“Television, to me, has the opportunity to thrive, not just survive now,” Swartz said.<\/p>\n

“(In TV), we’re really not … losing money to digital,” Kinsella concurred. “We see (advertising) people coming back all the time. We have advertisers on the platform in 72 different countries right now, soon to be probably up at a hundred countries.”<\/p>\n

She said one advertiser on the platform, which spent $1 million on TV three years ago, this year plans to spend $40 million.<\/p>\n

Attribution unlocks value<\/h2>\n

The “game-changer” is attribution technology. Historically, TV has been viewed as a brand-building medium, at the top of marketing funnels; it has been difficult to prove how television commercials prompt actions like store visitation or, particularly, purchase.<\/p>\n

That has caused many marketers to turn away from linear local TV, finding they can get results and proven effectiveness in digital channels.<\/p>\n

“Now we can measure it and make it accountable,” Kinsella said. “We’ve seen advertisers double their spend, double their commitment, saying, ‘I’m not just going to advertise for three months, I’m not just going to do a Pulse campaign, I’m going to do an annual commitment, because now you’ve shown me that TV. is working’.”<\/p>\n

An incremental comeback<\/h2>\n

Kinsella doesn’t expect the return of ad flow to local TV will happen overnight. Rather than place all their money on black, she imagines ad buyers making iterative changes, testing to discover exactly how TV can demonstrably fuel performance.<\/p>\n

“When they’ve done that for a couple of months and they see that it’s driving more response, whatever the response might be, they say, ‘Oh, this is working, let’s keep doing it’. We have clients that have been optimizing now weekly, monthly… for three, four, five years.”<\/p>\n