni was asked if ad buyers’ requests for audience segments are still processed “mostly in Excel and (with) manual extracts of data from various systems, lots of macros”.

He responded: “Yes. There is still some friction.

“And that’s just dealing with one supplier – if you’re on the buy side, you’re going to have to deal with that three or four times. So there is a long way to go in terms of streamlining the process.”

Videa VP sales Archie Gianunzio:

Automation is what Videa is aiming to bring to the market. The company makes platforms that reduce friction in ad avails, makegoods and posting

“We have found, much to our chagrin, that (even) within the same broadcast group … multiple stations are not speaking the same language. There’s almost no standards at all when it comes to broadcast.

“We spent probably two years on something that we called traffic normalization, which was literally just getting our system to understand all the different names that exist for one program so that when someone wants to make a buy across multiple markets, the buy could happen and the system can understand (what) they mean.”

Google Head of Telco/Video Partnerships Peter Dolchin:

Asked for the most important priority, Dolchin said: “Interoperability.”

“We like challenges, but this is clearly complex and we have some really smart, talented people at the company who understand it. We’ve been recruiting people from the industry over the past decade. And so, we know it’s hard, but we are testing in a variety of different ways.

“So with this new linear addressable solution that we’ve launched, there is the ability to look at set-top box tuning data real time and bring that into the decision making when they’re selecting the ad. That is one of the ways in which we’re bringing real time to it.”

Experian director of TV solutions, Experian Marketing Services, Brad Danaher:

Danaher said his company had helped political advertisers target campaigns during the recent US mid-term elections.

“It was a big cycle for political. Even though it was big, we actually thought it would be a little bigger.

“When we work with folks like DISH, we have a platform called Audience Engine, which basically allows counts to be accessed within seconds if needed be. If (the audience target is, for example), environmentally-aware consumers … we can tell the MVPDs through that platform within 10 seconds and you can go on the platform and know it, and then launch that into their media plan, knowing the sizing right away. That’s an improvement.”

DISH Network director, ad sales, Dish Media, Jim D’Antoni:

D’Antoni was asked to describe the typical lead time to make an addressable TV campaign active.

“Typically three to five days,” he said. “And then that it served, it’s beamed up to the satellite. It’s (then stored) in the (set-top) box.”

Furious Corp  CEO Ashley Swartz:

That prompted the panel moderator to make a “broad” statement on the relative slowness of what many think should, by dint of being digital, be a fast process.

“There is no real-time in TV,” she said. “Tthere’s really very little real time data, real time insights, real time decisioning, real time delivery, realtime ops.” Fellow panelists agreed, though Google’s Dolchin explained that Google has launched a linear addressable TV ad solution which supports examining set-top box tuning data in real-time.

Videa VP sales Archie Gianunzio:

Gianunzio said he thought a lot of the infrastructure inertia remains in place because few inside the legacy TV business perceive a threat driving need for change.

“Within TV, things have always been relatively rosy. There’s this feeling that, ‘No matter whatever came along, we were going to be able to deal with it’.” He cited DVRs, internet and Netflix as examples of purported TV-killers that have not turned out to be.

“Every article that you read is like ‘The audience is down and yet it’s more important than ever that you’re using television to get your message out there’ – Facebook and Uber are (doing just that).”

But Gianunzio sees a change may finally be coming.

“The people who thought ‘we’re just going to go passed this and we’re not going to have to actually deal with it’ … they’re either retired or they realize that they’re not going to get to retirement without dealing with it. I think that’s what’s going to push us there.”

This video was produced in San Juan, Puerto Rico at the Beet.TV executive retreat. Please find more videos from the series on this page. The Beet Retreat was presented by NCC along with Amobee, Dish Media, Oath and Google.

]]>
Beet.TV
On The Edge Of Scale: Disney, Amobee, Nielsen Execs Weigh In https://dev.beet.tv/2019/01/disney-amobee-furious-corp-nielsen-laura-nelsontony-yiashley-swartzdave-hohman.html Sun, 20 Jan 2019 14:52:57 +0000 https://www.beet.tv/?p=58357 SAN JUAN — Ad spending on over-the-top (OTT) TV was expected to increase 40% to $2 billion in 2018, with addressable TV spend reaching $800 million, according to Magna.

