John joined OMD in 2017 from the global creative agency BBDO where he was CEO.

In this conversation, he speaks about managing brand’s media investments during the time of COVID.

He talks of the high wire act that marketers face with the ebb and flow of the pandemic, where hope turns to despair as the virus reemerges and hope inches back.

He addresses the “new normal” of the workplace, and the challenges of keeping the agency focused, trained and inspired in the home/office hybrid.

And he speaks about the importance of diversity and inclusion in the workplace and explains the recently launched training program for people of various backgrounds.

A longtime volunteer in the not-for-profit sector,John says that commitment to community action and philanthropy is essential for both brands and for each of us in our lives.  John lives this credo as the Chairman of the Red Cross of Greater New York.

Great, inspiring conversation.   Thank you, John.

Thank you to our series sponsor TransUnion.

And thank you for listening.   I hope you enjoy the episode.

But now the set of capabilities and consequences produced by that data is changing shape.

What will the future look like? That is what “Data: Powering CTV for Marketers,” our recent Beet.TV leadership series presented by Sabio, set out to uncover.

In these highlights, hear the takes of nine advertising executives on the issue.

1. Mobile brings a TV boost

Joao Machado, marketing SVP at Sabio, a company which powers connected TV ads using mobile data, says the combination is a win.

“The mobile device is the perfect mirror of a person’s affinities, their likes, where they are in their life stages,” Machado says. He wants to “couple it with the promise of what CTV digital television offers”.

Reborn, QR Codes Are The Glue Between Mobile & TV: Sabio’s Machado

2. TV is getting richer

When it comes to new-wave TV, AJ Kinter, head of advanced video strategy at Publicis Media Exchange (PMX), says the opportunities are burgeoning.

Kinter draws a distinction between “programmatic CTV” and “direct CTV”. “Since the CPMs have started to become much closer to programmatic CTV, you now have a linear, addressable TV and programmatic CTV kind of range in the same type of CPM,” he says.

Data Tell Story of Changing Viewership Habits: PMX’s AJ Kintner

3. Fusing media and mobile

Device data needs to inform media buys. That is why Aziz Rahim, Sabio CEO, says his company also started an app analytics division.

“Sabio is focusing on the media aspect of the industry, providing a deeper, unique targeting, reach and capabilities, and then along with creative capabilities,” he says. “The App Science side is to provide agnostic analytics and insights on CTV and OTT, along with mobile campaigns.”

After IDFA, Mobile Is Identity Gold For CTV: Sabio & App Science’s Rahim

4. Double-down on de-duplication

Ad buyers need to avoid exposing consumers to the same ad across multiple devices, says Dave Kersey, executive media director at GSD&M.

“Duplication is certainly a challenge in the industry,” Kersey says. “(We need to be) understanding the entire consumer journey across all video platforms.”

Mobile Data Help to Avoid Ad Duplication: GSD&M’s Dave Kersey

5. Data helps post-pandemic ad recovery

At MBuy, a unit of Mediaocean, media strategy and operations SVP Michael Parent is using data to welcome back travel brands that want to resume spending.

“We’re taking the data that we’re getting — everything from geography to programming to dayparts to the response that we’re getting,” Parent says.

CTV Data Provide More Insights for Ad Targeting: MBuy’s Michael Parent

6. Real-time duplication monitoring

At Sabio’s App Science, EVP Helen Lum says ad duplication is starting to worry more ad buyers.

“I think a good way to solve for that is actually to track and reduce that duplication and monitor that reach and frequency across partners and publishers, so that advertisers can reinvest those wasted dollars in real-time for their buys,” Lum says.

CTV Offers Faster Data Insights Than Linear TV: App Science’s Helen Lum

7. Mobile is the key to e-commerce

Mobile is evolving toward becoming an e-commerce driver for TV ads, says Jeff Liang, head of digital product at WPP’s MediaCom.

“We’ll eventually get to a point where we’ll be able to allow for comparison shopping on CTV and give consumers the ability to transact within that single remote device rather than driving people to their mobile phones,” Liang predicts.

Mobile Data Enable Audience Targeting on CTV: MediaCom’s Jeff Liang

8. Understand TV & mobile together

It’s no longer an “either-or”. Kelly Metz, managing director of linear activation at Omnicom Media Group, says ad planners must understand how consumers use mobile and TV in tandem.

“The way we choose to manage that or support that from a planning perspective is by emphasizing holistic campaign planning and holistic campaign measurement,” she says.

Mobile, TV Data Provide Holistic Audience Insights: Omnicom Media Group’s Kelly Metz

9. TV can target the right patient

The ability to target TV ads can revolutionise healthcare advertising, according to Starcom’s EVP Melissa Gordon-Ring.

“We can double-down on things like connected television or addressable television, and have a higher likelihood of reaching our patient in their household, versus hoping that this is the right target audience for us to be purchasing against,” she says.

Mobile Data Support Personalized Healthcare Marketing: Starcom’s Melissa Gordon-Ring

This was among the the topics in this wide-ranging conversation about race, diversity and inclusion, and the role of marketers.

Solomon, longtime Chicago-based OMD executive on McDonald’s Clorox, and and other accounts, who moved to his role at PHD six months ago, explains how brands authentically market to diverse communities.

“At PHD we’ve actually pivoted to make multicultural thinking –  and really cultural thinking –  more of a business imperative, and by that I mean tying to get  closer to where clients’ growth is going to come from.” I think that’s a much more interesting conversation as opposed to investments that we’re making against audiences. So … we’re making it bigger and broader .. thinking overall not only about culture and the connection point for clients, but also what it means to the agency, and how that becomes part of everything we do.”

In his journey as a person of color, he cites the value of mentorship in his career. And, he says that more people of color need to be attracted and mentored by the marketing and media industries.

This 5-part series abut diversity and inclusion is made possible by a generous contribution to the Boys and Girls Clubs of Puerto Rico from Disney Advertising Sales.

Editor’s Note: Since 2017, I have been been an advocate for this group. Please find the latest video report from San Juan with the Clubs’ president Olga Ramos. You can make a tax deductible contribution right here.

Thank you Rita and Mike for this very special segment. Gracias!

