But Caspar Schlickum doesn’t quite see it that way. While many tech vendors get excited about converting TV in to another programmatic video end point, the regional chief of Group M’s Xaxis data unit, is more realistic, saying the promise just isn’t there yet: “We’re a way away from really having figured that out.”
In this video interview with Beet.TV, Schlickum says: “We’re thinking about addressable TV very myopically.
“There’s a bigger opportunity – certainly, in the short term and, I would argue, even in the medium and maybe long term – on taking TV data and making that addressable across existing platforms like display and video.”
That is an inversion of the way that many people are coming to view the TV advertising opportunity – not using data to super-target and deliver ads on the TV screen, but using TV viewing behavior data to target ads to consumers in other, online media.
That’s something Xaxis is doing with its Xaxis Sync offering – which serves ads on to second-screen devices, in sync with their TV airing – and with a new suite, already available in Italy and due for roll-out elsewhere, that targets light TV viewers online using demographic and interest profiles.
“We need to think about TV much more holistically,” Schlickum adds. “Rather than just a place to put ads … not just the executional platform … also a place where data is being generated.”
This video was produced in London as part of our Addressable & Advanced TV Summit hosted by Sky Media and presented by FreeWheel and Invidi. Please visit this page for additional segments from the event.
]]>The rule would compel cable companies to offer their programming not just over their own boxes but through those of third-party vendors, too.
One ad industry veteran things that is going to shake things up – and quickly. “This is going to have enormous implications for all advanced TV advertising,” according to Simlumedia CEO Dave Morgan, pointing to three big changes:
Morgan’s Simulmedia helps advertisers place ads through new TV platforms, paying on guaranteed business outcomes.
“They’re world is going to change on them whether they want it or not,” Morgan adds. “If they don’t start availing themselves of data-driven TV advertising today, they’re going to be caught flat-footed.”
This interview was recorded at the I-com Global Forum for Marketing and Data Measurement in Seville, Spain, April 18 to 21. This video is part of a series from the Forum sponsored by Xaxis. Please visit this page for more videos from Seville.
]]>The latest strategy sits in the latter camp, after CNN launched CNNgo – with access to its live stream plus on-demand shows – back in 2014.
So how is CNNgo doing? CNN product chief Alex Wellen revealed March stats to Beet.TV:
CNNgo lets consumers watch CNN telecasts digitally, across multiple device types, without signing in – but only for 10 minutes. After that, they must authenticate using their local cable provider account.
Wellen’s “video starts” count is for video views clocked up by users who weren’t even signed in.
In March, we did about 300 million video starts, that’s unauthenthenticated content – all the clips you see across all our platforms.
But he says 80% of the 9.5 million hours consumed was from users who did sign in. That means the service is finding some success in driving consumers to shift from viewing CNN over local cable to viewing online, albeit using legitimate accounts.
How does CNN plan to make money from this? Beside serving up traditional TV ads from the linear feed, Wellen also hints: “Ultimately, everything’s going to dynamic ad insertion.”
This video was produced as part of a series on the need for standardization of premium video advertising. The series sponsor is the NAB. For more videos from the series, please visit this page.
]]>Bloomberg TV sales head David Bickford wants to teach the old dog of telly some new tricks – namely, the kind of measurement and analytics advertisers now get online.
“When you’re placing an ad on TV, you can buy an ad at a specific time and you get a spot schedule,” he tells Beet.TV in this video interview. “That doesn’t translate to digital.
“That is really holding everybody back.
“Until that’s solved, you’re never going to get to what some people refer to as the ‘holy grail’ – ‘I want to buy a spot ‘here’ and have it run at the exact same time any way it’s consumed’.”
Bickford blames lack of analytics and lack of ad insertion technology in the TV space. There are dozens of ad-tech vendors trying to approach the problem, but Bickford says technology isn’t ready for primetime, while addressable-TV platforms go against the aim of mass-reach TV.