That means spending on addressable TV – with which buyers can use advanced data and return path to more precisely target viewers and households – would represent only around 1.1% of total US TV ad spend.

What could draw more spending? For one, we know that US OTT device penetration is high – but also that much consumption through those is devices is of ad-free, subscription VOD.

Furthermore, the Beet Retreat heard many views about the importance of scale, with claims that ” about 15% of advertisers are using advanced TV, (but) 50% are sitting on the sidelines“, worries that many advertisers are still just experimenting and a call for more inventory to be given to addressable TV.

In this panel, several executives further debated how addressable can hit scale.

Scale is an organisational challenge

Even the largest of media companies is grappling with how to transform their ad sales initiatives…

Laura Nelson, SVP, Audience Solutions, Disney Advertising Sales:

“The whole reason that you’re seeing all this consolidation in the media industry is to get scale, and to get reach. Other companies have already done it. We’re doing it at our point.

“We had all these individual businesses that had different types of scale. In the linear side, it worked – but now we have to spend millions of dollars … to find the right partners to be able to activate the inventory and look at it holistically.

Competing with SVOD’s scale

Years ago, few may have predicted that paid video over the internet would be as big as it has become. But the rise of Netflix and Amazon now presents a challenge to media companies. Panelists discussed whether those players would emerge in to TV ad sales, and how TV companies must team to compete…

Laura Nelson, SVP, Audience Solutions, Disney Advertising Sales:

“If you think of our competitors particularly in the space like Netflix and Amazon. Netflix has scale, but are they going to be able to sustain what they’re doing with one revenue stream (subscription)?

“Amazon, on the other hand, is a whole other thing. Right? They have this whole base. They have multiple revenue streams coming in, and then they’re going to invest in content. To me, they feel like our biggest competitor from a scale and a reach perspective.”

Tony Yi, GM, Business Development, Amobee:

“They’re going to invest, between Netflix and Amazon, over $20 billion next year, which is larger than most of the TV ad revenues of any single companies in this room. They own the entire consumer funnel.

“We in the TV industry … need better consortiums, better marketplaces, better easier ways for the buy side to buy in a more frictionless manner. I think we’re seeing that right now with EGTA, with EVX, with RTLs, TV Marketplace, with OpenAP. We see a lot of starts to that solution.”

Buyers want more, better – and cheaper

The internal structure of the relationship between advertiser brands and their buying agencies influences the kind of ad inventory being chased, which may ultimately impact outcomes…

David Hohman,  EVP & Managing Director, Nielsen:

“Right now, most of the media agencies are winning business on a savings guarantee, which means that they have to show the advertiser that they’re spending less money. They want reductions every single year.

“So, there’s this pressure on agencies who are trying to innovate, who are trying to do the right things for their clients, and in the end of the day, they’re chasing low CPMs.”

Finite media time impacts scale

The entire media universe is growing – but consumers still only have 24 hours in a given day. Panel host Ashley J. Swartz of Furious Corp cited eMarketer research showing 2018 consumer media time went from 12 hours and 7 minutes to 12 hours and 8 minutes a day. She asked if consumers’ capacity to consume content naturally limits scale…

Tony Yi, GM, Business Development, Amobee:

“The latest stats on Facebook are that less than 20% of their audience will view a video ad for more than three seconds. That’s not going to move the needle.

“I definitely think there’s a capacity issue – the human conscience capacity issue.”

This video was produced in San Juan, Puerto Rico at the Beet.TV executive retreat. Please find more videos from the series on this page.

The Beet Retreat was presented by NCC along with Amobee, Dish Media, Oath and Google.

]]>
Beet.TV
Data Is A Product: Turner, Tru Optik, NinthDecimal Execs Discuss https://dev.beet.tv/2019/01/furious-corp-turner-tru-optik-ninthdecimal-ashley-swartzjesse-rednissfrans-vermeulenbrian-kilmer.html Wed, 16 Jan 2019 13:29:13 +0000 https://www.beet.tv/?p=58363 SAN JUAN — It’s now 13 years since the phrase “data is the new oil“, it is believed, was first uttered.

Now we are living in a world which is swimming – or, perhaps, drowning – in the sticky, digital substance.

