“Build brands people love” is the mantra of the amalgamation of AOL and Yahoo that is Oath. Fittingly, the company has decided to share its “love” with advertisers and consumers at its love.com site. There resides a wealth of data from some 150,000 consumers in 13 countries to reveal what makes them love their most trusted brands.

“We love this opportunity of using what we have as an asset and let it be shared across the industry, and it’s something you’re gong to see more of,” says Tim Mahlman, President, Advertising & Publisher Strategy, Oath.

In this interview with Beet.TV at Oath’s first appearance at the annual CES confab, Mahlman explains the company’s mobile-first video push and how it intends to go big on such venerable brands as Yahoo. An example of the latter is the recently announced deal between Verizon and the National Football League. As CNBC reports, fans can live-stream playoff games on the Yahoo Sports app, a deal with the sports league that is pegged at more than $1.5 billion over five years.

“We still very much want to double down on properties like Yahoo and within that the Yahoo Finance property and Yahoo sports,” Mahlman says. “Those are still big, behemoth organizations that have massive followings, especially on the app ecosystem.”

Two themes Mahlman cites going forward are advertisers’ continued concern over ad-serving transparency and creating unique ad formats for consumers, particularly in the mobile video realm. As for the former, he says, “It really comes down to transparency and trust. It’s something we saw happen in 2017 where there’s been some turmoil.”

The need for more engaging formats is necessary to prevent consumers from shutting out ads altogether. “If we don’t take amore proactive approach on it, we could see ourselves in a much different situation.”

Mahlman believes that video needs to be “democratized” and “ubiquitous” because there’s no accounting for public taste. However, the caveat for publishers is the risk of going it on their own for video production. “If you try to produce the content on your own and you don’t get the engagement, it’s a heavy cost,” Mahlman adds.

For Disney, it’s the appeal of a big, quick deal and the options here and overseas it will deliver for testing various direct-to-consumer offerings. He cites what Sky TV has in Europe and Star has in India, plus a bigger stake in Hulu, along with ESPN’s app launch this year and the standalone Disney branded app in 2019.

“There’s a number of initiatives that Disney will be able to experiment with and see which model of the direct-to-consumer approach works,” the oft-quoted Senior Analyst at Pivotal Research says in this interview with Beet.TV at CES 2018.

On the Fox side, he believes one factor is that the company was “freaked out” by Facebook having expressed a willingness to bid $600 million for five years of cricket game rights in India. It would have cost Facebook $120 million a year in a market with a billion dollars of annual digital ad revenue, which he terms astronomical.

“And if you’re a Fox and you’re looking at what Facebook is willing to do in India, what are they willing to do in the U.S. if that’s the scale at which they’re willing to operate?” Wieser says. “I think there’s an appreciation of the consequences of Facebook, Google, Amazon and even Apple pushing harder into the same space.”

The result will be more consumer choices and lower margins for everyone involved, according to Wieser. He dismisses the notion of “peak TV” wherein content creators will suddenly come to their senses and pare back output, adding “I don’t believe that.”

As far as advertisers are concerned, their TV budgets are “largely independent” of the supply of inventory, according to Wieser. For example, if there were 10% less “sufficiently premium” video inventory, it would not have an impact on the amount of spending in and of itself.

“As long as television is the worst form of advertising except for all those others that have been tried, and it is for large brands that are building or sustaining their brands, and there is no next best alternative, the money will be what the money is,” Wieser says.

While he acknowledges that the largest global agency holding companies are under extreme pressure from mostly client-initiated strictures, he’s less impressed by some in the industry about competition from big consultancies like Accenture. But until such time as of these companies were to buy a WPP or Publicis “or something much bigger, it’s not that big of a difference from what agencies always face.”

“There is fear in the unknown. What we’re tying to do is educate our staff and our clients about what the possibilities are,” says Troy Ruhanen, President & CEO, TBWA Worldwide.

Some of the exhibiting companies could do better job of explaining themselves, while some data providers could be much clearer on what they can actually do, Ruhanen adds in this interview with Beet.TV.

“I think a lot of these platforms are really poor at education. I think they’re really good at showing you the content that can exist there, but they don’t do a great job of showing how brands can live in those spaces.”

Advertising and media agencies have been thrust in into the educator role, which explains their looking for talent in places they probably would not have considered 10 years ago—including the CIA, Wall Street and journalists. TBWA tells its managers to seek potential candidates earlier than they used to.

“You’ve got to have a pipeline well ahead of your need,” says Ruhanen. “Talent is a battle.”

While he acknowledges the proliferation of agency competitors in recent years, he believes agencies are in the best position to adapt for what’s coming. Those that will survive will be the ones whose clients can have “one conversation” to achieve all of their goals.

“This year, I actually think the stronger agencies are going to go through a period of re-integration and get many more skills built back in and they’re going to do really, really well.” With regard to newer competitors, he adds, “A lot of them are up here in the clouds or they start with the technology place and they don’t really know how to apply it against the consumer and strategically do that.”