But now OpenAP has launched the latest new initiative in its ongoing maturation – a supply-side platform (SSP) to help the buying of linear TV ad inventory.

The new platform, announced on Monday, has connective tissue that exposes OpenAP systems via APIs to buyers’ own systems.

First to use it is Omnicom Media Group (OMG), which has connected its Omni buying platform to OpenAP’s tools and will be testing them through Q1 and Q2.

OMG OpenAP’s API

In this video interview with Beet.TV in December, which we are republishing today, OMG’s advanced advertising MD Matthew Kramer talked about a dearth of data he said was available with which to prove the effectiveness of addressable TV ads.

In today’s announcement, Kramer says: “Connecting Omni to OpenAP
marks a significant step towards automation of traditional TV by bringing more speed, efficiency and visibility to TV inventory, enabling more flexibility and accountability in this medium.”

.@OpenAPTV announces new technology for advertisers to see available commercial time from members, showcasing the value of strong industry partnerships. Learn about NBCU's commitment through OpenAP to further advance the ad buying process.

Read from @WSJ.https://t.co/GDgZEFsjQy

— NBCU Together (@NBCUTogether) January 11, 2021

Making availability clearer

OpenAP’s system will let ad buyers like those at OMG log in to their existing buy-side tools to get lists of buyable inventory across networks including:

• AMC Networks
• Fox Corporation
• NBCUniversal
• Univision
• ViacomCBS

Soon added to that mix will be:

• A+E Networks
• The Weather Channel

The system makes the forecasted reach and frequency of ads visible. When buy requests are sent to the networks, they confirm orders and provide final media plans, according to OpenAP’s announcement.

Altogether, it aims to align with buyers’ existing workflows, and provide some additional automation to boot.

But, in TV, automation is not total. As Wall Street Journal reports:”An order doesn’t necessarily reserve the inventory. The TV seller is expected to respond to a buyer within 24 hours to confirm the order…

“Once ad buyers select and reserve inventory provided through the SSP, they will still need to work with the individual sellers and use traditional insertion orders to complete transactions.”

Piecing data together

“(We will be) working with the partners and the sellers to make sure that there’s ways for us to get the information we need from them,” OMG’s Kramer told Beet.TV in December, “to at least incorporate that black box into our overall reach frequencies and then eventually things like MTA (multi-touch attribution) and attribution analysis is really key.

“We’re triangulating data that we’re getting from the SSPs, that we’re getting from the publishers themselves, and that we’re getting from guys like Nielsen.

“But not everybody has the entire ecosystem and so we’re really going to have to work and continue to work through the rest of this year and into 2021.”

Indeed, in its announcement, OpenAP says: “The launch delivers on requests from advertisers for more transparency and visibility of the TV marketplace and maximizes investments buyers and sellers have made in data and technology by enabling more sophisticated buying of advanced TV across premium viewing environments.”

OpenAP’s development

After several years of dismay at the fragmented, difficult-to-measure nature of connected and addressable TV, efforts to streamline the opportunity are now coming thick and fast.

For its part, OpenAP advanced its maturation more than a year ago when it stated its desire to launch software that would transform it into a “marketplace” for more easily buying targeted, automated TV ads across multiple major linear networks.

The latest move, however, is more modestly focused on bringing data to bear on enhancing the traditional TV ad-buying process.

Interviewed by WSJ, OpenAP CEO David Levy says: “There’s already a baked-in market for commitments between agencies and publishers.” He says he wants to “optimize the spend that already exists”.

OpenAP Grows Up: Next Step Is To Become A Marketplace, New CEO Levy Says

Says Scott Hagedorn, CEO of Omnicom Media Group in this BeetCast podcast moderated by Matt Spiegel, EVP of Transunion.

Part of the problem is that sensational content optimizes algorithms that in turn pull advertising in.  While the number of impressions  might be high, associations with the content is not necessarily valued and potentially  detrimental to the advertiser, Hagedorn warns.

In this wide-ranging conversation, topics include identity, privacy and the importance of the integration of the supply chain with media investment.

The BeetCast is sponsored by Tru Opik, a Transunion company.   Please visit this page to find more episodes of the BeetCast and to subscribe via your preferred podcast service.

So the managing director or advanced advertising at Omnicom Media Group is making CTV measurement a focus for the year ahead.

In this video interview with Beet.TV, Kramer describes the problem – and what needs to happen to solve it.

Up-sizing measurement

“Measurement is a really key thing for 2021,” Kramer says “Measurement is going to be big for us in 2021.

“There’s a major outage in terms of (measuring) app-based media. (In) OTT, which is the largest growing and the fastest growing medium we have today, we don’t have a great way of measuring that, Nielsen doesn’t have a great way of measuring that area.

“(We will be) working with the partners and the sellers to make sure that there’s ways for us to get the information we need from them to at least incorporate that black box into our overall reach frequencies and then eventually things like MTA and attribution analysis is really key.”

Omnicom Media Group Embraces National Addressable TV Amid OTT Boom: Kramer

Dearth of data

The challenges are severalfold. In digital display, of course, identifiers are declining in usefulness with the deprecation of third-party tracking cookies and the move to opt-in mobile ad identifiers.

But many connected TV platforms have never known such device-level identifiers in the first place.

And so the same challenge faced by digital display advertisers is also one that needs addressing for CTV advertisers.

“Right now, we’re living in a world where, specifically app-based media, we can’t even really plan against it that well,” Kramer says.

“We’re triangulating data that we’re getting from the SSPs, that we’re getting from the publishers themselves, and that we’re getting from guys like Nielsen. But not everybody has the entire ecosystem and so we’re really going to have to work and continue to work through the rest of this year and into 2021.”

Providing insight from EVP at @InvidiTechnologies Michael Kubin, @AENetwork’s Santosh Mathai, and @OmnicomGroup’s Matthew Kramer, @MediaWhiz Jeff Minsky explores #addressability’s new abilities thanks to @Adcuratio #OnTheVillage. #AENetworks #Omnicom #OTThttps://t.co/K3eODGRVGY

— MediaVillage (@MediaVillageCom) October 14, 2020

Growth probability

EMarketer last November estimated programmatic TV ad spending will reach $6.69 billion in the US by 2021, more than doubling from $2.77 billion.

