Buying television based on audiences as opposed to programming is a welcome evolution to media veteran Wenda Harris Millard. And while the term \u201cquality programming\u201d is in the eye of the beholder, she thinks marketers have every right to know exactly where their ads are running.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been in the business for a long time. I never thought that demographics made a lot of sense when we were talking about broad demographics, like women 18-54,\u201d the Vice Chairman of strategic advisory and business development firm MediaLink says in this interview with Beet.TV. \u201cI think this notion of demographics has never made a lot of sense in many, many categories,\u201d she adds. \u201cI\u2019m glad to see if fading off a little bit.\u201d<\/p>\n

Selling TV time by audience instead of by \u201cliteral programming\u201d makes a lot of sense to Millard. It\u2019s part of the evolution of the business and how people are approaching \u201cintelligent media buying and spending. So I\u2019m a big fan of the evolution.\u201d<\/p>\n

One trend she observes is programmers taking an integrated approach to this year\u2019s TV Upfront season. \u201cI would say most of the companies are selling online video, mobile video with their classic television.\u201d<\/p>\n

On the headline-grabbing issue of brand safety, trust and the reliability of media, Millard says it\u2019s a conversation that is front and center once again. While the quality of the programming \u201cis anybody\u2019s opinion,\u201d brands are justified in their expectation to know their ads are running where they want them to run, particularly in digital.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s not a lot to ask, but that conversation is critical at this moment when the black box of some of the operators in digital is still out there,\u201d says Millard.<\/p>\n

Millard Moving to London in MediaLink Expansion<\/strong><\/p>\n

Following MediaLink\u2019s<\/a> recent acquisition by Ascential plc, Millard has just been tapped to run MediaLink\u2019s first office outside of the United States, in London.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a clear step to fast-track MediaLink’s business and further increase its presence outside the U.S.,\u201d Ascential Chief Executive Duncan Painter said in a news release<\/a>. \u201cWe are continuing to develop synergies between MediaLink and our other businesses to better serve our customers and bring additional elements to our growth strategy.”<\/p>\n

This segment is part of a series leading up to the 2017 TV Upfront. It is presented by FreeWheel. To find more videos from the series, please visit this page<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Buying television based on audiences as opposed to programming is a welcome evolution to media veteran Wenda Harris Millard. And while the term \u201cquality programming\u201d is in the eye of the beholder, she thinks marketers have every right to know exactly where their ads are running. \u201cI\u2019ve been in the business for a long time. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"mc4wp_mailchimp_campaign":[]},"categories":[6338],"tags":[3397,5267,4459,6345,6346],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.beet.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45536"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.beet.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.beet.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.beet.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.beet.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45536"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dev.beet.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45536\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.beet.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45536"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.beet.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45536"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.beet.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45536"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}