For many in broadcasting, data is proving to be transformational to the way they sell advertising, reinventing a discipline that has long relied on manual operations and sketchy viewer targeting.

In this Beet Retreat panel convened by Beet.TV, executives discussed the application of data to their businesses.

Data is a product

Panel leader Ashley J. Swartz, CEO of Furious Corp, kicked off by positing that “data is a product”…

Jesse Redniss, EVP, Data Strategy & Product Innovation, Turner:

“100% data is a product. We just announced the fact that we’re launching our own Warner Media D2C (direct-to-consumer) product itself, which will be driven by deep insights on consumption, on behavioral insights, personalization, recommendation engines, dynamic ad insertion built into the overall interface, as well as dynamic content insertion, and dynamic framework of how the actual product itself gets built out. That’s all data driven.”

Frans Vermeulen, COO, TruOptik:

“Typically. what we see is in a programmatic delivery or even in a direct sold model, we see anywhere from 15% to 20% lift on the value of media when that kind of data is applied to it.”

Data needs more

But speakers also said that data alone won’t be a game-changer…

Frans Vermeulen, COO, TruOptik:

“I would say it’s not just the value of the data. It’s the value of the addressability itself. You’re also enabling this household-level dynamic insertion ability. It’s the combination of those two plus the media I think that gets you to that.”

Jesse Redniss, EVP, Data Strategy & Product Innovation, Turner:

“They have to work together.”

Brian Kilmer, SVP Advanced TV Solutions, NinthDecimal:

“Where I see the convergence of these two is traditional linear and then you have this audience data. The challenge is, what is the value of that? Is it about outcomes? Is it about time spent? Is it about consumer lifetime value?

“I think we’re not getting to that. We’re not starting to understand the value of combining data and linear television in a way for brands and buyers to truly value it in a sophisticated way.”

Quantifying value

Turner’s Redniss argued that this value actually is becoming clear. But Swartz asked panelists whether it can really be quantified…

Brian Kilmer, SVP Advanced TV Solutions, NinthDecimal:

“There is not a significant interest in proving the value from a buying standpoint at the moment, because they’re not incentivized to do so. They’re incentivized to efficiencies and reach.”

Frans Vermeulen, COO, TruOptik:

“I think we have the talent. I just think the costs of trying to understand the end ROI is still so high, and every marketer has their own metrics for success. It’s just hard to make it a universal standard.”

Industry must come together

Swartz said she feared different companies, all hoping to burst the bubble of traditional TV measurement currencies, would simply pick their own solutions, leading to silos…

Jesse Redniss, EVP, Data Strategy & Product Innovation, Turner:

“We as an industry need to come together to identify some key data points that we can all trade on. That’s it. If we can all baseline around that – and it’s not just one currency, it’s probably going to be five or six – that’s when it really starts to come together.

“We all need to do a better job of educating … the end consumer. Right now we’re giving them a shit ton of opportunities and a shit ton of choice. How do we help teach them and educate them on what those things mean?”

This video was produced in San Juan, Puerto Rico at the Beet.TV executive retreat. Please find more videos from the series on this page.

The Beet Retreat was presented by NCC along with Amobee, Dish Media, Oath and Google.

]]>
Beet.TV
NCC 2.0 Aims To Solve New Fragmentation Era, CEO Pangis Says https://dev.beet.tv/2019/01/ncc-media-furious-corp-nicolle-pangisashley-swartz.html Mon, 14 Jan 2019 17:29:12 +0000 https://www.beet.tv/?p=58306 SAN JUAN — It did it once before in an earlier media era, so can cable groups’ joint sales group tackle another wave of ad platform fragmentation?

Operated by Comcast, Charter and Cox Communications, NCC Media launched in 1981 to provide a common way for ad buyers to get on to disparate and disconnected cable, satellite and now telco networks.

In this Beet Retreat interview with Furious Corp CEO Ashley Swartz for Beet.TV, NCC Media’s CEO Nicolle Pangis says: “What NCC did is literally brought together a fragmented industry and became the one place where you could buy across all markets in the United States, across all networks.”

But that was “NCC 1.0”.

Under the new CEO, the group is transitioning to a more consulting role – but it also aims to solve a familiar problem.

