Pooja is a veteran of senior advanced TV roles at Viacom, Disney and as CEO of trueX until earlier this year.

For all of us, it’s been a challenging time during the pandemic: For Pooja it has been an especially  tumultuous year that included the sale of TrueX, a pregnancy, the birth of a second child, and joining Comcast in a senior role.

In this session, she speaks about her experiences as a woman of color. She shares her hopes for a more inclusive, bias-free workplace. She reflects on her own journey and tells what she is doing to help others.

Commenting on the current state of advanced TV, she talks about the importance of interoperability of viewer identity and the work that’s being done by Blockgraph and others.

And she shares her vision for FreeWheel and Effectv, both units of Comcast Advertising.

Thanks Pooja for a great conversation.  And congratulations on the new job!

Thanks to the BeetCast sponsor Mediaocean.

And thank you for listening.

Hope you enjoy the episode.

We sat down with her  to talk about her vision o the industry and her decision to join Comcast.

She speaks about the unique position that Comcast’s FreeWheel and Effectv hold in the transformation of television.

In this interview with Beet.TV, Midha provides details about how the use of a one-question survey in a TV ad pod with the true[X] Uplift product can provide a myriad of insights about viewers in relation to their status in the purchase funnel.

Formerly a unit of FOX Networks and now owned by Walt Disney Co., true[X] is used across most broadcast and cable networks plus the Twitch gaming platform and OTT services, among others. “We really focus on high-attention environments. Places where there’s a really engaged consumer on the other end and where we think we can make the experience better,” says Midha.

Calling CTV an “incredibly rich canvas,” she talks about engagement ads for a variety of brands from Amazon to Lego to Harley Davidson to consumer packaged-goods, “which shows that this is a format that works for any number of categories.” A voice-enabled, engagement ad for Amazon’s Echo used speech-to-text conversion so that viewers could verbally interact with the ad.

Whereas ad attribution “only tells about a sale,” when brand lift occurs “you usually will see conversion down the chain,” says Midha, adding that because not all viewers are always in market for something, all ads provide value to brands.

“It’s still seeding an awareness, it’s still driving perception and it may even be creating preference so that when that consumer is in market, they will convert for that brand.”

The company is working with “several partners to use Uplift to measure video performance on their own sold campaigns” via the Uplift technology but apart from true[X]’s own engagement-ad units, according to Midha.

Giving viewers a choice of their ad experience and collecting the resulting data at scale can turn a one-question survey into a gold mine of information, she says.

“You can imagine it’s not very hard to get a lot of people to choose to take that survey, especially when it’s only one question. We let consumers place themselves on the purchase funnel by asking them how they would describe their relationship with a brand.”

A “control and expose group” can number 500-plus within days of a campaign launching, “and we also are able to make sure that the cohort for exposed looks like the cohort for control, both of which look like the cohort that was actually targeted for the campaign. So your survey group mirrors your campaign targeting.”

This video is part of the Beet.TV preview series titled “The Road to Cannes.” The series is sponsored by 4INFO. Please visit this page for additional segments.

These are among the takeaways from a panel discussion at the 2018 Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity as part of the FreeWheel Forum on the Future of Television. It brought together representatives from OMD, Nissan, true[X] and Wavemaker led by moderator Matt Spiegel of MediaLink.

Wavemaker’s Amanda Richman likened the current wave of video ad format experimentation to the early days of digital media. While there were potentially innovative solutions, they came at such a pace that “you really didn’t get the time to absorb the learnings and focus. So it just became another version of spray and pray with new ad formats,” Richman said.

Her advice to the audience: “You want to choose your partners wisely. Because there is the potential risk right now where there’s a new-ad format fatigue, where everyone is coming out with different formats.”

