Consumers may be driving the expansion of television viewing options, but publishers still face a balancing act between reducing ad loads and meeting financial goals. Ad buyers, meanwhile, are going to want to see demonstrable results for their investments in return for increased prices due to inventory reductions.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s a really complicated challenge that the industry is in right now,\u201d says Adam Gerber, SVP, Investment at GroupM agency Essence<\/a>, who has spent nearly three decades on both the agency and publisher side.<\/p>\n \u201cI think that a number of networks have been very vocal and, in many cases, very right about one of the challenges that exists in the marketplace today, which is consumers have lots of access to content in non-ad supported environments,\u201d Gerber says in this interview with Beet.TV at the Advanced Advertising Summit<\/a>.<\/p>\n Migration to those environments is occurring \u201cbecause the experience is better, the aggregation of content is monstrous, it\u2019s a really easy and enjoyable experience for them,\u201d Gerber ads.<\/p>\n Ad-supported TV in general\u2014whether linear or across linear platforms like OTT or VOD or via digital video records\u2014increasingly are \u201cI don\u2019t want to use the word painful but challenging to live through, especially if the viewing behavior moves from single show to binging, where you\u2019re watching multiple episodes all at once.\u201d<\/p>\n Given that viewers are more in control than ever, the longtime ad model has been under increased scrutiny.<\/p>\n \u201cI think the initiatives that networks are taking to really address clutter ad pod length and some of the format issues with regard to traditional fifteens and thirties potentially being replaced by other more innovative formats are what\u2019s needed,\u201d says Gerber<\/a>.<\/p>\n The challenge to publishers: how they make it pay out.<\/p>\n \u201cBecause if you decrease inventory, there\u2019s an immediate challenge related to revenue,\u201d Gerber adds. \u201cIf you\u2019re a public company, it doesn\u2019t help you to go into your boss and say we\u2019re going to have a decrease in revenue because I\u2019m making this change to our ad model.<\/p>\n \u201cIt think from the advertiser and buy side, there has to be a payout in terms of ROI and improvement in performance if we\u2019re going to be talking about any kinds of changes to the pricing that we pay for our inventory.\u201d<\/p>\n