CANNES \u2013 People in advertising and media disagree about many things, but a more consumer-centric approach to both video content and advertising is a big exception. This was more than evident during a panel discussion at the 2018 Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity as part of the FreeWheel Forum on the Future of Television.<\/p>\n
MediaLink<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n Amanda Richman, CEO, Wavemaker<\/a> US: \u201cThis battle for attention is really sparking different ways of working. And we\u2019re excited about now it\u2019s 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.\u201d<\/p>\n John Osborn, CMO, OMD<\/a> USA: \u201cI 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\u2019s ever gone wrong by considering the consumer first and foremost. You\u2019re 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\u2019re 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.\u201d<\/p>\n Allyson Witherspoon, GM, Global Brand Engagement, Nissan<\/a>: \u201cRelevancy 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\u2019s relevant. In the case of automotive, we know when they\u2019re going to be in market, we even know what type of vehicle that they\u2019re in market for. So we should not be advertising a van to them if they\u2019re interested in a sedan and we know that type of information. And then it\u2019s 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\u2019re able to do at scale but it\u2019s definitely something that we\u2019re trying to build towards.”<\/p>\n