Alternately, having worked with true[X], Richman suggested focusing on “learnings across a few different formats, understand the measurement, understand the operational impact all the way through billing, because that’s what really matters too when it comes to scaling solutions.”

true[X] President Pooja Midha said that engagement ads only belong in front of truly premium and compelling content, so as to offer a real value exchange. “We’ve done some incredible work with Nissan where we’ve gotten to talk about both a new model, the LEAF, as well as Disney’s A Wrinkle in Time. That’s a lot to get across even in a 30, but when you’ve got this rich canvas you can really go deeper and I think that’s what engagement is all about.”

Allyson Witherspoon, who heads up Global Brand Engagement at Nissan, would like to add value-based ad measurement to the industry’s standard measurement metrics.

“Lead generation is a big thing in automotive, but that may not be the most important metric for an individual experience,” said Witherspoon. “So you have to look at it by experience. If we keep measuring agencies and media performance based on the last several decades, we’re never really going to advanced what we need to do.”

Asked by Spiegel “What do we have to do to be here next year or the year after and this becoming commonplace?,” OMD’s John Osborn said the industry has a habit of productizing new things and then trying to force fit them into legacy measurement. “And the two don’t always meet,” said Osborn. “I think that we need to figure out different ways of looking at different measurement systems that are matched to the types and formats that are coming out faster than ever before.”

One challenge with emerging ad formats is that “everyone’s kind of trying to attack it, but they’re all in their own swim lanes and I think we need to come together. It’s got to be intentional and deliberate and I think we collectively need to come together to tackle it. I don’t think any one party alone can do it,” Osborn added.

Richman described the role that marketer procurement people play in innovation as “huge.” They can either allow spending in new ways “or they can control and say, ‘no it’s year after year, it’s like for like.’ And you’re going to be judged only by the money that you save, which tends to lead just to measurement only being by the CPM cost.

“Until we bring them into the conversation, it feels like we’re still going to have this logjam of only so much money can be spent on innovation because we’re not being judged by anything but pricing,” said Richman.

Witherspoon has made progress on that front because procurement at Nissan has been open to new ideas. “That was kind of the aha moment for me is that they’re actually kind of dying for this innovation as well because they’ve been doing the same thing over and over again they don’t know any different. They were really open to it.”

This video is from a series of videos and sessions produced in partnership with FreeWheel at Cannes 2018 as part of the FreeWheel Forum on the Future of Television. You can find more videos from this series here.

MediaLink Managing Partner Matt Spiegel prefaced the conversation by calling into question the age-old format of 40 minutes of TV content leavened with 20 minutes of commercials. Encountering no disagreement, Spiegel elicited the following condensed thoughts from the varied panelists.

Amanda Richman, CEO, Wavemaker US: “This battle for attention is really sparking different ways of working. And we’re excited about now it’s becoming less of a focus just on the precision and data and targeting and keeping that within the realms of digital media only. And maybe back to the creative agencies and a different level of collaboration to recognize that we need to actually help develop the stories and messages that are bespoke to these new ad formats and platforms and broader distribution.”

John Osborn, CMO, OMD USA: “I think media more and more is just as innovative and in some ways just as creative as the creative storytellers in a creative agency. No one’s ever gone wrong by considering the consumer first and foremost. You’re seeing I think some real evolution in terms of innovation in different formats if you think of what Fox is doing with JAZ pods or NBC with Prime Pods and you’re seeing a variety of different formats coming to life. But I think a lot of the conversation is around formats. I think more and more we have to change and tilt the conversation more to experiences.”

Allyson Witherspoon, GM, Global Brand Engagement, Nissan: “Relevancy becomes what the experience is because we know so much more about who our consumers are and what their interests are that we need to be serving up content and experiences to them that’s relevant. In the case of automotive, we know when they’re going to be in market, we even know what type of vehicle that they’re in market for. So we should not be advertising a van to them if they’re interested in a sedan and we know that type of information. And then it’s to the point of how you can combine media and creative to actually deliver that message, which I think is still not something that we’re able to do at scale but it’s definitely something that we’re trying to build towards.”