We interviewed him as part of our series on the need for standards around premium video advertising. The series was produced around the NAB Digital Summit in Las Vegas. This series on Beet.TV is sponsored by the NAB.
]]>The NAB is has tabled a Digital Summit, including assembling a board to tackle the issue – namely, how to standardize measurement and reporting mechanisms for quantifying viewership of TV across a burgeoning range of new platforms.
“What hasn’t happened is a standard method of viewing the data and articulating the data in a common way,” says Cablevision media sales head Ben Tatta, in this video interview with Beet.TV. “The first step is to fill in the holes of measurement.
“While sample-based methods might be sufficient in measuring the top 50 networks, we have several hundred channels on their dial. Typically that’s where the sample breaks down. (There is) a lot of viewing that just isn’t method.”
Cablevision introduced census-level audience data to its Total Audience ad suite three years ago, leading Tatta to conclude: “Sample-based methods aren’t sufficient enough in measuring viewing across the dial.”
That echoes a common concern across the industry, although the likes of Nielsen and comScore claim to be racing to account for cross-device viewership.
We interviewed him as part of our series on the need for standards around premium video advertising. The series was produced around the NAB Digital Summit in Las Vegas. This series on Beet.TV is sponsored by the NAB.
]]>Ad spending in the upcoming presidential election could trump the last poll by 20%, reaching $11.4bn, with digital breaking the $1bn barrier, according to a Borrell Associates forecast.
And programmatic video could get a big leg-up from the vote, a panel of ad-tech vendors convened by Beet.TV agreed…
“Television, for the political arena, is already sold out, and has been sold out for months now,” said Novak, whose Rubicon powers programmatic ad trading for many of the world’s publishers. “But there’s billions of dollars that need to be bought. There’s a huge opportunity. It allows some really quality case studies to be able to test this system in a huge way.”
Other panelists believed the upcoming vote will crystallise how media consumption habits are changing dramatically, as candidates switch screen – and buying method – to reach voters who are tuning out.
“We’re going to see a desire to access that youth demographic that is viewing in OTT,” DashBid’s Herman.
“With all the cord cutting that’s really happening. and especially among the youth group, there’s a real need to access that inventory. There’s a lot of premium video inventory available in the OTT ecosystem that just hasn’t been either addressable or it hasn’t been measurable. The elections are going to drive a real hunger for that inventory and I think they’re going to move us in a really great way.”
As OpenX’s Reed Scharff wrote on Huffington Post recently, programmatic could be the dream of political scientists and campaigners who want to reach individual voters and targeted demographic groups with specific messaging. And the election could be the perfect opportunity to bring that promise to the mass market.
“It could be a domino effect, which is really exciting,” said SpotX’s Buckley, whose company is part owned by a TV operator and producer, RTL. ” It could also have an impact on other industries. Other folks are going to feel that (inventory) shortage as well… (for example), auto. It could have a residual effect, it’s not just going to be limited to the political landscape.”
This video was produced at the Beet.TV executive retreat presented by Videology. You can find more videos from the session here.
This panel was moderated by MediaMath CMO Joanna O’Connell.
]]>That’s what Deloitte is doing by partnering with three software providers to wrap up their offerings as one of its own, the so-called MarketMix for Media.
The company says the suite is an “over-the-top (OTT) platform to help Media and Entertainment (M&E) companies launch, monetize, and manage direct-to-consumer (DTC) content offerings”. Launched at the recent Consumer Electronics Show, it is comprised by three prongs:
So why is Deloitte getting in the game? Deloitte Digital principal Danny Ledge tells Beet.TV: “We looked at this as a two-stage shift in viewing behaviors:
Announcing its involvement, Adobe said: “The TV market has shifted. The growing adoption of OTT services among consumers has created an opportunity for media companies to develop a direct relationship with their audience instead of relying on distributors.
“This often involves a complete digital transformation that includes running new business operations, deploying new technology, and managing new engagement models.”
]]>European satellite operator, channel owner and telco Sky is fighting against that tide when it comes to next-generation advertising, launching an analytics suite for its its AdSmart addressable TV service.