That makes it a still-small but fast-growing part of the overall TV ad spending pie.

Ad buyers are getting interested by the ability to target specific audiences or households, the ability to use other data in doing so and the ability

But growth is going to depend on more platforms opening up to offer the capability at scale.

Addressable enablement

Kramer says he is welcoming the growing number of national-level addressable ad placement opportunities.

“Right now we’re working with the MVPDs, which are of course your local cable provider,” he says. “We’re able to buy through their smart TV boxes, we’re able to deliver specific ads to specific households and that’s available in about 60 to 65% of U.S. cable TV households.”

But Kramer says agencies and their brands need more scale than local cable.

“The way that we do it is working with guys like Project OAR, we do it with working with Canoe who is doing more of the VOD side, and also working with the TV manufacturers like Samsung, LG Vizio, and trying to get more and more of those homes to be addressable so that we can serve again, the right ads to the right household.”

‘Very exciting’

That means “enablement” – the craft of utilizing more and more such opportunities i is another big watchword for Kramer in 2021, “a huge endeavour for us”.

“We’re already talking to the major network groups like WarnerMedia, for example, who are starting to dip their toes in allowing for their national inventory to become more addressable,” he says.

“So it’s very exciting. We’ve been waiting for this moment for many years now and we’re excited to start working with these partners to enable those households to be more addressable.”

You are watching “An Open Ecosystem is Key to Advanced TV Success,” a Beet.TV leadership video series presented by DISH Media. For more videos, please visit this page.

But ad agencies are now enjoying recent developments which are widening both of those apertures – audience breadth and geographic scale.

In this video interview with Beet.TV, Matthew Kramer, Managing Director, Advanced Advertising at Omnicom Media Group, describes the trends and technologies he sees presenting a wider opportunity when it comes to audience-targeted TV ads.

Trends evolving

Age: “Even when we look at 50+ or 65+ (Nielsen demographics), they’re already watching upwards to eight hours per week of OTT. We’re seeing that even the adoption among the older demographics is starting to happen.”

Breadth: “Having everyone stuck at home and isolating has increased adoption (and) the amount of time people are spending with OTT. Where they might have been people who (only watch) Netflix, YouTube or Hulu, the big players, they’re now starting to delve into less popular apps (like) Tubi, Pluto, Vudu and Crackle. We are seeing a massive increase in those impressions.”

Technology: “Device ID graphs and household graphs are getting strong enough that we can actually start buying audiences within the space.”

Programmatic growth

EMarketer in November estimated programmatic TV ad spending will reach $6.69 billion in the US by 2021, more than doubling from $2.77 billion.

That makes it a still-small but fast-growing part of the overall TV ad spending pie.

Ad buyers are getting interested by the ability to target specific audiences or households.

OMG’s Kramer wants to take the opportunity to gain a detailed view of all the channels through which clients’ ads are placed, including frequency-capping ad exposures across those channels.

National addressable

Next up, OMG is looking forward to buying TV ads addressably at the national level, by participating in beta testing with Project OAR, the consortium kickstarted by VIZIO’s Inscape.

“The ability to start inserting household addressable ads within the national pod … is very different from what we’ve had for household addressable, where we’ve mainly worked with the MVPDs or the cable operators … where you’re inserted into local pods,” Kramer says.

“For a lot of national advertisers who have been concerned about some of the environments that you can be in within the local pods, having access to national pods, I think, is going to be very exciting.

“And so we certainly want to be part of that pilot testing, which is going to be happening, I believe at the end of the summer. That conversation has already started.”

In doing so, Kramer wants to work with both supply-side platforms (SSPs) and publishers on decision-making.

This is from a Beet.TV series titled “The Accelerated Evolution of Programmatic OTT” presented by PubMatic.  for more videos please visit this page. 

TV marketplace is moving inexorably to an “audience-based” world.   It’s time to move past the way things have been done for 40 years and look at the way it could be in 12 months, she urges.

This video is part of a Beet.TV series  titled “Audience, in Context,” presented by Xandr.  For more videos please visit this page.  

All of that action presents an opportunity for Omnicom, which has been investing heavily in streaming and connected TV over the last few years, according to Sullivan.

“I only see that accelerating,” she tells Beet.TV during a remote BeetCam interview. “We’re excited about the opportunity to bring this all together, regardless of how a consumer is watching content. They have the ability to watch it linearly and digitally, and when you layer in behavioral targeting, that could be the holy grail in terms of getting linear to act more digitally and remove some of the friction.”

Omnicom works with Xandr, AT&T’s advanced advertising company, which is working with AMC Networks, Disney and WarnerMedia in a partnership announced in March to work toward a new linear buying and selling solution. Through that partnership, tools that Omnicom Media built with Xandr to facilitate more advanced linear targeting and measurement will be adopted by major media companies.

“They’ll be one asset for us to go push the envelope for demographic CPMs in the audience-based world,” says Sullivan of Omnicom’s work with Xandr. “Most media companies are finding new meaning, and understanding that in order to compete for the full funnel of dollars out there, they’re going to have to get into audience-based buying and targeting.”

This video is part of a Beet.TV series titled “Audience, in Context,” presented by Xandr. For more videos please visit this page.   

There are two forces that got the industry to where it is today. One is the promise of digital and how the way that digital optimization has worked has led us down a dangerous path where optimization is about short-term campaigns simply proving that something worked. In turn, the data that is yielded has shown short-term gains and ignored the big picture.

“The data that we buy and use has been focused more on showing short-term gains because they’re easy to show than thinking about how data fits into a broader audience strategy that looks holistically at the whole marketing funnel, the consumer journey, the true inventory optimization,” Steuer said.

The industry is also still operating in a world of measurement that was designed for a TV ecosystem in which there were three TV networks and where rating numbers felt like an accurate representation. Now, this ecosystem has evolved.

Accuracy now comes from counting each atomic exposure, including delivery and and outcomes.

“If you skip that counting step and go directly to the, ‘we’re going to do it on an outcome’, you necessarily sort of collapse the entire conversation into, ‘This campaign did awesome because more people bought beds or beer or subscribed to a newspaper,’” Steuer said.

