Future of TV Advertising Panel

Where is the future of TV advertising in this ever fragmenting media environment? An attempt was made to shed some light on this subject by Rovi who sponsored a panel last week that was fittingly called “The Future of TV Advertising”.

The panel, moderated by Bill Niemeyer of TDG, included Jeff Siegel of Rovi, Lori Schwartz of McCann and Matthew Pagen of IAG discussed Rovi’s Smart TV initiative, the pace of change, social media, extended screen and bundling vs a la carte. But in my opinion, their discussion of the role of data was the most interesting.

The creation of metrics and measurement in the STB data space continues to be a land rush with competitors racing to get their brand of customizable (and standardize-able) analytics to market. And equally, the demand from the marketplace for data insights and analytics has never been so strong. Part of this demand is due to ever increasing cross platform opportunities and the plethora of data points resulting from the potential combination of interactive platforms and set top boxes.

Lori Schwartz, Chief Technology Catalyst at McCann Worldgroup, said it best, “The data piece is pivotal. Data is the new black. Everyone wants the data and everybody wants the data to touch everything. They want it to not only measure the traditional interactive side of things; they also want it to address engagement.” She also admitted that because the landscape is in constant change, there is a pressing need to stay ahead of the curve, learning about new cutting edge technologies even if they are destined to disappear by the next year.

But which metrics are most meaningful? Do they need to be standardized to the current currency or does the evolving marketplace demand new metrics for the new times? Much of the addressable advertising measurement today is still fairly custom – whether it is data matching to proprietary segmentations or to known consumer measurement industry data panels for that particular advertiser, product or category. But slowly, some of these previously custom metrics are becoming part of a new standard nomenclature like TRA’s Heavy Swing Purchasers and Purchaser Rating Points which CRO Bill Harvey says that many of their clients have adopted.

Rovi’s contribution to the discussion involves measuring Smart TV usage and behavior through a 100k STB panel that combines ISP data with TV viewing. This initiative involves a partnership with Nielsen’s IAG service via a panel. This is one possible approach providing that it is a representative sample of the TV Universe. Results of their study will be available at the end of the summer. In the meantime there are two short videos from the panel which can be viewed below:


Here is a short excerpt from the panel. This is a discussion on Rovi's initiative and some insights into the media landscape. The video is 5:49 minutes long:





Jeff Siegel of Rovi sales talks about Rovi's metrics in their Smart TV initiative. This video is 1:14 minutes long: