You are watching “Addressable Advertising: A New Reality for Linear TV,” a Beet.TV leadership series presented by SpotX. For more videos, please visit this page.
That is the view of Adam Gilbert, head of partnerships at media agency Initiative.
In this video interview with Beet.TV, Gilbert, whose team has accounts including Salesforce, Citrix, Arby’s and Boeing, explains what the industry can expect.
Gilbert says the big connected TV development of 2020 – increasing consumption driven by stay-at-home consumers plus the growth in new service offerings – has created the condition for mass personalized TV advertising.
But manging frequency capping across all those inventory sources is tricky, he says/
“Therefore, I think the future for CTV certainly is going to be in kind of a consolidated effort in a programmatic or addressable activation, that allows us to see consumers in one consistent, cohesive way,” Gilbert says.
“Ideally this will happen and kind of a collective or portfolio way of approaching video buying. Unfortunately right now we’re seeing that the video marketplace is heavily fragmented.”
But Gilbert, who oversees media investment in excess of $500 million, says progress ie being made on that front.
“I do think that 2021 will be a transformative year for the likes of video planning and buying, to really allow us to achieve more omni-channel approaches in order to engage audiences in a connected ecosystem,” he says.
“I would love to see kind of an all-ecosystem, all-touch point enabled mapping of the customer journey. That will fundamentally require a full reworking of the attribution system across – not just CTV or TV itself, but the full advertising ecosystem.
“I do think that 2021 will be a pivotal year for this, given the preparation and things in the year ahead for the inevitable crumbling of the cookie in 2022.”
But, whilst ecosystem kinks get ironed out, the industry should also expect some legislation action this year.
“2021 is going to be a pivotal year for consumer privacy,” Gilbert adds. “I anticipate that, with the new Biden administration, we’re likely to see that policies as well as more comprehensive legislation will be brought forward from a privacy perspective to the likes of CCPA and GDPR.
“While certainly anything that might be enacted likely won’t be to as far an extreme or conservative of an approach as we’ve seen with GDPR, maybe even CCPA, we do anticipate that there will be an introduction that will help standardise some of the ways that we engage consumers across this category from a privacy perspective.
“That will therefore also have ripple-down effects from a measurement and attribution perspective as well.
“That will inherently then challenge brands, as well as advertisers and agencies today, throughout the course of 2021 to be thinking ahead and preparing for that inevitable change as that will impact front-end metrics as well as back-end ROAS.”
You are watching “Addressable Advertising: A New Reality for Linear TV,” a Beet.TV leadership series presented by SpotX. For more videos, please visit this page.
He also traces the arc of a digital content ecosystem that is in a sort of “retrograde” phase as live content becomes more prevalent amid the decline of linear television viewing.
“The mantra of the week: premium content at scale. Original content being produced by publishers, really in response to cultural trends,” Gilbert, who is Head of Digital, Midwest, says in this interview with Beet.TV.
It’s premium not just in the various big-name publishers that are generating content but also in the “production values that is elevating this content to a premium level.”
While many content partnerships were announced at this year’s NewFronts, they were accompanied by other collaborations, for example publisher-to-publisher and publisher-to-platform.
“As well as even partners such as Hulu trying to hold themselves more accountable through the likes of measurement partnerships with Nielsen, IRI as well as others,” says Gilbert. “That to me as a marketer, as an advertiser, as an agency lead is critical to defining success for the future ahead of our clients and brands.”
He also heard “the loud and continued cry towards personalization and creating authentic resonance with consumers, ultimately helping to also ensure brand safety along the way.”
Gilbert’s perspective includes a view of the marketplace for live content that for him suggests a “retrograde” of how the digital marketplace has been built and where it’s going.
“Digital video has really been build off of traditional both long-form and short-form content that gets uploaded and then lives in perpetuity,” he says.
This stands in contrast to linear TV, which has largely been live and which still draws “a wealth” of live audiences.
“In order to draw more audiences away from linear and traditional channels to digital platforms, we are seeing the likes of ESPN, Twitter and Facebook live. We also heard it last night at YouTube’s Brandcast is they’re continuing to double down with YouTube TV. So I expect we’ll continue to see that grow in the years ahead.”
This video is part of Beet.TV’s coverage of the Digital Content NewFronts 2018. The series a co-presentation of Beet.TV and the IAB. Please see additional videos from the series on this page.
]]>Meredith used its NewFronts presentation to announce additions to its over-the-top PeopleTV service, including “Chatter,” a live talk show hosted by actress Rosie Diaz that will appear on both PeopleTV and Twitter. Meredith also debuted “Search History,” a comedy in which Michelle Collins “digs deep and peruses through the phones of unsuspecting, shocked bystanders.”
In this interview with Beet.TV, Kozo, who is in addition to being Manager, Digital Partnerships, at Initiative is a self-professed comedy lover, reacts to Meredith’s latest efforts “as a marketer who has seen everything being pitched to me that’s under the sun.” She also discusses the benefits and pitfalls for brands that engage in live content.
