As the President of Global Media for the Essence agency surveys the video ecosystem, he sees its constituent parts operating differently with regard to what advancements they can deliver. “If I’m talking about the national TV ecosystem or marketplace, what’s achievable there is very different from what I can do today at scale within local cable avails that MVPDs control,” says in this interview with Bee.TV.
“If you consider OTT and digitally distributed content through FTP players as advanced TV, there’s a whole other spectrum of capabilities that exist in that space.”
Those capabilities should go well beyond data and targeting, according to Gerber, whose background includes positions at Brightcove and ABC and agencies MediaEdge and Mediavest. Last month, Gerber was promoted to his current position at the GroupM agency from VP of Investment for North America, as MediaPost reports.
“It’s about everything from the business strategy that the client is trying to execute against, to how they envision messaging and delivering creative versions to different segments of their audience, how that ties back to the business strategy and how you apply data and targeting within that construct.”
Gerber sees a near-term need for uniformity in understanding how consumers choose their video experiences across any and all formats. “I think we have to stop defining things in terms of traditional linear programming, short form content, etc.,” Gerber says. “We need to understand how viewers are choosing to engage with video content regardless of content length or distribution platform.”
Pragmatist as he is, Gerber acknowledges the difficulty in reaching such an understanding. In the meantime, “I think that were going to continue to have to work in a world where we use proxies where we make assumptions for the gaps that can’t be measured.”
He believes marketers are at a disadvantage if they only focus on things “that are truly measurable, because I think many of the opportunity areas are in places where if you apply a little bit of common sense and you kind of understand what’s happening, I think there are opportunities in those environments.”
This is not to condone negligence in execution, according to Gerber, citing the need to evaluate the opportunity, how you implement it and what solutions to use to determine success.
“I think we are probably a ways off from having a truly vibrant and consistent and market-wide measurement solution for us to use on the predictive side of where are people watching,” Gerber says. “The other side of measurement has to do with how we measure outcomes and actually performance, and I think that is a completely different subject.”
This video is part of the Beet.TV series titled Targeting Today’s TV Viewer sponsored by DISH Media Sales. It is published along with this DISH Media Sales Straightforward Guide in ADWEEK. For more videos from the series, please visit this page.
]]>“Amanda is a fantastic choice to be our US leader,” Castree said in a news release. “She is universally liked and respected by her people, her clients and her partners in the marketplace and I’m delighted that she’s joining our global team.”
In the same release, Richman said the MEC offer “was just too good of an opportunity to pass up. With leading talent and tech in place, we have an opportunity to drive the new agency model forward faster, in partnership with our clients and the marketplace.”
As President of Investment at Starcom USA, Richman architected and led the agency’s cross-channel investment practice across clients including Airbnb, Bank of America, Kraft Heinz and Samsung. Previously, she served as President of Digital for Mediavest, building its digital team and capability. Prior to joining SMG, Richman held digital leadership roles at The Interpublic Group as Managing Director of their first digital agency, and at Time Warner leading client services for the company’s interactive television division.
The merger of MEC and Maxus takes effect in January 2018.
Beet.TV interviewed Richman earlier this year in Los Angeles at the 4A’s conference. We are republishing the interview with today’s news.
Despite great advances in digital and television audience targeting, platform-specific creative is a milestone the industry has yet to achieve. Until a silver bullet arrives, there’s some “simple stuff” that agencies and brands can do, according to Amanda Richman.
“One of them being, let’s bring together all the right parties that all have the same interest in success in the briefing process,” says the President of Investment & Activation at Starcom USA.
In this interview with Beet.TV at the annual Transformation conference of the 4A’s, Richman discusses the need for creative—not just media—to drive effectiveness and the eternal value of human input in a technology laden industry.
Richman believes that digital audience targeting has been perfected and new network television audience optimization products are showing lots of promise toward the same end. Programmatic “is certainly elevating our game” with respect to brand safety, when it comes to controls and processes.
“But we still have not put sufficient time, resources and attention really to the space around creative messaging that is more bespoke to the audience,” she says.
The goal is to make a more meaningful impact with consumers and engaging with them not only in a campaign “but maybe across a longer period of time.”
As for the “simple stuff that we still need to crack,” it starts with having the right people at the table during the briefing process and then sticking to the brief. “Let’s map out what it is that we’re trying to achieve and understand where we actually can make that happens,” says Richman.
The process includes tapping the best practices of publishers that can help agencies understand, say, how to make the best six-second commercial format or the best experience on Snapchat. The end goal is to “really sequence and synchronize campaigns in a way that can make an impact over time,” Richman says.
“Humans and their ideas and their creativity lead the best work,” she adds. It’s something “you can’t replace with technology.”
