Broadcasters have experienced a dearth of live sports with the suspension of operations by professional sports organizations during the coronavirus pandemic. That absence has raised expectations for the upcoming return of the National Football League, whose regular season last year was responsible for 47 of the 50 most-viewed telecasts, according to researcher Nielsen.
Rita Ferro, president of Disney Advertising Sales, is keeping a close eye on news developments for sports, with network brands that include ABC, ESPN, Freeform, FX Networks, Hulu and National Geographic. In this episode of the Beet TV/VAB “TV Reset” forum, Ferro discusses the possibilities for innovation in sports broadcasting that will be meaningful for fans and advertisers.
Speaking to Bill Koenigsberg, the president, CEO and founder of media services agency Horizon Media Inc., Ferro said she sees more opportunity to provide “second-screening” experiences to fans who use their smartphones and tablets while watching games on TV. Second-screening is likely to be more important to fans who preventing from attending games at stadiums, but still want to share the experience of watching their favorite teams.
“Even if they allow some fans in, it’s never going to be the full, packed, sold-out stadium and the energy that that brings to a game, and yet you can create so much of that,” Ferro said. She cited the coverage of this year’s NFL Draft of college players, which this year was a virtual event consisting of 200 live video feeds from across the country.
“There was a tremendous engagement around that property, and it was the biggest NFL Draft of all time because it was covered differently and relevant for the times,” she said. “It’s opened our eyes to ways you can do things very differently than before.”
You are watching TV Reset, a leadership forum produced in partnership with VAB. The series is presented by 605 and Magnite. For more videos please visit this page.
]]>NBCUniversal is getting into the streaming game with next month’s rollout of Peacock, setting the stage more innovation and value-added services for advertisers. Peacock’s service includes free, ad-supported streaming that has the potential to support more interactivity between brands and consumers.
Laura Molen, president of advertising sales and partnerships at NBCUniversal, discusses the future of advertising in this episode of the Beet TV/VAB “TV Reset” forum.
Speaking to Bill Koenigsberg, the president, CEO and founder of media services agency Horizon Media Inc., Molen said Peacock has strong potential to convert viewers into shoppers with the development of supporting technologies.
“Free, ad-supported streaming…is the future, not just of viewership, but how advertising can work,” she said. “We can work together with marketers to create a commercial experience in a whole new way.”
The company is currently testing voice-activated remotes that let viewers respond immediately to advertising, Molen said. She also foresees innovation for ad inserts, product placements and channel design.
You are watching TV Reset, a leadership forum produced in partnership with VAB. The series is presented by 605 and Magnite. For more videos please visit this page.
]]>ViacomCBS, whose CBS network is carrying the Super Bowl on linear TV and digital channels, is bracing for the possibility that the game won’t have fans in attendance as part of the effort to stop the spread of the coronavirus . Other sports leagues like Major League Baseball and the National Basketball Association have resumed play without fans, while still broadcasting games on TV.
“I’m hoping the Super Bowl will not be fanless,” Jo Ann Ross, president and chief advertising revenue officer at ViacomCBS domestic advertising sales, said in this episode of the Beet TV/VAB “TV Reset” forum. “However, if it is, it’s still the biggest event. ViacomCBS across the company is rallying together to ‘eventize’ it — to get all our brands involved.”
Speaking to Bill Koenigsberg, the president, CEO and founder of media services agency Horizon Media, Ross said ViacomCBS is in talks with advertisers about the Super Bowl, including incumbents from last year’s big game that may be seeking to protect coveted placements. Those conversations are happening as advertisers consider the public mood amid the stresses of the health crisis and its effect on the economy.
“We are in conversations with a lot of clients about positions,” Ross said, adding that marketers are asking questions like, “What will the creative look like? What will the tonality be? Is it going to be a message of hope? Is it going to be selling product? Is it going to be addressing everything that’s going on in the country?”
Ross spoke to Koenigsberg on June 4, and since then, the NFL has said that it wants fans to attend the Super Bowl at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, while also acknowledging those plans could change, CBS Sports reported. The season opener on Sept. 10 won’t have fans, but the league has almost another six months to prepare for the championship game.
CBS is selling 30-second commercial spots in the Super Bowl for $5.5 million, while asking for another $200,000 to appear in the game’s online stream, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with those talks. Last year’s game on a rival network drew 102 million viewers through linear and digital channels, according to Nielsen data cited by Reuters.
Ross said ViacomCBS doesn’t negotiate through media reports about the cost to advertise in the Super Bowl, and is focused on preparing for the big game.
“Our tagline is, ‘Simply Stronger,’ because we want to simplify the process for agencies and clients,” Ross said, adding that the company wants to avoid over-complicating media buys on digital, cable or network.