“I think there’s a big challenge in the broadcaster market,” Sky Media’s deputy MD Jamie West acknowledges. “If they don’t add value to that full campaign lifecycle, you end up having a relationship that is very much about being a supplier or transactional, and the power shifts away either to the ad tech company or the media agencies/trading desk.
“We’re building up all of our analytics tools to prove our return on investment. But those same tools can enable agencies and advertisers to plan their campaigns and execute their campaigns and optimize their campaigns for the whole campaign lifecycle if you like.
“So it means that the dynamic and the relationship that Sky has is that very much of a tripartite relationship. We’re evenly balanced between advertiser, media owner, Sky, and the media agency, and that’s a much healthier environment and ecosystem to operate in.”
AdSmart Analytics is a managed service allied to AdSmart, the technology Sky uses to enable millions of satellite set-top boxes for household-targeted linear TV ads.
As part of its expansion, Sky Media just invested $10mn in Boston-based programmatic ad tech vendor DataXu.
This video was produced at the Future Of TV Advertising Forum. Beet.TV’s coverage is sponsored by Xaxis. You can find more Beet videos from the conference on this page.
]]>The new concept means brands can advertise only to relevant segments of TV viewers, targeted at the household level, cutting out wasted spend.
Joanna Thissen, targeted TV division at Modi Media, Group M’s division working on addressable, says car makers were the first brand category tobuy in.
“It just makes sense,” she tells Beet.TV in this video interview. “I mean, I live in Manhattan, I am never going to drive an automobile … You could blast me with an auto commercial 100,000 times, it could be the prettiest commercial of all time, and I’m still not gonna buy a car.
“Once some clients saw big players coming to the market, especially in the auto category, they saw the press and they were like, ‘this is a really cool idea, look at how successful these campaigns are’, and ‘if the auto industry with all their big money is coming to play, then maybe we should try to dip our toes in the water and see how that works’.”
Now 43 million US households are available to target addressably, Modi said recently. So who is next to the party?
Thissen sees financial services providers coming in next.
“If I already have a certain credit card, stop showing me ads for it – maybe show me a card that has a better interest rate,” she says. “CPGs are big to the industry, too. There’s so many different datasets – from NCS to 84.51° which was formerly Dunnhumby and Shopcom. All have this amazing shopper data that will allow brands to go and specifically target their competitors to drive sale and steal share.”
This video was produced at the Beet.TV executive retreat presented by Videology with Adobe, AT&T AdWorks and Nielsen.
You can find more videos from the Beet Retreat on this page.2
]]>That change is happening because, as TVs or TV boxes get connected to the internet and enabled with software services, the way content is consumed and ads traded is, many think, about to look a lot more like digital video.
“I think there are elements of linear that could be applied to digital – maybe finding ways to put a specific advertiser in a specific spot as opposed to the dynamic, continual dynamic allocation of those ads,” according to James Rothwell, the agency and brand relations VP for FreeWheel, a video ad tech vendor, in this Beet.TV video interview.
“But I think it’s more likely to be the other way around … I think linear is more likely to look like digital … where we’re taking the best of digital in terms of data, in terms of automation, in terms of dynamic insertion and applying those to the linear world.”
The industry is now replete with ad tech vendors trying to enable TV, a decades-old, one-way medium, with some of the qualities of online ad buying, like refined targeting and solid campaign measurement.
Whilst the change has started, many also concede they are in it for the long haul.
“We’ve got a long way to go,” Rothwell acknowledges. “There’s still decades of practices and infrastructure. That means that we’re just not gong be applying the same digital practices across the board.”
This video was produced at the Beet.TV executive retreat presented by Videology with Adobe, AT&T AdWorks and Nielsen.
You can find more videos from the Beet Retreat on this page.
]]>Xumo hopes so. The joint venture between Panasonic and MySpace’s latest owner, Viant, is a software layer for connected TV devices from Panasonic, LG and Vizio, making a lean-back, TV-like experience out of internet video.