]]>This is the viewpoint that Tim Castree brought to global advertising and media planning agency MEC upon his arrival as CEO from Videology, following stints at MediaVest and Leo Burnett. Having been tapped to lead the merger of GroupM’s MEC and Maxus earlier this month, Castree sees a need for more standardization for targeting and measurement and fewer “home-grown” solutions.
Many people look at advanced TV and premium video “and say it’s obvious, we get better targeting, we get better performance, etcetera,” Castree says in this interview with Beet.TV. “But there’s a larger context that I’m not sure people are talking about in the industry that’s really essential.”
While companies like Google and Facebook are “fantastic, important partners” they represent “disintermediation against the agency model at the moment,” according to Castree.
Meanwhile, he alludes to consultancies that are attempting to lower the rank of agencies on the value chain.
“They want to give all the smart advice and try to relegate us to execution,” Castree says.
So the opportunity for better optimization of advanced TV and premium video isn’t just about better performance. “It’s our bulwark. It’s our big hedge against the competitive threats and disintermediation.”
The route to erecting these ramparts is by bringing more data, targeting and addressability “but more importantly more standardization to the approach behind which we transact in premium video.”
In other words, a common way to apply different types of data to targeting and measurement.
“The challenge we’re having at the moment is everybody is building a home- grown solution,” Castree observes. “There’s just a multitude of home-grown solutions so it’s getting more fragmented, more difficult to navigate and the power is in some form of consolidation around that.”
This video is from The Advanced TV Summit at Cannes Lions 2017, presented by Alphonso. For more from the series, please visit this page.
]]>When MDC launched Assembly three years ago, it combined the prowess of TargetCast, RJ Palmer and Doner Media under one roof. Lee joined in 2015 from MediaVest, where he had spent 16 years and seen enough silos.
“We had a lot of leeway to build what we need in the marketplace versus inheriting what’s already there,” Lee, who is EVP of Investment at Assembly, says in this interview at the 2017 Beet.TV Executive Retreat. “Having everything under one roof helps us build a pipeline that goes through the entire company in sharing, accessing and analyzing the data.”
Lee’s background is in traditional TV video landscape, where there was far less data to inform decision making. “We have more information than before in seeing what networks, what dayparts, what spots are working harder for us,” he says. “I’m excited about having more data available to me in the way I activate.”
Having all teams under one roof is another plus. “I sit very close with the analytics team to see what’s working, what’s not working. Having everything under one roof helps us build a pipeline that goes through the entire company in sharing, accessing and analyzing the data.”
In addition to having data and analytics at the company’s core, Assembly takes a different tack when it comes to media buying practices that have raised eyebrows in the client community.
“We also strongly believe in building everything around a very transparent model,” Lee says.
This video is part of a series produced at the Beet.TV Executive Retreat in Vieques. The event and series is presented by Videology and 605. For more videos from the series, please visit this page.
]]>By constraining the inventory available through private marketplaces and giving advertisers greater control over what they buy, platforms have developed a “best of both” approach to their offering, says one happy agency exec.
“The private marketplace thing is a really interesting way to get your feet wet in programmatic without diving all the way in,” Mediavest digital, data and technology president Carrie Seifer tells Beet.TV in this video interview. “You can have your cake and eat it.
“Certain clients just want to test – they want to stay in premium inventory, a lot of liquor brands need to make sure they’re LDA (legal drinking age)-compliant. It turns out to be a great starter tool, to get deeper in to the process.”
Seifer’s own company has, arguably take a similar approach. First, programmatic delivery capabilities were concentrated its parent’s specialist VivaKi unit. But, last year, Publicis handed the responsibility to its individual groups, now including Mediavest, SMG and Spark.
“When your programmatic team is sitting next to your strategy team and your analytics team, it becomes part of your entire comms plan, rather than a single, soloed thing that you do for efficiencies over here,” Seifer adds.
]]>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.
]]>“You do have to pay a premium on a CPM basis for addressable,” MediaVest advanced media SVP Jonathan Bokor tells Beet.TV in this video interview. “However, your effective CPM is generally going to be lower if you structure the campaign correctly because there are a lot of impressions that you no longer have to serve.
“If someone just leased a car a month ago … you don’t need to serve them (ads) at that time. In a national cable or broadcast campaign, you’re going to expose all those people. With addressable, you can eliminate them from the target, and you don’t have to pay for that exposure. You’re eliminating the waste. It is more efficient.”
Bokor says MediaVest is currently placing super-targeted ads on TV for auto and consumer-packaged-goods advertisers, and is even able to trace the effect of ads all the way through to purchase. ” These are things we’ve want ed to do for as long as television’s been around,” he says.
We interviewed him last month at an event hosted by Mediaocean on the topic of Social TV.
]]>We spoke with her at the Yahoo NewFront event at Lincoln Center on Monday night.
