In an interview with Beet.tv, Kawaja reflects on two significant deals in the convergent television space in 2016 and explains why he feels addressable linear TV should be getting more fanfare than programmatic TV.

Adobe’s November agreement to purchase TubeMogul brought to the Adobe Marketing Cloud a one-stop shop for video advertising and represented the recognition that Adobe “needed to be in the activation space, while primarily focus on digital but moving towards linear TV,” Kawaja observes.

The second deal is one LUMA had a hand in: the acquisition of INVIDI Technologies by the consortium of AT&T, DISH and WPP Group. Kawaja says it will have “significant implications” for the way TV is changing.

“Obviously AT&T is a new entrant buyer, which is always exciting,” Kawaja says, adding that the consortium buy is “particularly smart” because it ensures “that this particular technology would be widespread. I’m sure they will have conversations with other folks in the ecosystem because INVIDI is an ecosystem wide play.”

While programmatic TV seems to spark more industry talk than addressable linear TV, Kawaja emphasizes the latter.

“The reason being you already have a linear infrastructure, a linear market,” says Kawaja. “All you are doing with addressable is bringing additional data, targeting and precision to a bulk reach channel that already exists.” With addressable, “We’re simply taking set-top box data and being able to target this massive spend category on much more of an individual basis.”

As he looks ahead to CES 2017 in Las Vegas, Kawaja sees a “wide swath of buyers” in a variety of different categories, with both foreign and domestic players in such varied areas as data, media, TV and software. “We are seeing a maturation of this space, which is very healthy,” Kawaja says. “Let’s not forget the massive amount of fragmentation that exists in this space. It’s not sustainable. That can’t last.”

At CES, his focus will be less on emerging technology than on strategic meetings and discussions based on the technological innovations on display. With regard to AR, VR and the IOT, it’s the early worm that often gets eaten.

“From a business standpoint, strategic standpoint, what I advise people is that being early has the same financial profile as being wrong. You don’t want to be too early in terms of pursing deals in some of these nascent categories,” Kawaja says.

This interview is part of our series “The Road to CES,” a lead-up series in advance of CES 2017. The series is presented by FreeWheel. Please find more videos from the series here.

In the United States, says DISH Network’s VP of Media Sales & Analytics, “When you ask 10 people what programmatic TV is, you get 11 answers.”

But in an interview with Beet.tv, Gaynor makes it clear that DISH knows exactly where it’s going with regard to advanced TV.

“Programmatic’s not a product,” says Gaynor. “It’s not even a product when you talk about digital. It’s a process. The way that we look at programmatic is a way to automate the use of complex data sets infused into television buying.”

Gaynor goes on to outline a three-stop process at DISH with the preface that the company’s programmatic offering is built on the foundation of its addressable TV platform.

Step one involved the untargeted impressions derived from full 30-second spots that had been “sliced and diced” for addressable ads. “We wanted to take some of those untargeted impressions and bring digital money back to TV,” Gaynor explains.

So DISH made them available to advertisers that were already buying impressions across every screen but TV. “Now they have TV impressions in their buy,” says Gaynor.

Step two will be to ultimately automate the use of addressable across all of the company’s addressable impressions. “It’s not designed to get rid of my sellers or to get rid of buyers,” Gaynor says. “It’s designed to make what’s really a complex process easier.”

Step three: “Take all of my inventory and let it be purchased programmatically,” he adds.

Asked for his thoughts on the acquisition of addressable advertising platform provider Invidi Technologies by AT&T, DISH and WPP, Gaynor cites the need to continue to push addressable forward.

“The parties that come together for this venture demonstrate the commitment of both the sales side and the buy side to drive addressability,” Gaynor says.

Returning to his earlier quip about 10 questions yielding 11 answers, he explains that it’s different in Europe. “In Europe when you ask 10 people what programmatic is, at least I’m only getting three or four answers,” Gaynor says. “It gives me hope that there’s an ability for that part of the business to move forward in our industry.”

We spoke with Gaynor at the Future of TV Advertising Forum in London. Beet.TV’s coverage is presented by the 605. For other videos from the series, please visit this page.

“We’ve been spending a lot of our time and a lot of our money on addressable television,” Mike Welch, Head of Strategy, Product & Business Development for AT&T AdWorks, says during an interview with Beet.TV this week at the Future of TV Advertising Forum.

AT&T, DISH Network and WPP recently announced their joint acquisition of INVIDI, a leader in providing addressable advertising platforms. In addition to extensive distribution in U.S. households, INVIDI is actively deploying its technology and negotiating distribution agreements in Europe, South America and Asia.

“The INVIDI acquisition is just an example of us being very bullish on the future of addressable,” Welch adds. “We think that there’s huge opportunity both domestically and internationally.”

From its billing relationships with TV and mobile customers, AT&T garners verified subscriber identities. When those identities are coupled with third-party data in an anonymous, privacy compliant manner, AT&T can deliver addressable ads to TV sets and mobile devices.

“We’ll do this with our owned and operated apps,” Welch explains. “So if it’s a DIRECTV, TV Everywhere experience that someone is watching on a mobile device, we’ll be able to deliver a specific, targeted ad to that device as well as to their TV set.”

AT&T’s cross-device reach is amplified through a partnership with Opera Mediaworks, the mobile advertising and marketing platform that serves tens of thousands of apps, Welch explains.

“You don’t have to necessarily be watching content on just an AT&T app in order for us to do this cross-screen addressability,” Welch says of the association with Opera Mediaworks.

Asked about the buy-side sentiment for cross-screen addressable solutions, Welch says “We need to continue as sellers to prove that it works. We’re seeing significant lift when you have exposure across screens.”

He cites the case study of an automotive marketer that saw an 85% lift in buy rate among targeted consumers versus a control group that was not exposed to any ads on any screens. “That’s powerful,” says Welch. “If we could get that story out and make believers out of folks, I think you’ll see this market explode.”

We spoke with Welch at the Future of TV Advertising Forum in London. Beet.TV’s coverage is presented by the 605.  For other videos from the series, please visit this page.