CANNES\u2014Television ratings have been a consistent metric for several decades, despite their limitations. Now that new TV ad formats are emerging, \u201cThere\u2019s just no consistency,\u201d according to Joe Marchese.<\/p>\n

That doesn\u2019t seem about to change anytime soon judging from a one-on-one interview with Marchese, who is President of Advertising Revenue at Fox Networks Group, and Dave Clark, GM of Comcast\u2019s FreeWheel, at the 2018 Cannes<\/a> Lions International Festival of Creativity. Part of the FreeWheel<\/a> Forum on the Future of Television, the discussion did point to some amount of certainty.<\/p>\n

For example, the futures market for national TV inventory known as the annual Upfronts isn\u2019t going away anytime soon, for the simple reason that it protects buyers from price increases the way airlines hedge their bets with oil futures. The process is also something of a comfort to sellers, particularly those with the most coveted (and limited) ad avails.<\/p>\n

The search for unification among TV sellers came about because of the digital age, according to Marchese.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we\u2019ve never had to compete on before was what the currency metric was because we had Nielsen. People could complain all day about Nielsen, but at least it was consistent for everyone who was trading on it,\u201d Marchese<\/a> said.<\/p>\n

Digital media introduced cost-per-view pricing, but when TV tries to create a new product, \u201ceveryone\u2019s like, \u2018cool, how does that fit in with what I paid you last year?\u2019 There\u2019s just no consistency.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fox has been pushing hard to establish new ad formats while reducing overall commercial load, \u201cBut if we do it alone, it won\u2019t matter. You can\u2019t create a market and you can\u2019t understand what the market price of anything is if there\u2019s only one person doing it,\u201d said Marchese.<\/p>\n

Given the difficulty in pricing new ad formats in something approaching a consistent manner, the lack of a common market will sow pricing disagreement. \u201cUntil then, opinions will differ. And then depending on the creative, one of us is right and one of us is wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n

Clark<\/a> noted that the industry is will run by people who have been at it for two or three decades and asked Marchese what leadership traits and characteristics are most important.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to understand that we\u2019re just used to fighting over things because that\u2019s just the way it was done. We\u2019re used to negotiating with agencies over every penny because that\u2019s just the way it was done.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now, in some ways, everyone\u2019s on the same side of the table. \u201cWe have the same goal, that we would like to not kill long-form storytelling as an advertising vehicle,\u201d Marchese said.<\/p>\n

Responding to a question from the audience about the long-term viability of the TV Upfront, Marchese said he doesn\u2019t think it will die. \u201cI actually think we just get better at predicting where the inventory is going to be.\u201d<\/p>\n

Between now and then, he believes the \u201cdumb definition\u201d of a CPM\u2014an impression is an impression\u2014will yield to something akin to the real estate market.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe analyze real estate not just for the square footage but for where it\u2019s located, what are the amenities, who are the neighbors. There\u2019s a bunch of things we do.\u201d<\/p>\n

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<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

CANNES\u2014Television ratings have been a consistent metric for several decades, despite their limitations. Now that new TV ad formats are emerging, \u201cThere\u2019s just no consistency,\u201d according to Joe Marchese. That doesn\u2019t seem about to change anytime soon judging from a one-on-one interview with Marchese, who is President of Advertising Revenue at Fox Networks Group, and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":54245,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"mc4wp_mailchimp_campaign":[]},"categories":[7309,7313],"tags":[5267,5801,6183,7171,7264],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.beet.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54225"}],"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=54225"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dev.beet.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54225\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.beet.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/54245"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.beet.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54225"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.beet.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54225"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.beet.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54225"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}