“Ironically, we all know that the world is again very, very fragmented from a media perspective,” Pangis says.

“A fragmentation problem now exists across different data sets that are not pulled together in a cohesive way for the buy side to be able to leverage in a scaled way.”

Pangis says that problem doesn’t just exist across smaller distributors, but larger ones, too, like NCC co-owner Comcast, which has a large footprint of addressable TV-viewing households.

What do ad buyers want? “To be able to look for audiences that they need to reach, wherever they need to reach them,” Pangis reckons.

Put simply: “Anybody who buys addressable advertising knows this… there’s nobody from an addressable perspective now who has a big enough addressable footprint to be relevant to a large national advertiser.

“So that’s the 2.0 version of NCC – pulling together the largest data set in TV, which is part of the ownership of NCC, set-top box data, broadband, IP data … and leveraging that data set in conjunction with the supply that we have access to from a national addressable perspective.”

For NCC, it is perhaps a repeat of its founding mission, but with a different slant. “Addressable” TV is when internet-connected TV sets allow for the targeting of individual households or viewers, going far beyond the old way in which advertisers bought ads in shows whose audiences were deemed to be broad demographic matches.

2018 US spending to over-the-top (OTT) TV platforms was due to reach $2 billion, Magna recently forecast.

As much as that is an amazing opportunity, making it happen to the fullest extent means guaranteeing a degree of commonality across systems – or, as Pangis puts it, “making the dirty data clean”.

How will Pangis do that?

  1. “One piece of the puzzle is making the operational workflow between the agency, the buy side … make it easier for agencies to buy inventory that isn’t upfront inventory.”
  2. “Two is (to) just transact that down to the sell side with the make-good process in a more efficient fashion. We’re working through that right now with workflow tools. There’s things that are manual (that) can be automated if we put a little time into it.”

Which means NCC’s role will be that of “an aggregator of aggregators”.

This video was produced in San Juan, Puerto Rico at the Beet.TV executive retreat. Please find more videos from the series on this page. The Beet Retreat was presented by NCC along with Amobee, Dish Media, Oath and Google.

]]>
Beet.TV
Blending IQ & EQ For TV Ad Sales: Turner’s Redniss & Furious’ Swartz Discuss https://dev.beet.tv/2019/01/turner-furious-corp-jesse-rednissashley-swartz.html Tue, 08 Jan 2019 12:23:46 +0000 https://www.beet.tv/?p=58235 SAN JUAN — As much of the advertising landscape moves from human-, direct-sold advertisements to a data-infused, automated process, does the nature of TV become mechanistic along with it?

That was one of the many tricky balances debated in a fireside discussion at Beet Retreat between Turner EVP of data strategy and product innovation Jesse Redniss and Furious Corp CEO Ashley J. Swartz.

Swartz set up the distinction as a juxtaposition of “EQ” (emotional intelligence) and “IQ” (intelligence quotient), noting that the ongoing human characteristic of TV involves a heavy dose of the former.

Agreeing, Redniss said: “If you don’t have a great consumer experience, you’re never going to capture data.

“TV traditional business was never based on PII (personally-identifiable information), it was based on panels that Nielsen drove for a long time. Then along came all mobile platforms, web-based platforms, which are capturing IP, device IDs, you’re capturing a lot of behavioral insights.

“Now a lot of companies are blending emotional responses that can be gleaned from everything from biometric measurement to social conversation. All that (is) flowing into now how you’re actually really truly trying to understand consumers.”

After watching the digital display ad business convert largely to programmatic modes of ad trading, the broadcast business has spend the last couple of years looking for similar ways to inject data and automation in to TV and video advertising.

But, so far, a fraction of the US TV ad business has converted, and the evolution is now happening amidst a new global concern over practices which use consumer data in ad targeting.

Is the pendulum suddenly swinging back toward the human touch?

“I think right now, we need to put a pause, quite frankly, into the free fire hose of how data is accessed and utilized to strategically align use cases of how data can be leveraged,” Redniss added.

“Facebook is now in a position where they took too much liberty in how they’re leveraging data and who could actually access it.

“That’s the balance that every single company and every publisher is trying to solve right now – how do you scale content creation, how do you scale direct-to-consumer relationships in a way that respects that balance?