You are watching TV Reset, a leadership forum produced in partnership with VAB. The series is presented by 605 and Magnite. For more videos please visit this page.
]]>The media and marketing industries can play a key role in promoting racial diversity, a topic that has become more pronounced in recent weeks. The killing of George Floyd while in police custody in Minneapolis ignited mass protests against racism and police brutality, and spurred advertisers to be more vocal about social justice.
As the nation’s premiere provider of TV programming for African American audiences, BET Networks sees a responsibility to inform, educate and console anyone who is troubled by recent events — and to use its platform to promote racial equality.
“It’s up to us to close the deal,” Louis Carr, president of media sales at BET Networks, a unit of ViacomCBS, said in an interview for the Beet TV/VAB “TV Reset” forum. “We knew we had a tremendous obligation to our consumers, to our business partners and even more personally, to our families. This was our time to live up to our brand promise.”
Speaking to Bill Koenigsberg, the president, CEO and founder of media services agency Horizon Media Inc., Carr highlighted several ways the BET Networks is promoting discussions about racism, inequality and economic empowerment.
Those efforts include a $25 million collaboration with corporate partners on its “Content for Change Initiative” that started on Juneteenth, the June 19 occasion has grown from a grassroots effort to celebrate the emancipation of people who had been enslaved in the United States.
Describing “Content for Change” as a pillar of its programming, Carr said the effort features content that aims to educate, inspire and motivate people to tackle racism.
Kimberly Paige, chief marketing officer of BET Networks, inspired the development of a series called “Love Letter” that recognizes the hardships faced by African Americans who have suffered disproportionately during the coronavirus pandemic. “Love Letter” pays tribute to what has been lost amid recurring crises.
“During this time of civil unrest and so much pain and hurt that our community was going through, we needed to let them know that they are loved, and that the No. 1 brand that is serving them, loves them very intimately,” he said. “We understand what they’re going through, and we’re going through it right with them.”
Amid the current difficulties, Carr sees a generational opportunity to address racism and create a pathway for more African Americans to find better representation at all levels of major companies. The mainstream affinity for Black culture can be translated into meaningful change, Carr said.
“All of you who love Black culture, get off the sidelines and join us in this fight for equality,” he said. “Most brands have benefited in some form or fashion from Black culture.”
You are watching TV Reset, a leadership forum produced in partnership with VAB. The series is presented by 605 and Magnite. For more videos please visit this page.
]]>Rita Ferro, president of Disney Advertising Sales, said investments in original programming are central to her company’s strategy to reach audiences on any device. In this episode of the Beet TV/VAB “TV Reset” forum, Ferro discusses Disney’s efforts to develop content for its lineup of streaming and linear TV brands.
Speaking to Bill Koenigsberg, the president, CEO and founder of media services agency Horizon Media Inc., Ferro said linear TV not only works for live programming, but also an outlet for original content that reaches a different audience than over-the-top (OTT) services do.
“We continue to make significant investments in original content, because we know that original content drives consumption not only on the OTT platforms but on our linear platforms,” she said.
With its $71.3 billion acquisition of 21st Century Fox last year, Disney became the world’s biggest movie and TV studio. Its media brands include streaming platform Hulu, which has ad-supported and ad-free tiers to provide a customized viewing experience, and linear channels such as ABC, ESPN, Freeform, FX Networks and National Geographic.
“They are complementary, and they have different audiences as we’re finding through the research and the data,” she said. “That’s informing a lot of the decisions we’re making from a content investment perspective.”
You are watching TV Reset, a leadership forum produced in partnership with VAB. The series is presented by 605 and Magnite. For more videos please visit this page.
]]>Laura Molen, president of advertising sales and partnerships at NBCUniversal, discussed how those dynamics helped the scatter market to recover in this episode of the Beet TV/VAB “TV Reset” forum.
Speaking to Bill Koenigsberg, the president, CEO and founder of media services agency Horizon Media Inc., Molen said demand started to pick up going into Memorial Day weekend, traditionally a heavy promotional period for advertisers as summer gets under way.
“The floor right now isn’t dropping. We’re actually so encouraged by the second quarter scatter market,” Molen said. “Marketers know that they have to market their way out of this to really get their companies back on track.”
A key test for broadcasters will be the upfront market, which typically offers lower prices than last-minute media buys in the scatter market. Molen said that while some advertisers have changed the timing of their campaigns, they are looking for opportunities in the upfront.
“We’re hearing from marketers that they’re still very interested in the upfront market,” Molen said. “If you are looking to secure inventory to get your message out there, particularly in certain time frames, the upfront is the way to go.”