“I definitely thought Meredith did a great job with who they brought on to represent and to showcase the programs and the live feeds that they’re doing,” Kozo says. “I mean, clearly it worked. Everyone in the room was laughing and was enjoying what they were engaging with.
“I know I’m going to start looking at People now and Chatter. I don’t even, like, really use Twitter and I’m like, ‘I should get back on Twitter.’ I just want to follow this program because it’s funny and it’s light, but it’s also doing a good job of connecting with their consumers,” she adds.
Kozo thinks live content is “a great opportunity” but cautions that brands “need to have a lot of trust in who you’re aligning with, especially since it’s typically fairly unscripted. You can’t plan for how things are going to go and you can’t really take back your message after it’s been shown.”
More to the point, live content entails advertisers giving up a large degree of control, “which I think is really tough for marketers to do.”
Nonetheless, she thinks live is a great opportunity.
“I think it’s when people are most leaned in. People want stuff right away. They want to be cutting edge. People are always connected and they just want to be at the forefront of whatever’s happening.”
This video is part of Beet.TV’s coverage of the Digital Content NewFronts 2018. The series a co-presentation of Beet.TV and the IAB. Please see additional videos from the series on this page.
]]>“Certainly the more partners that join OpenAP the more it allows us to really have that standardization across a greater amount of networks within the portfolio,” Bosetti says in this video interview with Beet.TV taped last week at the Cadent & one2one Media UpFront event.
When Fox, Viacom and Turner announced OpenAP in March of 2017, Bosetti says Initiative was excited by the opportunity “because one of the challenges that we’ve had with audience buying is the limitations to optimize within different walled gardens versus trying to optimize across the entire cable or broadcast landscape.”
On April 19, NBCU disclosed that it has decided not only to participate in OpenAP but will bring its in-house Audience Studio’s data capabilities to boost the platform by integrating them into OpenAP’s standardized data sets, as ADWEEK reports.
“With NBCUniversal aligning with the consortium, we are all accelerating the industry’s efforts in providing more premium scale to drive greater adoption of advanced audience targeting, while laying the groundwork for future innovation.” the sales chiefs at Fox, Viacom and Turner said in a joint statement.
Bosetti sees advanced audience targeting as a complement to the traditional way of buying primetime shows and daypart mixes, something that isn’t about to change.
“But layering on an audience-based approach allows us to extend that reach across other channels or other platforms that we not be reaching them through those more traditional, fixed-TV buys,” she explains.
OpenAP also offers transparency into buys instead of a “black box” approach to reaching audiences. This gives advertisers increasing confidence to continue investing in advanced TV targeting.
“Clients more and more obviously want to make sure that every dollar that they’re putting their investments into places that are driving the most effectiveness to drive their business,” Bosetti says.
In an interview with Beet.TV one year ago this month, NBCU’s EVP of Business Operations & Strategy, Krishan Bhatia, expressed support for OpenAP while underscoring his company’s efforts to help advertisers target audiences beyond traditional Nielsen demographics.
Bhatia said NBCU was “generally supportive of any efforts that help the TV ecosystem go above and beyond the traditional age/gender based way of measuring and transacting on audiences, including this one,” a reference to OpenAP.
This video was produced at the Cadent & one2one Media UpFront 2018 industry summit. You can find more videos from the series here. The sponsors for this series are Cadent and one2one Media.
]]>But what do brands get out of the upfronts? One woman who guides advertisers through their upfront buying strategy says there are both pros and cons involved in their approach.
“There is a myriad of factors that we consider when we are trying to guide clients in terms of whether or not to be in the upfront marketplace,” says Maureen Bosetti, chief investment officer at IPG Mediabrands’ Initiative.
Amongst the variables involved in the strategy:
And Bosetti says the whole season can be advantageous on at least one of those factors: “The upfront is great to make sure you can buy large amounts of television at scale … At the most efficient pricing.”
But, she acknowledges, spending committed early can limit a brand’s ability to respond later in the fall.
“Disadvantages to being in the upfront could include things like less flexibility, you are committed to the dollars, you may not be able to have funds left for more opportunistic things that come along throughout the year,” she adds.
How will networks fare during this year’s upfronts? Wall Street analysts’ forecasts are split.
“(Jefferies’ John) Janedis sees a 2% decline in the upfront dollars spent on TV to $18.2 billion, with broadcasters down 3% and cable down 1%,” reports Deadline.
But BMO Capital Markets’ Daniel Salmon expects new data-driven targeting offers brought by networks to bring growth, Deadline reports. “Does this sound like a dying marketplace to you?” he asks. “No, us either.”
This segment is part of a series leading up to the 2017 TV Upfront. It is presented by FreeWheel. To find more videos from the series, please visit this page.
]]>“Clients want to tell brand stories – they’re more open to us helping them figure out what are the best ways to do that – branded video might be one way to do that,” says the chief strategy officer of IPG’s Initiative, Sarah Power.
“The best examples are when a client completely knows who their consumer is, why something is relevant to them and have a very clear sense of who their brand is.”
She was a panelist at the recent Beet.TV summit on branded content, interviewed by Furious Minds CEO Ashley J. Swartz. You can find additional videos from the event here.
]]>