In order to make this more accessible and more realistic, Steuer explained that it’s about simplification and standardization. The industry has been so fragmented that there is no standard interface or data set or way of looking at outcomes.

“You need a standard underlying data set that everyone can trade on so that instead of worrying about the information gradients around who has what data and who can do what better than the other folks, you can at least look at reach and frequency across everybody,” Steuer said.

This video was produced  at the Beet Retreat San Juan 2020 sponsored by 605, DISH Media, NBCU, Roundel & Tubi.   For more videos from the series, please visit this landing page. 

“We’re not necessarily there yet when it comes to being able to get the measurements that you want,” Maron tells Beet.TV. “But we do know that we are going to get there. And to be able to have that advanced targeting that you used to be able to only get in digital that you can get with people at home, it’s amazing.”

Part of the process in reaching the full potential of connected TV is fragmentation, which Maron considers an opportunity. Right now, 90% of the OTT market is still across four partners, she says. Partners like Vevo and Pluto TV that represent new opportunities for client to get in front of more targeted audiences. Outside of linear, Maron says, marks the end of “shotgun plans” – holistic planning is still part of the strategy, but the approach is more tactical.

“None of it is one size fits all,” says Maron. “Fragmentation is no longer a dirty word, it’s a way we are reaching customers.”

Guiding the shift to a split, more targeted customer reach is data. Maron says that data sourcing is not perfect – right now, with data coming from different sources, she likens it to a “Frankenstein” approach – but long-term, it will be game changing.

“We have to make this leap of faith and get as much data as we can,” she says.

This video is part of Beet.TV’s leadership series Vevo Everywhere: Evolving Content Distribution.  For more videos from the series, please visit this page. 

“Header bidding” technology sought to solve  all that – eliminating the “waterfall” through which publishers would entertain ad bids from different demand platforms sequentially, thus allowing them to entertain maximum prices in a single hit.

Now ad buyers can expect even more simplification, according to one agency exec who has been seeing moves afoot from the publishers community.

“What I’m really excited about when I talk to our various supply partners is there seems to be kind of a consensus that, by end of 2020, beginning of 2021, the vast majority of video inventory that’s accessible programmatically will move into a unified auction format,” says Ben Hovaness, Omnicom Media Group MD marketplace innovation and intelligence, in this video interview with Beet.TV

“It’s not necessarily going to be called ‘header bidding’, but the point is that all demand is being aggregated instantaneously into one auction. That really improves the yield mechanics for publishers, which means that it benefits them commercially to expose all this inventory programmatically.

“I think that’s going to be a huge shift and it’s going to have major implications for how we negotiate these PMP (private marketplace) deals, for example, and what the overall shape of the industry looks like. I’m optimistic that will drive investment further away from your old school digital insertion orders and even more volume into programmatic.”

Speaking further about ad auctions Hovaness also says his OMG is working with PubMatic, a publisher-side ad-tech supplier, to introduce a brand-new buying control – the ability for platforms to grant a rate benefit to certain buyers.

This video is from a Beet.TV series titled Consolidation & The Case for Supply Chain Innovation, presented by PubMatic.   For more videos, please visit this page.

In a sit-down discussion at Cannes Lions, Tracey Scheppach – who encountered that challenge over years spent specialising in smart TV at Publicis and Starcom, and who now runs her own Matter More Media – led a discussion on the conundrum with two execs focused on improving measurement…

• Kelly Abcarian – General Manager of Video Advanced Advertising, Nielsen
• Jonathan Steuer – Chief Research Officer, Omnicom Media Group

Abcarian began by excitedly illustrating the growth the industry is seeing in smart TV adoption, something which is lighting up the opportunity for broadcasters and marketers alike.

“When you look at the growth of smart TVs, it’s been incredible,” Abcarian said. “Almost half of the homes have at least one enabled smart TV, 47%. We look four years back, that was at 16% so it just shows you the hugest acceleration.”

But that growth is driven by proliferation. There are many smart TV viewing systems, many ad delivery mechanisms and many ways to measure the ultimate consumption of smart TV ads and content.

“The thing that concerns me … is, we need all of the smart TVs to be available under the same umbrella … both from a data-for-targeting-and-measurement purposes, and from an addressable-inventory point of view,” said Steuer, who also spent years in the trenches on the same issues at TiVo.

To that end, both Abcarian and Steuer both recently helped drive a new “measurement taskforce” in June, focused on improving data readiness, transparency and reconciling smart TV consumption to Nielsen C3 and C7 ratings.

That, says Abcarian, is the “number one thing I tell everyone that is the core focus for me and my team to solve this year”, because she believes that has been holding back the industry’s ability to realize full advanced TV ad benefits.

“Our target is June of next year,” she said. “We’re working alongside the committee and based on kind of progress and feedback and the bringing that transparency and ensuring the methodologies right is critically important.

“With C3 (and) C7 we’re under penning $70 billion, so there’s real money at stake here, so we have to get this right and we’re very committed to doing so.”

Omnicom’s Steuer said his agency holding group, like the others, wants to achieve a person-based view of consumers, usable across all media platforms, built out in to a unified measurement framework.

Hard problems don’t have easy solutions. But, if the growing raft of initiatives and working partnerships is anything to go, the “umbrella” may become a lot more effective soon.

This video is from Cannes Lions if from our series, Capitalize on Convergence, presented by Amobee. For more videos from the series, visit this page. To find all Beet.TV coverage from Cannes, please visit this page.

“A lot of viewers flocked to OTT very early on from the fact that it gave them a lot of choice,” the President of Enterprise Partnerships adds in this interview with Beet.TV. “I think beyond that it was probably a slower place for advertisers to start to market their products and services. And now that reach has hit critical mass, we see a lot of advertising in the space.”

With so many platforms to consider agnostically across linear TV and OTT, scale and reach are top priorities. “And by and large, we’re seeing a tremendous amount of growth in that area. The plumbing and the framework behind it related to technology and data, a lot of that is being built in and it’s being built from a digital lens.”