Ruhanen chalks up his company’s new-business strengths to many factors, not least of which is not overpromising. “There’s a lot of conversation around data right now,” he says. “I’ve heard it all three days that I’ve been here. I’ve sat through their pitches and if I’m a client, it’s a little bit frightening because everyone says they’ve got the answer, everyone says that they can help you.”

“I don’t look at it as leaving anything behind,” says Osborn, who made the move last September. “I’m bringing all that I’ve learned from the creative part of the equation and I’m trying to apply that through a whole new aperture. Media is closer to the customer, the consumer, than anything else.”

In this interview with Beet.TV at CES 2018, Osborn talks about game-changing technology and advocates for cause marketing as a way to improve people’s lives and give marketers an “economic multiplier.”

When Osborne joined BBDO 25 years ago to work on the Pepsi account, the media side of the traditional full-service agency was considered “a bunch of numbers.” What’s changed is that “we have the data, we have the analytics that tell us who to go target and how they behave, which sets up the foundation of the entire strategy framework.”

Emerging technologies like augmented reality and robotics aren’t front and center on Osborne’s radar screen. At least not yet. Voice-activated devices, the connected home and artificial intelligence seem to have more near-term potential.

“AI is really, really powerful,” says Osborne. “It’s a game changer. Because if it can make our customers’ lives easier, more fluid, more relevant to how they want to live their life, then that’s really, really of high value.”

At CES, OMD is joined by more than 100 clients. Some are obvious—Apple and Intel—others less so, including Clorox, Cigna and State Farm. Osborn says they’re all seeking to apply innovation and invention to their business models to be smarter and more relevant to customers.

“We want to peak their imagination and really push them to think about things from a whole different standpoint.”

Osborn is a supporter of the Red Cross and other philanthropic organizations, so he appreciates the value of cause marketing, calling it an “economic multiplier.” Finding the right cause to align with varies from brand to brand.

“But I will tell you this. Usually it’s much more powerful if the people that work within the company share in the delivery of that sense of purpose as well as the messaging part of it as well.”

This video was produced by Beet.TV in Las Vegas at CES 2018. Please visit this page for more coverage.

“Unless the TV companies are selling it, no one can buy it,” Morgan says in this interview with Beet.TV at CES 2018. “Having their recognition that this is a way to deliver better value for the marketers and make more money themselves has been a really big step.”

In the “old days” of TV, a $3 million, three-week linear TV ad campaign might have involved buys on 10 networks and 110 spots. “But now that everything is fragmented, you really need to do it more precisely. So for us, that same campaign might be 70 networks and 3,000 spots.”

Post-campaign analysis used to take a month following the campaign’s end. Now it can be delivered in one day, showing not just gross rating points and demographics but how much of the advertiser’s target audience was reached. Simulmedia matches those data to the advertisers’ first-party purchase data at the household level. Therein lies the challenge of the future for traditional advertising and media agencies.

“The agencies just are not structured or staffed to be able to execute campaigns at that level,” says Morgan. “You need a lot of software automation, which we have, you need a lot of predicative analytics, which we’ve built” to traffic the creative and provide daily reporting.

Simulmedia counts among its clients Choice Hotels, Clorox, Expedia and Home Depot.

The company is still “very, very focused” on linear TV and the biggest reason is “that’s where the money is. Number two, that’s where the under-optimized opportunity is.”

Morgan sees the need for more collaboration among industry players given the growing importance of cross-screen TV viewing. He cites the example of Simulmedia’s partnership with Facebook.

“If you’re running a retargeting, campaign it’s natural for you to want to understand what people are likely to get a TV ad in the same day or two. So that you can make sure that you can maximize the proximity and time and to person in the delivery of those two messages.”

While the definition of TV is bound to keep changing, Morgan believes one thing that’s certain is the importance of viewing on large screens. “Maybe it’s not going to be the same hardware device but the large-screen format is going to continue to be really powerful,” says Morgan.

This video was produced by Beet.TV in Las Vegas at CES 2018.   Please visit this page for more coverage. 

BACK TO VEGAS: CES 2018

“If you define television as screen and screen hours, there’s a bigger opportunity than there’s ever been. If you narrowly define it as free to air TV, it’s a bit more difficult,” Sorrell says in this interview with Beet.TV.

So will there be a tipping point between ad-supported and subscription-based TV services? “People are discussing whether there’s a tipping point. Are they coming under more pressure? I think the answer is yes.”

This is where headlines come into play. “Is it to the degree that we’ve seen in newspapers, no. Will it be to the degree we’ve seen in newspapers, no, I don’t think it will be,” Sorrell adds. “At the end of the day, there are significant changes taking place in the way that consumers consume.”

Like other big, global holding companies, WPP has tried to keep pace with all of the change. This includes realigning long-established agencies while making investments in content creators like Vice and Refinery29.

“We’ve made some mistakes as well as had some successes. But it’s rapidly changing and I think you have to be extremely flexible in your approach and be willing to experiment,” says Sorrell. The core problem facing companies like WPP is “an infrastructure and a set of legacy companies that have been doing this for up to 150 years. We have to adapt as rapidly as we can in a rapidly changing world and that means we have to be very, very flexible and responsive and agile in what we do.”

