The Founder & CEO of LUMA Partners will be one of some 250 industry leaders attending The Relevance Conference hosted by AT&T in Santa Barbara on Sept. 24-26. On the opening day he will join Otter Media’s Tony Goncalvez and others on a panel titled Putting A Price On Content that will explore the “happy medium” between paid subscription models and ad-supported media.

While AT&T has planted a very large flag in acquiring some of the biggest content and adtech assets, it all comes down to brands changing the ad experience for consumers who have lots of choices, he says in this interview with Beet.TV at the annual DMEXCO conference.

“It will be very exciting to see a company with deep pockets, very, very capable, pursue the dream that is convergent television,” he says of AT&T in the wake of its bringing Warner Media and AppNexus under its communications, content and advertising umbrella. “It’s great for ad tech but forget that, it is great for media and marketing writ large. This is a company that demonstrates that it’s not afraid to put its money where its mouth is and get the very, very best.”

At base level, relevance can have meaning with respect to targeting, personalization and other tactics, but with today’s consumers there is a much higher level at which the term needs to be considered, according to Kawaja.

“Netflix has trained them that they can get premium content without interruption,” he says, and “with the training that these paid models have got us all used to, now it’s hard to go back, either once you have the skip button on an ad or just don’t see any ads at all. The ads have to have a different nature.”

Noting that the advertising industry is one “built on the premise of interruption,” he adds, “I think we have to get away from that.”

He cites as an admittedly “extreme” example paid search, where unlike other advertising, consumer intent means everyone involved can win.

“If I’m looking for a Thai restaurant in St. Louis and I enter that search result, I’m going to get back a bunch of media with ads in it. Turns out the ads are facilitative of my original intent of pursuing that media.”

More in the mainstream realm, he mentions ads in The Weather Channel app that don’t block the experience because they’re in the background, juxtaposed with current weather conditions. “The ad is, in fact, additive to the content. At the core we need less advertising, certainly less interruptive advertising and the notion of relevance I think gets to that acknowledgement that we need a better consumer experience.”

This video is part of a series leading up to and documenting the AT&T Relevance Conference in Santa Barbara.   For more videos from the series, please visit this page. 

In an interview with Beet.TV, Brad Bentley says the company’s research shows that a number of consumers cannot get a TV plan that requires a credit check or a two year commitment, or can’t get cable installed in their dwelling.

“We knew going over the top and offering a customer an option that was more app-based, more software driven, was going to lower our costs and be able to serve an audience that we weren’t reaching today,” Bentley says.

He frames the proposition as, “How do we bring that premium television experience that had been traditionally locked in the living room and bring it to more people and more places.”

By signing up for DIRECTV NOW or Fullscreen, content can be streamed over U.S. Internet connections on any device with a set-top box, satellite dish, annual contract or credit check. DIRECTV NOW programming packages are: Live a Little ($35 monthly for 60+ channels); Just Right ($50 monthly for 80+ channels; Go Big ($60 monthly for 100+ channels); and Gotta Have it ($70 monthly for 120+ channels).

“We’ll offer consumers some choice in terms of packaging, but we have intentionally gone after some of that premium content that exists today in pay TV but just remove some of the hurdles,” Bentley says.

AT&T’s FreeVIEW offering lets anyone enjoy ad-supported video content free of charge from AUDIENCE Network, Otter Media properties and other channels on DIRECTV NOW.

For advertisers, the new services offer new formats so that they’re “not stuck in a traditional pod of 14 or 16 minutes of commercials in a one-hour slot,” Bentley explains. “It’s a VOD-first world where you can place ads within the curation.”

The platform supporting the new services also will facilitate “a better, smarter way to do ads around binge viewing than what exists today in terms of less ad load but more relevant ads,” says Bentley.

AT&T will continue to provide DIRECTV’s premium satellite TV entertainment service.

The new measurement system, meant to quantify a gross rating point (GRP),  is being developed with Nielsen and Millward Brown. The program was announced at Fullscreen’s Digital Content NewFront in May.

We spoke with McGurn on the AT&T AdWorks yacht during the Cannes Lions Festival. AT&T is an investor in Otter Media.

We interviewed him during the AT&T AdWorks – Beet.TV  event around the future of TV.  For videos from the session, please visit this page.