As a means of preserving a value exchange with viewers, frequency capping is needed to prevent ad overload, according to Candela. “Moving towards an automated approach in buying OTT and connecting with consumers in that environment is going to be the way in which you solve for frequency. It’s an area that we believe has a tremendous impact on the consumer.”

As TV providers and advertisers gear up for the annual NewFronts and Upfront rituals, “I think from an innovation perspective we’re going to see a variety of advancements.” Examples on the OTT side include server-sider ad insertion driving improved viewing experiences by curtailing latency, along with emerging ad formats like pop-up ads when OTT viewing is paused.

“We’re seeing the ability to really integrate interactive, shoppable ad experiences into that environment,” says Candela.

Omnicom’s centralized people-based solution for all of its agencies is called Omni, fueled by data from Experian, LiveRamp, Neustar and others.

“There’s quite a bit out there for us to look at and I think we would be maybe a bit foolish to think we could do it with pen and paper.”

This video is part of a series about the emergence of OTT as an advertising platform. For more interviews, please visit this page. This series is presented by Premion.

At the recent FreeWheel NOWFRONT event in Manhattan, Steuer, who is Chief Research Officer, welcomed the “consistent effort across almost all of the networks and network groups to try to make advanced TV solutions work,” he explains in this Beet.TV interview.

This is in contrast to just a few years ago, when individual TV networks began to roll out their own advanced-targeting arrangements.

“Then we had OpenAP, which does not appear to be a force in the marketplace for this year’s UpFront,” Steuer says. “But every conversation we’re having with network groups involves some notion of trying to move or investment toward more advanced TV and other kinds of targeting and measurement, and we think that’s great.”

Omnicom has been using data from Vizio-owned Inscape “pretty deeply” for the past nine months and is currently working with VideoAmp to conjoin set-top box and ACR data. “I was pleased to see this morning that FreeWheel announced they’re doing the same thing with Comcast and Vizio Inscape ACR data.”

This is because set-top box and ACR data do different things very well, according to Steuer.

“ACR lets us get some read of both content and commercial exposure across sources so we can see both OTT and linear delivery in that data set. Set-top box data gets you every TV in the household, typically when people are pay-TV subscribers, but only gets you pay-TV subscribers.”

What still needs to happen is for MVPD’s and ACR providers to make their data available in a more “democratized” fashion. “But at least now we see steps in that direction, which is great,” Steuer adds.

Asked about a unified data platform that would serve much if not all of the TV industry, Steuer cites a “trust problem” with having any single vendor be the data aggregator.

“So what I think is going to have to happen is each of the data aggregators to find a way to make their data available in a linkable but segregated format.”

The end goal is the formation of a common set of data formats, pre-processing rules and linkage mechanisms.

“That’s the only way to evolve the TV business to compete in the world of walled gardens,” Steuer says.

This video is part of Beet.TV’s coverage of The FreeWheel NOWFRONT: Media Reimagined. For more coverage from the series, please visit this page.

“There’s a lot going on and as a result, I think you as brand need a very clear and concise message. To make sure that what you’re portraying your brand to be, what the attributes are, what the value of that brand is to be very clear,” Sullivan adds in this interview with Beet.TV.

These are the attributes that people are looking for in the broader space of news and information. “They want clear, concise information” informed by fact checking. “They really pay attention now more and more.”

Research done by Omnicom shows that 60% of the people they polled “are paying more attention to where they get their news from, the credibility of that news organization, the fact checking that is done. From a brand perspective, make sure that you are also telling a very true and reliable account of who you are and make the message simple for the consumer.”

Noting that “the news sometimes is just hard to watch,” Sullivan points to vehicles like CNN’s Great Big Story and branded content studio Courageous as examples of how news is a very broad category beyond the minute-by-minute, oft-volatile headlines. Viewers desire “the ability to learn something new. The ability to get a story that you knew nothing about the topic. They have a voracious appetite to get out there, see the world that they can’t actually maybe physically see. I think as news organizations are branching out into that.”

The more that news organizations are able to tell great stories beyond just the headlines, the more they can satisfy the “tremendous appetite” for reliable information about things like health, fitness, travel, food, music and sports, according to Sullivan.

Research shows that 80% of all Millennials are getting news and information from apps and from social media. “That alone is telling you what’s out there. It’s not just about politics and not just about current affairs. It is about all those other things I just mentioned.”

This video is part of a Beet.TV series exploring the dynamic news landscape and opportunities for marketers.  The series is sponsored by CNN.  For more from the series, please visit this page.

Brands would buy ads and, with little insight in to who really watched what, would need to unleash a slew of media mix modelling tools to understand what exposures may have led to which purchases.

That imprecision has led the industry to focus on the half-full glass – TV is an amazing medium for building mass initial awareness, if not for closing a deal with a customer.

Now that over-the-top TV services and addressable TV advertising technologies, which allow for precision targeting, are coming on stream, the industry is contemplating changing the way it trades ads, like offering guarantees on business outcomes, measurable with digital attribution.

For an industry that is worth north of $70 billion in the US alone, the change could be profound. But how quick is it happening? What will the real nature of ROI look like? And who stands to gain?

At Beet Retreat, a panel representing all sides of the value chain – brand, agency, programmer, and technology supplier – was convened to thrash out the issues, concluding three days of debate in Puerto Rico. Here is what they said…

TV is not direct mail

The panel was cautioned against comparing the emerging technology of addressable TV to forebear marketing channels, just because it exhibits similar one-to-one qualities…

Vijay Konduru, VP Brand Sponsorships and Media, Discover

“There’s going to be this inherent reaction to treat addressable TV like it’s direct marketing or direct mail. But, if you benchmark the performance of, let’s say, addressable TV from an ROI perspective, from an effectiveness perspective, it’s never going to perform similarly to direct mail.”