This video was produced by Beet.TV in Las Vegas at CES 2018.   Please visit this page for more coverage. 

BACK TO VEGAS: CES 2018

Now buyers can reach specific targets—moms with kids who live in a certain area and might have a mortgage—across DISH and Sling combined. “We will go ahead and work with a data provider and find those moms with kids, not only just on DISH but also now on Sling through all of Sling’s outlets,” including iOS, Android, PC, Mac, Roku, Apple TV, smart TV’s and Chromecast, says Adam Lowy, Director, Advanced TV & Digital Sales, DISH Media Sales & Sling TV.”

Asked about the growth of addressable in this interview with Beet.TV at CES 2018, Lowy adds, “It’s been a huge business for us. We’ve seen huge growth in the industry.”

What comScore added to the mix was “we wanted one true measurement. This is how many impressions you delivered holistically to that entire addressable audience across all the platforms that those two outlets cover.”

Lowy thinks the potential goes beyond DISH and Sling to a broader industry that wants to expand the potential of addressability for better audience-based targeting and attribution.

“As the industry is starting to evolve and do cross-platform and have live and on-demand television top-tier television as we do on all platforms, this measurement will probably go across the ecosystem and that’s what we see.”

While addressable has been a “hockey stick” business for DISH, according to Lowy, it “just needs more growth.”

When the deal with comScore was announced on Jan. 4, the company became the first to offer services that measure addressable television impressions across all platforms, including over-the-top (OTT).

“It grows the entire ecosystem finds the audience everywhere and it really makes addressable television so much more important but in top-tier premium content,” Lowy says. “We don’t ever want to dismiss how important that premium safe content is. That is what sling TV is.”

This video was produced by Beet.TV in Las Vegas at CES 2018.   Please visit this page for more coverage. 

BACK TO VEGAS: CES 2018

The deal gives advertisers a view of their campaign’s performance across Sling’s connected TV, mobile and desktop impressions, as well as linear TV impressions on DISH, explains Cathy Hetzel, Executive Vice President, comScore during a break at CES 2018.

“We do collect information from Sling via the VCE tags that we have, our Validated Campaign Essentials, and we have second-by-second information from the DISH linear addressable footprint,” says Hetzel. “And now we’re able to put those two together so that advertisers and agencies can buy Sling and DISH in one campaign and really look at the reach and frequency from linear addressable plus the addition of the Sling addressable platform.”

Among other things, the partnership highlights the advantage of having linear and OTT under one roof to push the boundaries of cross-platform audience targeting and measurement, bypassing competitive siloes.

“With DISH and Sling, because it’s one location that’s able to execute both the sale of the campaign and then using us for the measurement of that same information, they are out in front of the industry,” Hetzel adds.

With addressable advertising at about $1.3 billion today, most of comScore’s clients still start with linear TV before considering addressable, according to Hetzel.

“We see a future where that flips. Where clients start with their addressable targets and then they expand those addressable targets to linear TV.”

Asked whether addressable TV inventory still consists of the two minutes of local time cable and satellite operators are able to sell, Hetzel says the amount varies but it takes a back seat to the benefits of addressability.

“The cool thing about addressability, though, is it’s dynamic ad insertion. And so it doesn’t really matter how much it is or where it’s located. You’re not inside a pod. You have the opportunity to be able to insert throughout the content.”

DISH Media Sales, which oversees ad sales for DISH and Sling TV, first introduced addressable advertising on its satellite TV platform in 2012 and opened cross-platform addressable advertising across both platforms last fall.

This video was produced by Beet.TV in Las Vegas at CES 2018.   Please visit this page for more coverage. 

This means that things like self-driving cars, drones, artificial intelligence and virtual reality take a back seat to the “undercurrent” that drives merger and acquisition activity.

“The single biggest driver in terms of what we see here at CES and how that translates into deal activity is convergent TV,” Kawaja says in this interview with Beet.TV at CES 2018. “You see all of the big linear TV companies, both content and distribution, are here.”

So what are those players discussing? Not shows or content in general.

“They are talking about technologies that allow the targeting and delivery of specific content and specific advertising to individuals and homes because of the new way that TV is consumed by consumers.”

Citing ongoing deals involving AT&T and Time Warner and Disney’s desired acquisition of certain Fox assets, what excites Kawaja is that the industry is complex, fragmented and dynamic.

“When you get significant sea changes like these technology applications to a $160 billion television market, obviously people make their moves,” he says. “There’s a lot of moving parts right now, and companies in both legacy and the sort of digital world are positioning themselves for that by making moves that aggregate distribution, content, getting scale.”

Considering the TV advances and desires of Apple, Amazon, Facebook, Google and Netflix, everyone else has “clearly figured out that scale is now on a whole new level and they have to get ready.”

This video was produced by Beet.TV in Las Vegas at CES 2018.   Please visit this page for more coverage.