“We absolutely know that we have to get beyond the core linear product because we want to essentially be platform agnostic,” says VP of Research & Insights Andrea Zapata. “Just as we are now network agnostic when it comes to reaching customers and making our recommendations, just as we are now daypart agnostic.”

In this interview with Beet.TV, Zapata explains how it’s “still early days here” in proving the value of TV beyond simple ad recall and viewer sentiment. “I think for television now it’s absolutely crucial that we start proving our value as we go down that funnel. It’s not just good enough to say that we got people to see your ad.”

Comcast Spotlight’s approach is rooted in the belief that if it’s going to be making audience targeting recommendations, it should be able to prove they worked. “For us, attribution is did the person who saw your ad take an action and can we measure that. We know you’re going to measure it. You absolutely should. It’s your responsibility,” says Zapata.

Deciding on partners is “a very rigorous process,” she adds. “I always say God bless our vendors because they have to go on this journey with us.”

With TVSquared, the process started with a proof of concept followed by a pilot and scaling. “We’re in north of sixty markets, so for us we’ve got thousands of sellers and thousands upon thousands of clients. We want to make sure the solution that we’re building for can answer core questions and scale appropriately.”

Initially, Comcast sought to determine if exposure to TV commercials drove website traffic for advertisers, whose websites are tagged by TVSquared. “They get the option of two KPI’s or two pages based on their campaign objectives,” Zapata says.

Within 30 days, Comcast sales personnel and advertisers can log into dashboard “and see if there was any lift to performance after exposure to an ad. For us it wasn’t good enough to see lift website over a long period of time,” so Comcast chose to use a 30-minute window of time after exposure to an ad.

It’s a case of correlation as opposed to causation. “Giving the right credit to television but not all credit,” says Zapata.

This video is from a Beet.TV series titled TV: Now an Outcome-Driven Medium. For more segments, please visit this page. This series is presented by TVSquared.

Zapata will be a speaker at the #BeetRetreat  August 7 at GroupM.  Here is the speaker line-up:

Kelly Abcarian, GM, Video Advanced Advertising, Nielsen, @kellyabcarian

Janet Balis, Global Advisory Leader for Media & Entertainment, E&Y, @digitalstrategy

Mike Bologna, President, one2one Media, Cadent, @CadentTV

Tim Castree, CEO, GroupM North America, @castree

Marc Cestaro, Director, Addressable Lead, MODI Media, @ModiMedia

Brendon Condon, CRO, Comcast Spotlight, @ComcstSpotlight

Jennifer Donohue, VP, Local Advertising Sales, Hulu, @hulu

Bob Ivins, Chief Data Officer, NCC Media, @bobivins

Ryan Jamboretz, Chief Development Officer, Amobee Broadcaster Solutions, @r_jamboretz

Jo Kinsella, CRO & EVP, TVSquared, @JoKinsellaTVS

Joe Marchese, Entrepreneur In Residence & Co-Founder, Human Ventures, @joemarchese

Brian Norris, SVP, Direct to Consumer, Ad Sales, NBCU, @thebriannorris1

Joanna O’Connell, VP, Principal Analyst, Forrester Research, @joannaoconnell

Olga Ramos, President of the Boys & Girls Clubs of Puerto Rico, @BGCPR

Sean Robertson, General Manager, Partnerships, DISH Media, @DISHMedia

Howard Shimmel, President, Janus Strategy & Insights, @HowardShimmel

Philip Smolin, Chief Strategy Officer, Amobee, @philipsmolin

Ashley Swartz, CEO & Founder, Furious Corp., @RedFuryNYC

Brian Wallach, SVP, CRO, Advanced TV, Freewheel, @bw10

Andrea Zapata, VP, Research & Insights, Comcast Spotlight, @ComcstSpotlight

This typically means selecting one or two dayparts and perhaps five or six networks in all and maybe a sports package, Zapata explains in this interview with Beet.TV.

“Those clients of ours who buy in a very specific way, they will get lift to their website,” she says. “But with the same budget, and this is what’s incredible for me, if they’re willing to take a more data-driven approach to their planning and buying process, and they open it up to all day” the results multiply.

“If they open up the five to seven networks or the sports package to forty-plus networks, which I know sounds crazy, but that’s where your customer might be.”

Zapata says in that scenario, results can go from a 2-3% lift to as much as 8%.

“What we have found is that the reach can go from twenty percent of your backyard to sixty percent of your backyard. Reach is vitally important, so use TV for what it’s good at, don’t constrict your customer you can yield better outcomes.

“So what our guts once told us is actually being demonstrated with validation outside of just our guts.”

This video is from a Beet.TV series titled TV: Now an Outcome-Driven Medium.  For more segments, please visit this page.  This series is presented by TVSquared.

Jenckes, who is President, Advertising, Comcast Cable believes now is the time to be very optimistic about what premium video can be.

“It is the best way for marketers to reach their audiences. We’re coming off of the greatest Upfront in history. There’s a lot of successes that we can look at,” Jenckes says in this interview with Beet.TV at the annual Comcast/FreeWheel Client Summit.

Add to those factors “this incredibly, from my perspective, optimistic collaboration between all the players in the ecosystem.” Whether it’s networks or distributors, “We know the power of what we have and if we work together we can create value for everybody,” Jenckes says.

Now for the challenges. Alongside audience and data fragmentation, they include new digital competition and the need to rationalize different sources of demand.

While the golden age of TV is upon us, more platforms and viewing choices are making it difficult to pull together audiences for advertising purposes. And fragmentation isn’t a problem solely limited to audiences.

“Everybody has their own different data pools. People are struggling for how do you create joint identity across platform, or how do you find that segments you’re looking for across multiple pools of data.”

Among the many tools that Comcast’s Advanced Advertising Group has developed is its new Blockchain Insights Program, which combines the capabilities of FreeWheel, Strata and Visible World. The initiative expands upon the advertising relationship between Comcast and NBCUniversal as well as new collaborations with Disney, Altice USA, Channel 4 (UK), Cox Communications, Mediaset Italia and TF1 Group (France).

The companies will work together on a new and improved advertising approach to facilitate the secure exchange of non-personal, audience insights for addressable advertising.

“For us, making sure that the tools exist for that to happen as efficiently and effectively as possible is critical.”

This interview was recorded in Manhattan as part of the Comcast/FreeWheel 2017 U.S. Client Summit “Unifying The New TV Ecosystem.” This series of videos from the summit is presented by FreeWheel.

In this video interview, the company’s video services SVP and GM Matt Strauss tells Beet.TV how the group is now giving Xfinity customers their DVR recordings not just at home but on their mobile devices.

“Once you’re able to move the recordings to the cloud, it unlocks all this flexibility,” Strauss says.

“DVRs have been around for well over a decade. About 50% of all TV has now have DVRs. As passionate as people are about their DVR, they don’t appreciate how much better the DVR could be.”

Comcast also wants to offer linear, live and on-demand content on mobile devices, making smartphones and tablets the equivalent of living room TVs.