“When you look at what’s going on with GDPR and soon to be CCPA, which we believe and I believe should be an overall regulation that the US has to stand by. We’re going to have to do it.”

This video was produced in San Juan, Puerto Rico at the Beet.TV executive retreat. Please find more videos from the series on this page.

The Beet Retreat was presented by NCC along with Amobee, Dish Media, Oath and Google.

]]>
Beet.TV
Who’s Ready For Advanced TV?: A Beet Retreat Miami Panel With Furious Corp., Invidi, SintecMedia, Videology And Google https://dev.beet.tv/2018/01/panel3-friday.html Wed, 10 Jan 2018 23:57:42 +0000 https://www.beet.tv/?p=49497 MIAMI – The next generation of television—as represented by things like the ATSC3.0 standard—is now in sight. Then again, so is the moon.

To hear panelists at the recent Beet Retreat Miami explain it, lunar landings might be easier to achieve than getting TV broadcasters en masse to quickly embrace the future.

Asked by moderator Ashley J. Swartz to explain the implications of ATSC3.0, Rob Weisbord, who was recently named Chief Revenue Officer of Sinclair Digital Group, stepped up to the dais from the audience and said, “It’s taking IP technology, layering it over the linear transmitter so it gives you a hybrid approach. It puts broadcasters into a bit business.”

While that sounds exciting, reality quickly set in. Mike Kubin, EVP, Media at Invidi, explained how his company began working in 2003 with distributors to get its software into digital set-top boxes.

“It took us forever to make that happen,” Kubin said. “Right now we are in five terrific distributors in the United States. Our goals are to go international, but there’s only so much we can do. At the end of the day, they tell us what we can do or what we can’t do.”

SintecMedia CEO Lorne Brown cited a “future of TV survey” his company did in conjunction with the National Association of Broadcasters in which just 30% of respondents said they were ready for advanced TV. “Of those 30 percent, 60 percent said they were going to rely on legacy, in-house, home-grown technology to deliver advanced TV,” said Brown. “So only 30 percent are ready and 60 percent believe they can pull it off with the stuff that they have in house. I think that’s a major problem.”

Said Swartz: “All I’m hearing is more increased complexity.”

Jennifer Koester, Director of Global Partnerships for Google, took a positive approach. “I think the dichotomy that we keep talking about between linear and digital, it’s going away. I think we need to kind of step back from that and talk about solutions and technology that bridges the gap.”

She listed among the industry’s needs simplifying the ecosystem, making cross-screen reach and frequency easier, plus driving more value and being able to show it with regard to premium video inventory. That led to this exchange:

Koester: “The shift is going to happen and when it does, I think it’s going to happen very quickly.”

Brown: “I don’t think so. I think it’s going to be a slow, painful…”

Koester: “I think we’re in the slow painful part right now.”

Brown: “I think even ATSC3.0…”

Koester: “That’s going to be slow.”

Brown: “And so how fast can Comcast roll out addressable boxes? All of this is really, really slow.”

Tony Yi, GM, Strategic Commercial/Business Development for Videology, explained the complexity involved in trying to “be nimble” when dealing with integrations with systems for order entry, decisioning, trafficking, billing and CRM systems. While noting that media companies leverage Videology’s software to optimize the planning of data against media, it’s not always used for programmatic transactions.

“As an example, we just landed the press about Fox, a great partner client of ours, they use it for direct sales. They’re not using it in a programmatic fashion,” said Yi.

Swartz related a recent visit to a broadcaster to discuss a solution from her Furious Corp., only to experience a “not made here mentality.” She concluded that the meeting was a waste of time.

Brown summed up the differences between programmers and operators. “If I’m a national programmer, my strategy has to come from legacy linear outward. Versus if I’m an operator I can lean much more into advanced TV and impressions because I control the pipes and I have the data. Legacy linear for a national programmer is foundational and that’s really, really hard.”

This video was produced at the Beet Retreat Miami, 2017 presented by Videology along with Alphonso and 605. For more videos from the event, please visit this page.

