While there\u2019s no shortage of data available for enhanced consumer targeting, some advertisers still cling to gross rating points and broad demographic targets. \u201cSome clients are opting in a little bit more than others,\u201d says Anthony Laurenzo, SVP, Non-Linear Video, Dentsu Aegis. \u201cWe\u2019re starting a slow evolution away from age and gender demography to more strategic targets and even guaranteeing those strategic targets in certain instances.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dentsu Aegis has gone full throttle on its custom platform, M1, the most recent data integration being with IRI. As announced<\/a> early last month, M1 will now allow custom audience creation utilizing IRI Verified Audiences and\/or IRI ProScores audiences linked to first- and\/or third-party data.<\/p>\n In this interview with Beet.TV, Laurenzo explains why he is bullish on current and emerging data sources like automatic content recognition.<\/p>\n \u201cAudience buying is definitely where we want to get to as an industry. Anybody you speak to on both sides of the desk would probably say our reliance on age and gender demographics for transactional purposes is really outdated,\u201d Laurenzo says. \u201cWe have all this data that can tell us who\u2019s watching what content, why can\u2019t we transact on those more granular targets?\u201d<\/p>\n Agencies are still \u201cvery much held accountable\u201d to segments like adults 18-49 and the price at which they can transact for gross rating points. \u201cIt\u2019s \u2018as long as you get me this price on this demographic then you\u2019re doing okay\u2019 versus I want you to buy the audience that we need to hit and then if that audience then goes and makes some sort of action.\u201d<\/p>\n Laurenzo says there\u2019s no shortage of audience-based television advertising inventory in the marketplace. \u201cEvery network group has their own audience-based platforms that we can leverage and they\u2019re making a lot of inventory available through those platforms.\u201d<\/p>\n The question is what\u2019s the right data to use and when would you use it, according to Laurenzo<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cThere are a lot of partners now with ACR technology and I think that\u2019s great,\u201d he says, citing Vizio, Samsung, Samba and Alphonso. \u201cIt\u2019s really changing the game in terms of measurement.\u201d<\/p>\n He cautions that despite the plethora of data available, \u201cIt\u2019s muddy. Not all the data\u2019s perfect. You have to really go through the methodology of how they\u2019re collecting everything. But I\u2019m actually bullish on the data marketplace.\u201d<\/p>\n