“We have carriage in over 20 million homes now,” Viant CEO Tim Vanderhook tells Beet.TV in this video interview. “Think of it as a website or mobile app, but giving you a channel on a connected television.
Viant started Xumo over a year ago now, with the Vizio link-up announced at CES. The outfit boasts video from “premium” publishers like Glamour, Wired, WSJ, PopSugar and GQ.
The company takes a piece of video advertising revenue but also wants to support video subscription revenue.
For Vanderhook, it’s about putting back together the pieces of content exploded by the internet.
“It allows fragmentation to take place on the television screen,” he says. If you thought cable meant a multiplication in TV channels, Vanderhook says connectivity will shake things up further: “You’ll see a few thousand digital networks be created in television.”
If you find yourself wandering through the @LGUS booth at #CES2016, take a min to demo #ChannelPlus on webOS 3.0! pic.twitter.com/uKVeQG5nV0
— Xumo (@XumoTV) January 7, 2016
#MondayMotivation from @POPSUGARFitness! Get your fit on–now playing on Xumo on your Panasonic & VIZIO smart TVs ?? pic.twitter.com/g6bdUtfy9o
— Xumo (@XumoTV) January 18, 2016
This video is part of a series produced at CES which are sponsored by Adobe.
]]>Then, in October, the company bowed AdVance, a suite knitting together data from across its many screens to better target consumers. So what is AdVance all about?
“If AdSmart is all about taking the very best and only the very best of digital targeting and bringing it to TV, what Sky AdVance does is take how really unique TV consumption understanding and brings it into digital,” according to Sky Media’s deputy MD Jamie West.
“Knowing which sites subscribers are browsing and which channels they are watching lets Sky Media serve ads back through internet or TV, respectively, that learn from consumers’ holistic behavior.
“We enable our three million-home viewing panel,” West says. “When you think about all those multiple touch-points that we have with our customers … you have a really rich understanding of customer journeys across those multiple platforms. That will enable us both to serve ads both on the Sky platform or via our DSP partners.
“Once you’ve seen the ad four times on TV, we can now frequency cap … Or we can use that platform to tell … different stories … in the app environment, the mobile environment, or the browser environment.”
This video was produced at the Future Of TV Advertising Forum. Beet.TV’s coverage is sponsored by Xaxis. You can find more Beet videos from the conference on this page.
]]>With consumption rising, Adobe Primetime has extended its services to broadcasters to include a range of advertising optimization solutions including the one recently announced with Videology. Personalization has become increasingly important and that has lead to an integration with the Adobe Marketing Cloud, he adds.
We spoke with Helfand last week during International CES. Beet.TV’s coverage of CES is sponsored by Adobe.
]]>We spoke with Straight at the CES show about partnerships for SpotX and prospects for the growth of the automated video marketplace.
This video is part of a series of interviews about the transformation of television produced at CES and sponsored by SpotX.
]]>
In July 2014, the big European broadcaster RTL Group acquired a controlling interest in the company. Then, last year, the outfit rebranded from its former name, SpotXchange, as it gained traction in Europe thanks to the RTL deal. At the end of 2015, SpotX also partnered with RTL Digital Hub stablemate Clypd to support optimized targeting of ads on TiVo set-top boxes in the US.
After a year of “thought leadership”, CEO and founder Mike Shehan says the company is now embarking on a 2016 that will be “the year of execution”, with some company announcements coming soon.
First, Shehan says SpotX will be revealing which broadcasters are using its Clypd relationship to buy TV ads programmatically
1. Programmatic TV
“We’ll be announcing our first clients”, he says. “Those will be broadcasters, media owners who will be managing media with a link solution that’s both digital and linear.”
“You’ll also see some announcements from us in Europe, with set-top box activity – advertising on TV through the set-top box.”
2. Asia launch
In addition to its UK office, SpotX also opened in Amsterdam and a German joint venture last year. Now another continent is on the roadmap, and soon.
“The same announcements you saw in Europe we’re going to be making in Asia … next week,” Shehan says.