Top of funnel still matters

Addressable and OTT TV ads can laser-guide creative to individual households or even individual viewers, just like digital – very different from conventional mass broadcast. But reaching that mass is still important…

Jonathan Steuer, Chief Research Officer, Omnicom Media Group:

“Awareness matters. The high-funnel stuff, brand-level marketing, actually really matters. In a rush to try to make everything accountable in a direct markety, outcome-based way, you end up minimizing the value of all that high-funnel stuff. We’ve done that largely because we never thought of making TV accountable at all. ”

ROI is a team sport

With so many technological possibilities at play, and the emerging possibility of selling ads only when an attribution can prove they have led to a purchase or other action, the whole notion of return on investment (ROI) is up in the air. But all sides of the value chain are playing the game…

John Hoctor, CEO & C0-Founder, Data Plus Math:

“Agencies, marketers, media folks (are now) partnering on (defining) ROI, which is kind of interesting. We’ll go on a lot of sales calls as the tech provider, as the glue that’s kind of holding it all together, to talk about what sort of outcomes can we measure for this particular advertiser. There’s some advertisers where the outcome is pretty clear, and you can measure it. There’s real budgets going against it. But it has not displaced the GRPs that are out there. But everyone is leaning into it. We’re in tons of these meetings with all of these folks. It’s a super hot topic.”

Turning around the TV ship

New technologies offer advertisers the ability to buy ads on TV in a manner consistent with digital – transacting not just for precise targeting but also buying specific business outcomes. But that is going to need the TV industry to change decades of habit…

Brian Norris, SVP, Audience Sales, NBCUniversal:

“TV has been transacted in a very similar way for the last 50 years or more. We’ve been really vocal about transitioning away from legacy measurement. Marketers by the way, are interested in that, and they’re leaned into it … (moving) into some sort of impact-, outcome-based measurement.”

Ashley Swartz, CEO, Furious Corp:

“But, still, 90% of your business is transacted against the Nielsen guarantee. $10 billion top line … moved against a currency that you and Linda (Yaccarino, Chairman of Advertising & Partnerships at NBCUniversal) and everybody openly express you feel needs to be refreshed. I guess maybe it’s also. ‘Guys, when is it worth the effort?'”

Jump right in

Beet Retreat heard frustration from attendees that many parts of the media-buying landscape still treat addressable TV advertising as a test-and-learn opportunity, with many holding back from significant investment. When could that change… ?

Jay Prasad, Chief Strategy Officer, VideoAmp:

“In 2018, a lot of it was research, so that you can prepare for how you want to start transacting moving forward. So by 2020, I’m hoping a lot of that volume, which is already pretty significant, is now moving into actual delivery, with measurement that is making buyers and sellers, both more effective in what they’re trying to do.”

This video was produced in San Juan, Puerto Rico at the Beet.TV executive retreat. Please find more videos from the series on this page. The Beet Retreat was presented by NCC along with Amobee, Dish Media, Oath and Google.

A Beet Retreat panel convened by Beet.TV in Puerto Rico discussed that topic.

Slow addressable adoption?

The debate kicked off with some data points quantifying the size of spend in US addressable TV advertising today…

Howard Shimmel, President, Janus Strategy and Insights, LLC:

“Two percent of all national media (is) being spent via addressable. Forester issued some research last summer that said about 15% of advertisers are using advanced TV, (but) 50% are sitting on the sidelines. Are you happy with the level of adoption? Are we behind?”

Mike Bologna, President, one-2-one media, Cadent:

“For the advertisers where the return outweighs the work and the pain, they’re involved. For the advertisers and the brands where it doesn’t, they’re not there.

Brands only dipping a toe

Whilst media buyers are certainly spending in addressable TV, executives bemoaned that the budget was still experimental or occasional…

Michael Law, EVP,  US Media Investment, Dentsu Aegis Network:

“Our (clients’) spend is actually about flattened down a little. But the number of brands interacting is growing because we’ve had some brands who went in just way too high early on. What is worrisome is the amount of (spending that) is still considered ‘test and learn’ – it’s just a little bit of money and then it goes away.”

Mike Bologna, President, one-2-one media, Cadent:

“That’s very true. That is the single biggest issue with scaling the dollars in addressable television today. Many advertisers want to do it for the wrong reasons. They want to check off the ‘innovation’ box.”

More supply needed

Panelists discussed how limiting the availability of inventory with the right audiences against it could actually work against addressable…

Mike Bologna, President, one-2-one media, Cadent:

“Historically, television has always been (about) supply and demand. When the supply decreases, the knee jerk reaction is to raise the price. As we all know, in television, at least in recent times, the advertisers still stand in line with the checkbook.

“That’s not going to work with addressable television. If we run out of inventory, or we get to a point where there’s a finite supply of inventory, it’s going to drive up the price.”

Craig Berkley, Head of Revenue, TV, LiveRamp:

“You’re going to have ownership of programmers by MVPDs or at least a fusion of the two. That inventory will open up and I think OTT is also growing rapidly.”

Don’t target, cap

The debate heard one view that addressability should not be about targeting audiences at all – especially for certain brands…

Adam Gerber, President, Global Media Investment, Essence (GroupM):

“We’re thinking about addressability wrong … The math is not going to work, right? I would question, are we thinking about addressability the right way as being about audiences? Or should we be thinking about it a different way, in that it can solve frequency distribution? The better option for us is, how do we use addressability to manage frequency, not target audiences.”

Michael Law, EVP,  US Media Investment, Dentsu Aegis Network:

“Right now, there’s a lot of categories saying, “How do I (target) toilet paper (which everyone needs)?”

Solve for cord-cutting

But the panel also heard how addressable or some alternative to conventional linear TV advertising is essential…

Jonathan Steuer, Chief Research Officer, Omnicom Media Group:

“Part of the problem now, with the way viewership behavior is shifting, is that there are a lot of people who you’re just never gonna get on linear TV because they don’t do that anymore. Whether it’s linear or addressable, or anything that looks like broadcast, to try to reach people who don’t have an antenna or cable subscription ain’t going to work.”

This video was produced in San Juan, Puerto Rico at the Beet.TV executive retreat. Please find more videos from the series on this page.

The Beet Retreat was presented by NCC along with Amobee, Dish Media, Oath and Google.

In this video interview with Beet.TV, Omnicom Media Group chief research officer Jonathan Steuer opens up on the dilemmas presented by the emergence of connected TV platforms.

Interviewing Steuer for Beet.TV is veteran TV research executive Howard Shimmel.