]]>
Keynote: Furious’ Swartz On Media’s Battle With The Oligopoly https://dev.beet.tv/2017/12/ashley-swartz-furious-corp.html Tue, 19 Dec 2017 13:49:35 +0000 https://www.beet.tv/?p=49403 MIAMI — We are nearing the end of a year in which the murmurings of discontent toward the biggest tech companies grew in to a crescendo.

Media companies, advertisers, politicians, police and all manner of citizens have lined up to take pot-shots at the platforms.

At this point, no-one would bet against lawmakers taking significant actions against the so-called “duopoly” of Google and Facebook in 2018. But throw in Twitter, Amazon and others, too, because – as Furious Corp CEO Ashley Swartz says in this keynote address which kicked off the recent Beet Retreat event – the problem is actually an “oligopoly”, and it’s time for media to go to war.

“It’s estimated, in the next year and a half, Facebook will create more than 14,000 jobs in advertising and media, which will result in the destruction and elimination of 150,000 jobs in the agency world,” Swartz said.

“This new enemy that we have, is printing cash, if you will, and if we’re in the business of funding content and creating more content and trying to find more things to watch on more devices and more places, that feels like a really losing battle because content is a lot about access to capital, and these guys don’t seem to have as much of a problem with it.

“They’re not held to the same standard. They’re in a different race. It’s a different battle. What else I read about war is that, if your enemy outguns you, then you either wait for them to die the winter or you fight them on different terrain. Maybe that’s what we could talk a little bit about.”

This video was produced at the Beet Retreat Miami, 2017 presented by Videology along with Alphonso and 605. For more videos from the event, please visit this page.

]]>
Five Years Out: How Data Will Change TV Ad Buying according to Nielsen, Cross MediaWorks, Turner & Sinclair https://dev.beet.tv/2017/12/ashley-swartzrobert-weisbordkelly-abcariannick-troiano-furious-corpsinclair-digital-groupnielsencross-mediaworks.html Fri, 15 Dec 2017 12:29:25 +0000 https://www.beet.tv/?p=49207 MIAMI — It is the “new oil” that is fuelling value creation in businesses across the world, and now the TV ad sales business is really getting its motor running on data.

Advertisers’ own primary data, off-the-shelf datasets and more… a new world of viewer information has opened up to make TV ad targeting to over-the-top devices more powerful than ever before.

In many ways, this is a game that is just getting started. So what do the next five years hold for the application of data in TV ad buying? A recorded panel convened at the Beet Retreat discussed that topic. Here are some snapshots of what they said…

Turner ad innovation SVP Daniel Aversano:

“Using more and different data sets is important. That’s a little scary. When we talk to advertisers and agencies, and we use lots of different datasets in our targeting products today, no-one ever asks, “Is the data right? Is it representative?’ So, I do think that there’s going to be somewhat of a Renaissance period, where we come back to some of the core tenants of data quality.”

Nielsen SVP Kelly Abcarian:

“If you don’t validate it, you don’t ask the right questions about it, you don’t understand what it does and doesn’t represent, because there’s no such thing as true census. I think, digital kind of went down this really fast path of driving the Ferrari straight down the autobahn before they even drove it down the New York streets. And now they’re … figuring out, how do we build that confidence back?”

Sinclair Digital Group COO Robert Weisbord:

“We just hired our first data scientist, so I won that battle. The next will be a behavior scientist, but when you are dealing with linear people as the majority, you got to push a thousand pound barrel up the hill. We’re trying to blend this so called digital thought processing to the linear world, and I think it’s important that it’s not one or the other but amalgamates in to the new world.”

Cross MediaWorks CEO Nick Troiano:

“My belief is, in three or four or five years, devices won’t matter. Content will matter, data and audience will matter. If I’m a TV person from a company that is running a TV company, I’m basically saying that my business has to transform in the next three to five years. (We are) expanding and automating adjustable television. It’s shifting like 200 advertisers, that I currently do today on ad vision GRPs, to addressable.”

The interview was conducted by Furious Corp CEO Ashley J. Swartz.

This video was produced at the Beet Retreat Miami, 2017 presented by Videology along with Alphonso and 605. For more videos from the event, please visit this page.