Pooja Midha, President, true[X]: I’m heartened and I love the discussion that’s happening these days around bringing the consumer back to the center. While I’ve not been with the company terribly long, true[X] has been around for years and really from the beginning said we need to think about the consumer. We need to respect the consumer. We have got to think about messaging and context, advertising and an experience that is worthy of that consumer’s attention. If we’re not delivering that, then we really have no right to be there and to be expecting something back. It’s nice to be in Cannes because everyone we work with is represented. The creative side of the business, the media side of the business, the agency side, client marketers even the technology companies and measurement companies we partner with to deliver.”

This video is from a series of videos and sessions produced in partnership with FreeWheel at Cannes 2018 as part of the FreeWheel Forum on the Future of Television. You can find more videos from this series here.

“Chances are, we’ve probably done some work for someone with a similar objective or we’re actually working with an ad studio that has the creativity, the flexibility and the prowess to help them think through how we can do that in our ad format.”

Just after the Cannes Festival concluded, true[X] said that it has reached a one-year deal with GroupM digital agency Essence to develop and test new approaches for connected TV advertising. As Advertising Age reports, the aim is to develop consumer-friendly and compelling brand experiences that can scale to connected-TV offerings like Roku and Apple TV. In addition, Essence will be the first agency to access engagement ads programmatically.

At Cannes, true[X]’s focus on brand lift as a measure of success “is really resonating here,” says Midha. “There’s no better personal primetime than the OTT viewing we see happening across our publisher partners.”

Asked to comment on developments in OTT measurement, Midha says, “It’s unfortunate that it’s a little bit nascent because it’s such an incredible viewing environment. There’s a lack of standardization in those platforms. Each one is a little bit different, which makes rolling measurement across very difficult. It’s not something that’s happened quickly.”

True[X] has already built a measurement tool that can live in all OTT environments called Uplift, which measures brand lift.

“Because if you want to create a brand, you need emotion. That’s the difference between a brand and a product. The first thing you need to do that is you need to have attention, which is what our format is about, and once you have attention you want to make sure you’re lifting your brand and you’re having impact. We’re trying to follow the whole thread.”

This video is from a series of videos and sessions produced in partnership with FreeWheel at Cannes 2018 as part of the FreeWheel Forum on the Future of Television. You can find more videos from this series here.

The technology company, owned by 21st Century Fox, helps consumers see fewer ads in digital video when they engage with an initial interactive commercial – effectively bartering their input for a benefit.

Over the last year, consumers have become more aware than ever of the same kind of value exchange – the one in which they are trading their personal data for free online services. That could be good timing for true[X] president Pooja Midha.

“If we want to capture better quality of attention, then we need to give the consumer back something for giving us that,” she tells OMD chief investment officer Ben Winkler in this fireside chat at Beet Retreat.

“And so the opportunity as it manifests in video is to either watch the rest of the episode ad-free in exchange for engaging for 30 seconds at a minimum, or to skip the rest of a commercial pod in exchange for engaging for a minimum of 30 seconds.”

Growing awareness of the economics of attention in technology are not the only way in which business is coming in to true[X]’s orbit. In broadcasting, too, networks are falling over themselves to reduce their ad length, ad load or pod duration, in response to booming ad-free subscription video consumption.

For broadcasters, fewer ads may sound like it would add up to fewer dollars. But, Midha says, when you manage to engage viewers, the opposite is true – advertisers will pay more for less.

“In our experience they will,” she says. “we’re operating in a business that has, for many, many years … transacted on a couple of very specific metrics. And, as a result, we’ve built an entire planning system at the agencies, we’ve built an entire evaluation system at the clients of those agencies, and we’ve built an entire culture inside the media companies, of focusing on a couple of numbers.”

When partners are shown alternative numbers – the ones that illustrate how engagement moves the needle – a light goes on.

“We get people nodding along, and they’re like, ‘Yup, this is exactly the kind of thing I want to buy’,” she claims.