Connected TV
Shehan says advertisers are getting excited about over-the-top TV devices: “We saw, just over the holidays, traffic triple from Apple TV. A lot more people are buying them. That inventory is really desired by the advertiser side.”
After the sale
Despite selling up to a big company, entrepreneur Shehan says he is not moving on from the mothership any time soon: “RTL allow me to run the business. Our executive team is still in place, we’re still motivated and we still have pretty big goals to achieve.
Our coverage of CES is presented by SpotX.
]]>The company is making available its Hybrid Linear Digital Ad-Scheduler (HyLDA), a program that enables premium video publishers to plan, optimize and manage live content using a combination of spot scheduling and dynamic ad insertion. The company expects it to be released in Q2 2016.
For an overview on the new product, we interviewed Brian Dutt, VP of Strategic Development at FreeWheel. Dutt defines linear both as traditional cable programming and IP-delivered “TV Everywhere” content.
While dynamic ad insertion for legacy cable operators will take time to overcome operational issues, dynamic ad insertion into IP delivered content is ripe for the solution and adds that live sports programming will be its biggest market.
FreeWheel is a wholly-owned unit of Comcast.
]]>New Spring Capital has become the latest investor in the company, while all previous investors, including Sequoia Capital Israel, Genesis Partners, Vintage Investment Partners, Cisco Ventures and T-Venture, participated in the round as well as Silicon Valley Bank and Triple Point Capital.
The news was first reported by TechCrunch last week.
For our most recent update on Innovid, we spoke with CTO and co-founder Tal Chalozin in September at DMEXCO We are republishing that video today.
]]>
“There was a mature measurement system in place for TV. As we moved into mobile and connected device and set top box, we experienced some real challenges,” Boykoff confesses. “That has been a pain point, although it looks like the industry is making strides in that area.”
What were those pain points, exactly? Boykoff says: “I think there’s been some friction on the buy side because they’re not sure who owns the budget… is it digital, is it linear? In the next few months, we’ll be able to start measuring it with third parties to validate who we’re reaching, but over the last year or two we haven’t been able to do that.”
A+E encapsulates channels for A+E, History Channel, Lifetime, LMN, FYI and H2. The company moved in to catering to connected devices in 2014.
The firm is now working with Nielsen’s digital content ratings (DCR), comScore’s third-generation VideoMetrix and with Rentrak on video measurement.
“We’ve heard from our buyers that they want to understand unduplicated reach and frequency across platforms,” Boykoff adds.
This video was produced at the Beet.TV executive retreat presented by Videology with Adobe, AT&T AdWorks and Nielsen.
The panel was moderated by Nielsen’s precision and planning SVP Eric Solomon.
You can find more videos from the Beet Retreat on this page.
]]>“OTT has been a little behind in Europe than it has in the U.S., primarily because the activation of consumers has been a little slower,” according to multi-screen video advertising technology company YuMe‘s European GM Owen Hanks. “(Now), the rise of subscription-based offerings is driving people to those portals.
“The advertising agencies are now seeing that as an opportunity for new ways to access their audience on different devices.”
Smart TVs made up 54.2% of all TV sales in Q1 2015, Ofcom estimates, saying smart TV take-up nearly doubled from 12% to 21% of UK homes last year. It says 56% of homes actually have TVs connected to the internet, but most of those are via standard TV set-top boxes, though the true numbers are likely to be higher when you account for other gadgets like game consoles and Chromecasts.
“Some might say the OTT in Europe is actually a really interesting space right now for advertisers because it’s far less cluttered than maybe the desktop or the laptop screen is in terms of getting their advertising message to the consumer,” Hanks adds.
YuMe now operates across cross 23 European countries, with feet on the ground in five markets. The company built up its capability including ad serving, supply-side tools and its YuMe For Advertisers demand-side platform.
This video is part of our series the Road to CES, which can be found here. The series is presented by YuMe.