]]>
Sky TV’s West On Data Enablement And The Five-Country Rollout Of AdSmart Addressable https://dev.beet.tv/2017/03/jamie-west.html Mon, 20 Mar 2017 01:11:36 +0000 https://www.beet.tv/?p=44956 VIEQUES, PR – With several years of addressable television, digital ad serving and analytics experience under its belt, Sky TV has committed to rolling out its Sky AdSmart addressable platform throughout its five-country footprint between now and the end of 2018.

One key competitive advantage is that it only charges advertisers for impressions that garner a 75% view-through rate, its Group Director of Advanced Advertising, Jamie West, says in this interview with Beet.TV. West was one of some four dozen advertising and media leaders who gathered for the Beet Executive Retreat 2017 titled Video Everywhere: The Transformation of Media & Advertising.

Sky is Europe’s largest entertainment company, serving the UK, Austria, Germany, Ireland and Italy, West explains in response to a question from Ashley J. Swartz, CEO of Furious Corp., the inventory and supply chain management company serving premium publishers.

“When you think about Sky from an advertising perspective, we’re most known for our advanced advertising products and scale,” says West.

As The Drum reports, Sky takes an agnostic approach to competing for advertising budgets not only with the likes of ITV and Channel 4 with with digital giants. “We as a broadcaster and an innovator have to compete head-to-head and toe-to-toe with the likes of Facebook and Google to truly compete in the digital age,” he told The Drum.

Asked by Swartz about the biggest change to Sky’s business over the last three to four years, West cites data enablement. It’s been a driving force behind not only Sky AdSmart but also Sky AdVance, which West describes as the ability to serve ads in a digital environment “as the result of some kind of consumption, whether viewing to apps or programs.”

The third pillar of the company’s operations is its analytics capabilities, including its viewing panels that now reach some 3- 3.5-million households and provide insights into second-by-second viewing. “With that appended to device ID’s and IP addresses means that we can serve ads across the whole digital estate as a result of that viewing consumption,” says West.

With Sky AdSmart, advertisers are charged only for impressions that have a 75% view-through rate. “On a 30-second commercial, that will be something like 20 seconds of incremental value versus some of the digital players that charge on one or three seconds,” West says.

This video is part of a series produced at the Beet.TV executive retreat in Vieques.  The event and series is presented by Videology and 605.  For more videos from the series, please visit this page.

]]>
Fox, Turner And Viacom Consortium: Scale And Efficiency For Audience Targeting, Says Turner’s Porter https://dev.beet.tv/2017/03/david-porter.html Mon, 20 Mar 2017 01:03:08 +0000 https://www.beet.tv/?p=44979 VIEQUES, PR – Underlying the just announced consortium formed by Fox, Turner and Viacom called OpenAP is the reality that audience-based television selling is “complicated and complex,” according to David Porter, Turner’s VP of Ad Innovation & Programmatic Solutions.

To speed advertiser adoption, the three media companies are hoping to make it much easier for brands to define their specific audiences and target them most efficiently, in a consistent manner, with publishers of their choosing. Measurement of campaign outcomes will be reported in a consistent format as well.

“We now have to become very data-centric and almost data experts in order to execute audience-based buys,” Porter says.

Among Turner’s contribution to OpenAP is the more than 100 linear TV, audience-based deals the company has executed to date, Porter explains in this interview conducted at Beet.TV Executive Retreat 2017 by Ashley Swartz, CEO of Furious Corp. Turner has learned a lot along the way.

“When setting up these campaigns, there’s a lot of friction in defining the audience segment,” Porter says. In addition, there’s the job of “getting the advertiser to help us figure out how we’re going to score that with historical viewership data and build that audience segment.”

As ADWEEK reports, OpenAP’s goal is to create a standard audience targeting platform that will allow for more transparency in audience buying and consistency of data use. OpenAP, which will go into beta this summer, will factor into the companies’ upfront talks this year, according to ADWEEK.

“The OpenAP announcement is huge because it will enable scale and efficiency in the industry,” Porter says.

Turner has been offering “two flavors” of audience targeting guarantees: a double guarantee on both the demo and the audience segment within a single network, and a “true audience impression guarantee across our portfolio,” he adds. “Our core proposition is that we can move through a whole continuum of KPI’s.”

This video is part of a series produced at the Beet.TV executive retreat in Vieques.  The event and series is presented by Videology and 605.  For more videos from the series, please visit this page.

]]>