Operators like Turner, Fox and NBCUniversal have been experimenting with reducing their ad load or length in response to growing consumer resistance to interruptive ad practices.

But it’s a furrow true[]X] has been plowing for a while. “A couple of years ago what we were doing was seen as bananas, and now you see every network head talking about it,” Midha suggests. “I’m really heartened by some of the changes that we see, and some of the movement we see.”

This fireside was anchored by OMD chief investment officer Ben Winkler.

This video was produced at the Beet Retreat in City & Town Hall on June 6, 2018 in New York City. The event and video series are presented by LiveRamp, TiVo, true[X] and 605. For more videos from the series, please visit this page.

At last week’s Beet Retreat in the City, Midha—whose background includes ABC, Viacom and Dow Jones—was one of the featured speakers along with Ashley J. Swartz, CEO of Furious Corp. In this one-on-one interview, Swartz asks about the utility of voice assistants in what she terms the “straddling of platforms and experiences.”

To Midha, it comes down to “breaking down that third wall. You want to bring someone into your ad creative. That’s when you really get to create that emotional connection that makes the difference between a product and a brand.”

Given the rise of in-home, voice-activated assistants and other ways consumers can talk to digital devices like laptops and mobile phones, Midha explains how the technology can induce viewer participation.

“So you can say, ‘turn off the lights.’ And the lights are going to turn off in the scene that you’re watching. You could say, ‘turn on the TV,’ and the TV inside the scene you’re watching of a living room is going to turn on and play your show.”

Asked by Swartz whether engagement with interactive ads is a generational thing, Midha says it’s all about the most appropriate creative. Her view is supported by the more than 10,000 engagement ads true[X] has executed in virtually every category “and pretty much every advertiser KPI we can think of.”

true[X] will be rolling out a new set of what Midha terms “engagement blueprints” based on “really strong database insights and learnings. So that’s how we see ourselves scaling.”

With the company having proven the efficacy of engagement ads in on-demand programming, she sees a huge opportunity in live programs like sports events and awards shows.

“Nothing captures people like live. What hasn’t evolved is the fact that we are streaming so many of these events and great moments on digital platforms and taking advantage of none of the capabilities that these digital platforms offer.”

One aspect of human behavior while watching live events is to pause the content. “When they come back, we give them the opportunity, if they’ve been gone long enough, we say ‘would you like to engage for thirty seconds or do you want to just pick up where you were?’”

If a viewer decides to engage for 30 seconds, they can skip the next commercial break and catch up in real time to where other viewers are with the game or program. “We have done a little bit of testing in terms of focus grouping the concept, we’ve built a live demo, we got really strong feedback,” says Midha, adding, “I just love the idea of not accepting live for what it is and saying, ‘this is already an amazing experience, let’s make it better.’”

This video was produced at the Beet Retreat in City & Town Hall on June 6, 2018 in New York City. The event and video series are presented by LiveRamp, TiVo, true[X] and 605. For more videos from the series, please visit this page.

“Today we are on most of the connected TV platforms and in the next month or two we will be pretty much virtually everywhere,” Midha adds in this interview with Beet.TV, dubbing the connected living room “a super rich environment.”

Prior to taking over daily operations and long-term strategy at true[X], Midha spent five years at Disney ABC Television Group, where she rose to SVP, Digital Ad Sales & Operations, as ADWEEK reports. She also spent a decade at various Viacom properties.

Midha will be a keynote speaker at Beet Retreat in the City, scheduled for June 6 in Manhattan.

The company’s core product, its engagement ad format, is now used “across pretty much every broadcast and major cable network.” In addition, “We also work with some of the MVPD’s on their digital inventory and we work with some select gaming partners,” says Midha.