With marketers facing greater pressure to get the most out of their media budgets during a period of heightened economic uncertainty, business outcomes have become a more important metric than ad impressions.
Molen said NBCUniversal has responded to those demands for business outcome guarantees, both for traditional brands and direct-to-consumer startups seeking to drive a response.
“For some clients, that meant traffic in stores, traffic online, subscriptions — all different kinds of business outcomes,” she said. “We are really invested in continuing to help our clients to measure what’s most important to them.”
You are watching TV Reset, a leadership forum produced in partnership with VAB. The series is presented by 605 and Magnite. For more videos please visit this page.
]]>Jo Ann Ross, president and chief advertising revenue officer at ViacomCBS domestic advertising sales, discusses the broadcaster’s pricing in this episode of the Beet TV/VAB “TV Reset” forum.
Speaking to Bill Koenigsberg, the president, CEO and founder of media services agency Horizon Media Inc., Ross says broadcasters are rebounding as the third quarter approaches after taking a hit coming into April.
“For CBS, we are not below upfront. In fact, we are still at premiums because in third quarter, coming out of upfront we came out very, very well sold,” Ross, who last year became the first woman to lead an ad sales team at a broadcast network, said.
She also sees strength in ViacomCBS’s cable and digital platforms. The company’s brands include MTV, BET, Nickelodeon, Comedy Central, VH1, CMT and Paramount Network, along with the CBS All Access streaming network.
“In terms of cable and digital, we’re active in scatter,” Ross said. “We have inventory, not as tight as CBS, but we are not writing below upfront currently. With what’s been coming in the past few weeks, I don’t see that changing.”
Ross also discusses the market dynamics between linear TV and streaming, and the importance of live sports to CBS’s lineup starting with the return of the PGA Tour.
You are watching TV Reset, a leadership forum produced in partnership with VAB. The series is presented by 605 and Magnite. For more videos please visit this page.
]]>Jo Ann Ross, president and chief advertising revenue officer at ViacomCBS domestic advertising sales, discusses how she and her teams have managed through the disruptions in this episode of the Beet TV/VAB “TV Reset” forum.
Speaking to Bill Koenigsberg, the president, chief executive and founder of media services agency Horizon Media Inc., Ross talks about the uncertainties that started in mid-March when officials ordered many businesses to close down to suppress the spread of COVID-19. While many advertisers and media agencies have been working remotely for months, Ross has found a way maintain and even deepen connections with ViacomCBS’s clientele.
“We’ve all learned how important in this industry the value of these personal relationships that we’ve grown to nurture,” Ross, who last year became the first woman to lead an ad sales team at a broadcast network, said. Supporting those relationships includes calling chief marketing officers at advertiser to reassure them that her company is there to help them.
“No one has been through a pandemic before,” Ross said. “I hope what we take away are the learnings that we listen more, we stay in touch more and that we really do work to help the clients solve the problems.”
You are watching TV Reset, a leadership forum produced in partnership with VAB. The series is presented by 605 and Magnite. For more videos please visit this page.
]]>In March, many brands began using brand safety tools’ keyword blacklisting features to dodge ad inventory adjacent to coronavirus news, or simply pulled out of news altogether, fearing that association with downbeat stories would harm their brand.
But Bill Koenigsberg, CEO and Founder of Horizon Media, the largest independent media agency in the U.S., says things are improving.
“Early on in the first two weeks, when the predictions were out there with potentially a million people dying … marketers were very careful to stay out of that environment,” he says in this video interview with Beet.TV.
“The news is slowly getting better and a little bit more optimistic, you’re seeing more and more marketers gravitate back into the news environments.”
US virus deaths were 85,197 at time of writing, but the last few weeks have seen fewer daily deaths and a growing proportion of coronavirus patients recovering, according to statistics.
The whole episode has forced brands – and their agencies – to think on their feet.
“I think it took a couple of weeks for certain clients to realize they’ve got to change their messaging,” Koenigsberg says. “Now you have seen so much more supportive, caring, purposeful messaging out in the marketplace from a tonality standpoint.
“We have told our entire brand strategy teams and activation teams, ‘we’ve got to scrutinise every piece of creative that goes on the air to make sure that there cannot be any backlash from the tonality and the content within the messaging out there’.”
Koenigsberg says some marketers, early in the pandemic, got their creative messaging “tone-deaf”, but quickly improved to match the times.
Although Koenigsberg says marketers are coming back to news because the news is getting more positive, some studies show they need not have swerved news in the first place.