“Traditional television measurement, in the Nielsen world, is based on impressions against a demo(graphic),” Steuer explains. “That comes from people pushing buttons on people meters, and so all of our advertisers actually believe, for better or worse, that what they’re getting is actual people.

“One of the challenges in advanced television and addressable and IPTV especially … is what we’re measuring are deliveries.”

Many in the advertising world are getting excited about the potential to deliver individualized ad creative to households or individual viewers, and to be able to measure exact numbers that watched.

In addition, new technology enables marketers to track the viewer of an ad all the way through to a store, demonstrating real effectiveness.

But Steuer observes an “interesting problem”.

“We’re measuring the server side,” he says. “‘This ad got sent to this device at this point in time’, and we can do demographic matching via Experian, or whoever, to figure out whose in the household.

“But, getting to that last mile of attributing which humans in that household where actually in front of the set when the ad aired, is still an unknown process. The models that comScore and Nielsen have built to deal with that, typically aren’t based on single-source measurement of what’s actually happening.”

Steuer says he is having to convince brands to pay up to 40% more for ad placements on connected TV platforms where he can prove humans were actually watching.

This video was produced in San Juan, Puerto Rico at the Beet.TV executive retreat. Please find more videos from the series on this page.  The Beet Retreat was presented by NCC along with Amobee, Dish Media, Oath and Google.

That same kind of infrastructure is getting people in several industries excited. In particular, blockchains’ ability to store an immutable, public ledger of every system activity.

In the advertising world, that capability has some people wondering if such a ledger could be the perfect way to record how every cent of media spend is allocated and how every consumer action correlates.

For Jonathan Steuer, Omnicom Media Group’s, chief research officer, the benefits are coming in to focus.

In this video interview with Beet.TV, he says: “The two things that keep coming up over and over again are:

1. “How do you measure unduplicated reach and frequency in a cross-platform world, which is still really hard?”
2. “How do you assess the quality of data sets that you’re using for targeting or for measurement or for both?”

“The two, I think, potentially get solved together in a … blockchainy-like solution… some sort of tokenized identity.”

Whilst the detail is yet to be fleshed out, in theory, Steuer imagines a system driven by how audience members themselves control the data they provide to advertisers.

“On one hand, you empower consumers to control the data about them that gets collected and, on the other hand, you have standard ways of connecting that and rolling that up that extend across all the various different platforms,” Steuer adds.

Today, blockchain is the zeitgeist technology searching for application beyond cryptocurrency. Could it really cure advertising’s ills? Many a vendor is currently launching blockchain solutions purporting to enhance advertising capabilities. But the proof of the pudding will be in the eating.

“I think that’s where we eventually get to,” Steuer says of his own idea. “The question is, how long does that take and what are the stops along the road to get there?”

This video is part of a series titled The Road to the Digital Content NewFronts. It is a preview of topics to be explored at IAB’s NewFronts, which begin on April 30. This series is presented by Meredith Corporation. For more videos from the series, please visit this page.

Announced today at the 4A’s Accelerate conference, the APB “came up as a very natural discussion around something that we call the code of decency,” Louis Jones, EVP, Media & Data at the 4A’s, says in this interview with Beet.TV. “There ought to be a base level for brand safety.”

Founding members of the APB include executives from Dentsu Aegis Network, GroupM, Havas Media, Horizon Media, IPG Mediabrands, MDC Partners, Omnicom Media Group and Publicis Media. Each holding company—as well as Horizon Media—has committed to dedicating a Brand Safety Leader within its network to serve on the bureau.

“We are creating a database where everybody can report in and say, ‘Hey, I’m the person from Dentsu Aegis and I just saw some of your Publicis brands in places where you don’t want them,” Jones says. “And then that information gets shared so that everyone can collectively act and keep every brand potentially, every major brand in the marketplace, safe.”

The formation of the APB is the first step in a list of actions that nearly 100 4A’s members and industry leaders “outlined and rallied around” at the Advertising Assurance Forum, a closed-door event hosted by the 4A’s on March 19, according to a 4A’s release.

Additional next steps outlined under the Advertising Assurance initiative include:

• Develop a risk management module. The APB will work with advertisers to 
develop categorizations of risk across a spectrum from most safe to least safe.

• Create a code of decency. Working with the Media Rating Council, Inc., APB agencies will help establish a set of ground rules that align baseline expectations for safety through a new set of standards within the MRC’s Brand Safety Guidelines, currently in initial draft. “Down the road, media agencies will also work with the MRC to identify efforts and methodologies to mitigate fake news,” states the 4A’s release.

• Educate the ecosystem. The APB will develop an industry playbook that will include new standards, metrics, methodologies and tools to combat unsafe environments for both brands and consumers.

Working with the MRC will help agencies understand “what are all the things we can do as an industry, from a perspective of how can technology be better, how can it be more specific, what is the role that human intervention plays in terms of understanding levels of risk and inappropriateness,” Jones says.

This video is part of a series titled The Road to the Digital Content NewFronts. It is a preview of topics to be explored at IAB’s NewFronts, which begin on April 30. This series is presented by Meredith Corporation. For more videos from the series, please visit this page.

Meanwhile, during this year’s TV Upfront season, “There’s going to be a much bigger focus on delivery across all platforms,” Steuer adds in this interview with Beet.TV.

He likens the networks’ embracing audience-buying, platform-based tools to a continuation of the evolution of better TV targeting from the likes of Simulmedia and unwired networks and “picking up where the TRA platform left off,” a reference to the technology purchased by TiVo before its acquisition by Rovi.

A big challenge to the buy-side, according to Steuer, is stitching together the various network offerings.

“In a world where the lines between linear TV and other digitally oriented methods for delivering television programming, whether that’s streaming services or video downloads or on demand from the cable operators, all of that is making it extremely complex to measure audience delivery across multiple providers,” Steuer says.

Gone are the days of a single TV currency based on Nielsen panel data, which are too small to measure more granular audiences.

“The more severe problem is finding those granular audiences across a variety of different platforms and delivery mechanisms,” Steuer adds.

On-boarding clients’ first-party data has led to many opportunities, but there are limitations to such datasets because they don’t provide a view of the entire marketplace.