Since its founding in 2007, light years before anyone thought of living rooms as being “connected,” true[X] had a simple proposition: give consumers some say in which television ads they’d prefer to endure and, potentially, interact with. In its most basic form, the true[X] offering in full-episode video content gives viewers a “choice card” with the options of interacting with a 30-second ad or just viewing a “regular” ad experience

“And what we see time and time again is that most people would choose to interact than have the regular ad experience,” says Pooja. “What’s interesting is that the first time they take it, they adopt it, the rate is nearly sixty percent. The second time they see it, it goes up and it keeps going up.”

Full-screen interactivity provides for a broad pallet of advertiser and publisher storytelling and e-commerce. “There’s a lot of potential to really drive very different advertiser KPI’s.”

Advertisers are not charged if viewers leave the interactive format before its full 30-second run and default to the regular ad experience. “The idea is that at any time, we are guaranteeing that you will have someone’s full attention for thirty seconds, that they will interact at least once, and that you will be in a high-quality, full-screen environment,” says Pooja.

While the true[X] studio team last year eclipsed the 10,000 interactive ad mark, the company typically works with advertisers’ existing creative assets. Pooja says there’s lots of potential beyond simple engagement—particularly in the living room.

“We’re actually trying to see what else we can do in that environment and we’re standing up an entire CT innovation lab around that concept,” she says.

This video is part of The Road to Cannes, a preview of topics to be addressed at Cannes Lions. The series is presented by the FreeWheel Council for Premium Video. For more videos from the series, please visit this page. FreeWheel is a Comcast company.

According to Midha, upon its founding in 2007 true[X] “never meant to build a measurement system” as it sought to give TV viewers a choice of commercial options with interactive ads priced on cost per engagement. Rather, it was built out of necessity, she explains in this interview with Beet.TV.

“What I think is important is that this was something that when you explained it to an advertiser or an agency and you said this is what you can accomplish in this environment, people lean in they think this is great,” says Midha. “And then you get down to talking about pricing, because again you have to make sure you account for what you’re missing, and it becomes a bit harder.”

The company considered simple commercial delivery—measured with the help of entities like White Ops and Moat—to be “our baseline metric.” The answer was to be able to prove impact. “There was no solution that existed in the marketplace that could measure impact of the ad,” Midha adds.

That’s why true[X] developed Uplift to measure brand benefits at scale, across platforms, in real time and in a consistent manner. “Today we run Uplift across every single true[X] campaign on every platform that we exist on and we’re measuring brand lift, which we think is such a fundamentally human metric and actually the metric that matters most.”

At the upcoming Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, Pooja will explain how true[X] plans to bring engagement ads into live digital streams and how the company plans to expand measurement options.

Beet Retreat in the City will be held a the Luce Auditorium at Meredith Corporation, 225 Liberty Street.  Participants include:

Phil Cowdell, Global President, Client Services, GroupM

Laura Desmond, CEO, Eagle Vista Partners

Kristin Dolan, CEO, 605

Christopher Geraci, President, National Video Investment at Omnicom Media Group

Walt Horstman, SVP Advanced TV, TiVo

David Kline, President, Spectrum Reach, Executive Vice President, Charter

Allison Metcalfe, GM LiveTV, LiveRamp

Rob Norman, Advisor

Babs Rangaiah, Executive Partner, Global Marketing iX at IBM

Nancy Reyes, Managing Director, TBWA/Chiat Day/NY

Lyle Schwartz, Managing Director, TBWA/Chiat Day/NY

Doug Ray, Chairman, Dentsu Aegis Media

Mike Rosen, EVP, Advanced Advertising and Platform Sales at NBCUniversal

Ashley J. Swartz, CEO, Furious Corp.

Vikram Somaya, SVP, Global Data Officer & Ad Platforms, ESPN

Ben Tatta, President, 605

Jamie West, Deputy MD, Sky Media UK & Group Director of Advanced Advertising Sky PLC

Ben Winkler, Chief Investment Officer, OMD

This video is part of The Road to Cannes, a preview of topics to be addressed at Cannes Lions. The series is presented by the FreeWheel Council for Premium Video. For more videos from the series, please visit this page.  FreeWheel is a Comcast company.