Yahoo’s programmatic video offering was very much front and center with the recent acquisition and integration with BrightRoll. Also at the Yahoo NewFront, we interviewed BrightRoll founder and CEO Tod Sacredoti.
Beet.TV’s coverage of the Monday evening program was sponsored by Yahoo. You can find more videos from event here.
]]>So is the very existence of the media agency under threat? Not according to one agency exec who has just crossed to the other side.
“More clients want to get involved in the decisions about what platforms they work with – it’s only natural,” according to Tim Castree, MediaVest’s USA COO, who recently joined video ad platform Videology to run North America operations.
“A lot of people see that as the canary in the coal mine for the disintermediation of media agencies in the future. That is not a world view that I subscribe to. Much like incredible trading technologies didn’t spell the end of financial services companies, I don’t see the incredible platforms coming to bear on the business of media ultimately spelling the end of the media business.”
Castree tells Beet.TV agencies will survive if they quickly iterate to clients’ needs.
Castree and Videology at the Beet Retreat
Castree will be a speaker at next month’s Beet Retreat in Fort Lauderdale, which is being co-sponsored by AOL and Videology. Participants in the forthcoming event are listed below:
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“It is the two minutes of local inventory that those operators control (which is available on an addressable basis),” MediaVest’s advanced media SVP and director Jonathan Bokor tells Beet.TV in this video interview.
“We still haven’t crossed over in to national cable inventory. Eventually, (advertisers) are going to start filing up that local inventory and need to find new sources.
“It’s critical that MVPDs (multichannel video programming distributors) and networks come to an agreement on how they will make the capacity available to national cable networks.”
Bokor was interviewed by Beet.TV in Manhattan at TubeMogul’s event to launch its new programmatic TV advertising suite.
]]>“It’s not scaleable enough (today),” Korenfeld tells BeetTV in this video interview. We’re going to get there.
“Companies like the Comcasts and Coxes of the world will help us get there quicker. We’re still not there yet. Addressability is only as good as the sources you use to address.”
We spoke with(him recently at the TubeMogul partner meeting. For more videos from the event, please visit this page.
]]>We spoke with him last month in New York at an industry event organized by Eyeview, a company that creates personalized video campaigns for brands. You can find more videos from the event here.
]]>“Data is absolutely the most essential foundation piece of programmatic,” MediaVest advertising technology and platforms SVP Oleg Korenfeld tells Beet.TV in this video interview.
“You cannot efficiently and effectively buy media if you don’t understand who you’re going after, programmatically.
“Data allows you to go more direct. If you can identify that person, you don’t have to go out there and spray with media.”
This video is part of a series titled The State Of Video, a series sponsored by AOL Platforms. Please visit this page for all the videos from the series.
]]>With this higher-quality programming come opportunities for super distribution that go beyond standard digital extensions of smart phones, tablets and online video to include Xboxes, connected TVs and Rokus. “Those are all the places the consumer demands,” she says.
The Interactive Advertising Bureau said recently that about three-quarters of agencies and marketers in attendance at last year’s Digital Content NewFronts found new ad opportunities. Trivedi also spoke to Beet.TV about digital measurement compliance at the Beet Retreat.
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“All the other media don’t spend so much money validating that their ads will show up – we have to,” MediaVest’s digital marketplace MD Ritu Trivedi tells Beet.TV.
“The millions of dollars I could have spent in media now go against all this operational stuff of checking that, yes, my ads showed up. It hurts us an industry – if we were (actually) getting the demo when we bought demographic-based impressions, then we wouldn’t have to validate it.”
Vendors like Vindico offer technologies claiming to measure actual viewed ads for advertisers. Trivedi’s team also uses VisibleMeasures, Nielsen and comScore data.
“You’ve got to put the plumbing in place,” she says. “All boats rise once you start putting the right measurement in place.”
Trivedi was interviewed by Furious Minds CEO Ashley J. Swartz at Beet.TV’s annual executive retreat in Vieques, Puerto Rico.
]]>MediaVest and Google last fall announced a deal in which the media agency will commit to buying a set amount of ad space across Google properties including YouTube.
For Trivedi, the deal is about influencing Google’s roadmap to soothing advertisers’ concerns about YouTube. “There is still some hesitance from the advertisers to be on that platform.
“Building a relationship where we can understand their product, what are some of the things they can put in place to make our clients more comfortable – all that comes with a relationship. They got a long checklist from us earlier this year. If you have that relationship … those come higher up in the priority list.”
Trivedi was interviewed by TouchCast co-founder Erick Schonfeld for Beet.TV’s annual executive retreat in Vieques, Puerto Rico.
]]>In addressing relative value of Nielsen versus comScore, she says that the Nielsen OCR product is based largely on Facebook – which is tied to the PC.
We spoke with her at the OMMA video summit where she was a speaker.
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