Results of a survey from March by Integral Ad Science (IAS) show:
In a follow-up study in April, IAS found:
Consumers’ views seem at odds with those of brands. In a March marketer survey from IAS:
This video is part of a series titled Brand Suitability at the Forefront, presented by Integral Ad Science. For more segments from the series, please visit this page.
]]>His take on the media supply chain strikes a familiar and recurring refrain. “When you think about all the people that touch that food chain, we’ve got to get to a much better place in terms of performance metrics and transparency,” Koenigsberg says.
He defines transparency as “all sides sharing information. If we can get to the that place, I believe that the seller community, the publishers, the linear TV suppliers, the other platforms will end up all working toward business outcome solutions for clients.”
Koenigsberg differs from many in advertising and media who have been advocating for a uniform way to measure campaigns across media and platforms. He envisions a far more fluid landscape.
“You may end up having 100 different metrics, all these different KPI’s, but that’s fine. I think AI will help that. And if we can move in that direction, that’s where the world needs to go. That’s where the business needs to go.”
After building Horizon for the past 29 years based on an integrated business service model rather than the a la carte offerings of the biggest holding companies, Koeingsberg’s creation is now ranked #2 in the U.S. in terms of scale. However, with the rise of digital media, scale isn’t the be-all-end-all it was touted to be a decade or so ago.
“I’d rather be ranked in terms of being best in general as opposed to scale, because I don’t think scale says it all,” he says.
He ticks off a list of holding company legacy shortcomings and figures that the model he chose happens to be “the model of today.” But he’s not fully satisfied.
While being consistent has helped, “If anybody thinks that once they’ve reached that plateau they can rest on their laurels, that’s the time to change. We are relooking at our whole structure today.”
If he were to start from scratch, he’d want even more integration. “I believe that our teams should be led by business solution experts. I believe that the business solution expert should own everything. Content, data analytics, insights, tactical planning, data analysis with one cohesive integrated group.”
This video is part of a series produced by Beet.TV at Cannes Lions 2018 about advertising accountability presented by Mediaocean. Please find more videos from this series here.
]]>“Talent today in my opinion is a culture game,” Koenigsberg says in this interview with Beet.TV at the 4A’s Accelerate conference, a conversation in which he also shares his views on the present market dominance of Facebook and Google and why he thinks Amazon is most worth watching.
As he discusses the evolution of advertising and media agency holding companies, Koenigsberg recalls a decentralized approach consisting of “a ton of companies, not integrated but selling all kinds of different services. And when you think about companies that are completely integrated and non-siloed, it’s the antithesis I think of a holding company.”
Of the genesis of Horizon, he adds, “We didn’t build the company by buying a whole bunch of different companies that have competing interests.”
The industry talent pool consists of “smart kids” with “lots of choices.” So getting the most qualified ones to join a media agency is easier said than done.
“But we’re fighting a bit of an uphill battle with the pocketbook of Google and Facebook and Amazon and some of the other tech companies,” says Koenigsberg. “I believe that our industry has to somehow figure out an enormous pivot if we are going to get the best and the brightest in our industry.”
In a week that saw Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg explaining his company to Congress, Koenigsberg observes that nothing is static and that the business world constantly moves.
“There are some storm clouds over Facebook right now. How are they going to deal with their data play in the future. There are some big storm clouds with Google with regard to brand safety and their data play and where are they going to be in the future.”
Nonetheless, he doesn’t count out media companies with a presence in linear and digital as they consolidate, build out digital ecosystems and invest in subscription services and other forms of entertainment to drive scale.
“So I think that Facebook and Google will be chipped away at over the next five years. They’re not going to have the hold on the ecosystem that I think people think they will have,” Koenigsberg says.
He thinks Amazon in particular is one to watch because of its ability to continue to scale, the data and information it has on purchasing power and “the fact that they’re getting into every business under the sun, including the content business.”
This video is part of a series titled The Road to the Digital Content NewFronts. It is a preview of topics to be explored at IAB’s NewFronts, which begin on April 30. This series is presented by Meredith Corporation. For more videos from the series, please visit this page.
]]>In addition, agencies need to focus on inventing for the future and on hiring the right people for the new ways of marketing. “We are bringing in data analytics people, creative technologists, and behavioral scientists into our business. We are bringing in all kinds of new skill sets to navigate, paint, invent and create,” he says. Koenisberg also discusses the changes in creative needs and approaches, given the shifting dynamics in media, content, and storytelling.
He is the chairman of the 4A’s. Horizon is the largest privately-owned media agency in the world.
Bill Koenigsberg was interviewed by Beet.TV at the 4As’ (American Association of Advertising Agencies) Transformation 2015 event in Austin. Our coverage is sponsored by Videology. Please find more coverage from the conference here.
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