]]>Does any of this matter? Some marketers are becoming excited about the prospect of unifying ad measurements in to a single, holistic metric. But is that feasible? An entertaining panel convened at Beet.TV’s recent executive retreat debated…
This video was produced at the Beet.TV executive retreat presented by Videology with Adobe, AT&T AdWorks and Nielsen.
The panel was moderated by Furious Corp CEO Ashley Swartz.
You can find more videos from the Beet Retreat on this page.
]]>But BARB is reinventing itself. The organisation already measures consumers’ digital viewing of core broadcasters’ shows, and separately measures viewing by census data. Now it is embarking on a project to unite the two.
Beet.TV learned more from Kantar UK TV and video measurement MD Margo Swadley, whose company is one agency that supplies BARB data.
“With the base panel, we have begun to measure their online devices as well – we put a software meter in their PCs, laptops and tablets,” Swadley says. “It’s now at about 2,400 households.
“In addition, BARB’s Project Dovetail has been about census-level data… straight from the player provider. Now you can see across BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5, Sky, UKTV, STV, UTV and a couple of other ones… on a like-for-like basis, common metrics across them, which is really an industry first.”
But Swadley is also currently facing off to compete for a bigger piece of BARB’s business.
“What it can’t tell you is who (watched),” she adds. “So the second stage of Dovetail is about combining the census-level data with the panel data. That’s what advertisers and programme-makers want.
“Dovetail 2 is starting its prototype stage. It’s a six-month competitive prototype. Kantar and Nielsen are, at the same time, doing the process of combing the data.”
BARB will update us on the performance of both the Kantar and Nielsen implementations by June.
This video was produced at the Future Of TV Advertising Forum. Beet.TV’s coverage is sponsored by Xaxis. You can find more Beet videos from the conference on this page.
]]>With deployments from Cablevision, Comcast, DirecTV and DISH Networks, the number of targetable TV sets is growing but, lately, we have heard still-optimistic executives sound a note of caution – don’t go expecting the technology to reach prime-time in 2016.
“We still only have 40+ million set-top boxes that are addressable,” Videology CEO Scott Ferber tells Beet.TV in this video interview. “Big marketers want to drive goods. They really need scale.
“As the addressable footprint grows in the linear feed, we’re going to see a massive increase very quickly in the amount of money spent on it. (But) it will be another couple of years before it gets mainstream-big.”
Ferber is pegging threats from Google and Facebook as likely to stimulate the roll-out of wider footprints from cable operators. The fireside chat was moderated by comScore executive chairman and co-founder Gian Fulgoni.
This video was produced at the Beet.TV executive retreat presented by Videology with Adobe, AT&T AdWorks and Nielsen. You can find more videos from the Beet Retreat on this page.
]]>“It will continue to be more fragmented, there will be tons of different ways to consume television,” Innovid CTO Tal Chalozin told Beet.TV’s cross-platform monetization summit, hosted by Starcom MediaVest and sponsored by Dailymotion.
“People are watching Crackle on a Sony connected TV. Yes, it’s not as big as television – but, if you connect all of this together, it is a large audience and you want to reach that audience.”
Innovid turns standard video pre-roll creatives in to interactive online video ads. Chalozin was interviewed at the summit by Furious Minds CEO Ashley Swartz.
]]>
We caught up with her at the LG booth. YuMe is working on advertising integrating with LG. The California tech firm is also working with media agencies including GroupM on a number of projects including a Smart TV channel for American Express which is seen in the background of this clip.
Editor’s Note: This video was produced as part of a series about CES sponsored by YuMe.
]]>
That’s why she cautions publishers from making the same mistakes that TV networks and others did in the early days of digital by giving away ads on additional screens for free. “If you give it away you are saying you see little or no value in it for you. Then you have a low-involved partnership and it’s going to be hard to get them back as a client,” Hartbarger explains. Ideally, publishers should aim to demonstrate the value of connected TV ads, the recall rates, and the growth of the medium. That will help bring agencies and brands on board and give them reasons to try a new ad venue at an appropriate price, she says.
Daisy Whitney
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