“It gives you who your current customers are. That first party data is a great suppression mechanism if what you’re trying to do is go fined people who aren’t already your customers.”

On the plus side, first-party data can easily connect exposure with outcome “because you already know on a person level exactly who the people are.”

This Upfront will be Steuer’s second representing the buy-side, so he offers his thoughts with “a grain of salt required here.” He’s optimistic because given linear ratings erosion, networks aren’t to maintain the status quo while offering patchwork solutions “around the edges” to make up for ratings shortfalls.

“I think it’s going to be a different dialogue than we’ve had in previous years and one that has much more of a data informed story throughout, because the old way of saying ‘we’re really strong in 18-34’ doesn’t ring the clients’ cash registers anymore,” says Steuer.

This video is part of a series The New Marketplace for Television Advertising, presented by dataxu.   Please find more videos from the series here.

“Vieques is almost an indescribable place for most people. If you haven’t been there, if you haven’t lived there, it’s hard to understand it,” says Stephen Mueller, a Principal of the aid group ViequesLove who called the island home for three years. “There is something about the island, the community, the people there that’s just very different than what most of us have experienced.”

Since ViequesLove was formed the night that Maria struck Puerto Rico, it’s been juggling all manner of requests for assistance.

“We’ve gotten a lot of very interesting asks,” Mueller says in this interview with Beet.TV. “The most recent one that we did is we successfully got two radiators down there specific to the generators for water sanitation,” a route that stretched from Atlanta to Miami to the Puerto Rico mainland to Vieques.

“We’ve been lucky that we’ve been able to use private planes to get things down there,” Mueller adds. “There are a lot of moving pieces. It takes a lot of organization and creativity.”

Having been a resident and owned a business on Vieques, Mueller is well versed in the day in and day out milieu.

“Something as simple as going to the postal box requires about 30 minutes of your time, because inevitably you’re going to meet plenty of people that you know, and you all stop and chat, ask how their day’s going. It’s this huge sense of community and involvement.

“For the three years that we lived there, it was probably one of the best times of our lives and probably one of the few places that have truly felt like home.”

As of Nov. 6, ViequesLove had raised $873,696 from 7,084 donors via its GoFundMe website.

Stand With Puerto, The Industry Steps Up 

This video reports on the pressing issues facing Puerto Rico and the organizations that are having an impact. It is part of a media industry initiative titled Stand With Puerto Rico. It is organized by Beet.TV and Omnicom Media Group along with founding partners AT&T AdWorks and Teads. Please find additional videos from the series here. The series was recorded in Miami at the Festival of Media/LATAM on October 30. 

Before Maria, 90% of the group’s participants—mainly youths ages six to 18—were below the poverty level on the island, according to President Olga Ramos.

“When you look at that, our participants are lacking the main resources and opportunities that other kids on the island or outside of the island have,” Ramos says in this interview with Beet.TV.

While Boys & Girls Club Puerto Rico mainly provides educational services, after the hurricane hit “we saw the need and knew that we had to do some things differently,” Ramos adds.

So the organization converted its centers to community centers to provide food, water, shelter and other primary needs.

“Right now because of the storm, most of our schools are closed. The ones that are open are providing immediate services. Breakfast and lunch and some sort of educational support,” she says.

Phase one of the group’s post-hurricane is to provide limited services from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m., owing to the lack of electricity. “Our second phase will be to expand from eight to six so we can pretty much provide parents relief and they can go back to work while we take care of their kids with educational support.”

Ramos cites a financial gap of $8 million, $5 million of which is to continue providing whatever services the organization can and continue to pay employees. The other $3 million would be earmarked for an expansion of services—mostly meals and educational assistance. Some $2.5 million of the $8 million has been collected to date.

“Any contribution that we can get from private donors will be used toward our mission, which is to develop our kids and youths to their full potential,” Ramos says.

Boys & Girls Club Puerto Rico’s longer-term aim is to narrow the gap between its beneficiaries and youths whose families are better off financially.

“We are diversifying our offer so we are able to cater to what the island economy’s needs are, which are in tourism, health and technology and science.”

Stand With Puerto, The Industry Steps Up 

This video reports on the pressing issues facing Puerto Rico and the organizations that are having an impact. It is part of a media industry initiative titled Stand With Puerto Rico. It is organized by Beet.TV and Omnicom Media Group along with founding partners AT&T AdWorks and Teads. Please find additional videos from the series here. The series was recorded in Miami at the Festival of Media/LATAM on October 30. 

“Brands belong to society and are part of society,” Julian Porras says following the launch of STAND WITH PUERTO RICO, an new initiative to generate awareness and provide support to storm victims.

“The first priority always is to make sure that our people are doing okay and their families are doing okay,” Porras says of the disasters’ aftermath in this interview with Beet.TV. “Our clients and other partners of the community and industry. Luckily no one was harmed, but certainly the impact of those natural disasters have slowed down business.”

In Puerto Rico, six weeks after Hurricane Maria, “it’s just simply been a hardship not only for business but just day to day getting to your routine, getting to your family, getting to your friends. It’s just been tough going.”

Asked what the advertising and media community and its clients should be doing to help storm victims, Porras cites creating awareness and helping to keep the devastating living conditions in Puerto Rico front and center.

“In the news cycle that we live in, news comes and goes very fast and we forget about things. We want to make sure that folks are aware of what’s happening and how the industry can contribute both on the media side, on the agency side and on the client side.”

Launched at this week’s Festival of Media/LATAM conference, STAND WITH PUERTO RICO is joint effort by Omnicom Media Group and Beet.TV, with AT&T AdWorks and Teads as Founding Sponsors. Its goals are:

• Brief the industry on the immediate and long-term needs of the island

• Match media, creative agencies and marketers with NGOs

• Brainstorm creative solutions using technology, social media and traditional media

• Enlist volunteers to accompany relief groups to Puerto Rico

• Build key partnerships to make this effort ongoing

“It’s not something that’s kind of the flavor of the month,” Porras says of brand marketers stepping up to help provide humanitarian aid. “It’s what companies stand for and they simply just go ahead and do it. They do the right thing for the community, for their employees and for the markets and communities where they make business.”

Stand With Puerto, The Industry Steps Up