Advancing into Linear Television Optimization. An Interview with Stacy Daft of Amobee

Linear television is currently grappling with how to optimize its offerings in a media world that is increasingly leveraging granular data for targeting purposes. 

The recent announcement of Univision and its selection of ad platform, Amobee, will, according to the press release, enable advertisers to plan and transact against their custom strategic target audiences or proprietary first party data creating a foundation across linear, digital and social channels.

“Univision is the largest broadcaster serving Hispanic America, and has been the number one Spanish-language network in primetime for 27 consecutive years,” explained Stacy Daft, GM  Commercial Business Development, Amobee. “They command a 60 percent share of the Spanish-language primetime 18-49 audience, reaching an estimated 106MM unduplicated consumers a month, with 90 percent of their audience watching in real-time,” she added.

Daft offered the following insights on the partnership and the platform’s attributes:

Charlene Weisler: What do you mean a by linear television optimization platform?

Stacy Daft: The Univision / Amobee partnership advances data and insights across linear TV, bringing the better understanding of audiences, targeting, data and insights we’ve come to expect in digital. Univision can now provide a data-optimized linear television offering to advertisers by applying the same principles of granular audience targeting and campaign measurement as digital, allowing advertisers to better understand audience reach across multiple networks and plan and transact against their custom strategic target audiences or proprietary first-party data.

Weisler: What metrics are used to measure linear planning?

Daft: The primary metrics for advanced linear planning are strategic target index, reach, frequency, impressions and CPM.

Weisler: Is it programmatic?

Daft: It’s not programmatic; Amobee is not operating as a DSP connecting to Univision’s demand. Amobee is acting as Univision’s sell side enterprise platform, optimizing for their direct sales business. With Amobee’s technology and software, Univision will create data-driven plans to help advertisers reach strategic targets across their portfolio of networks.

Weisler: How is it innovative?

Daft: Univision is an extremely innovative broadcaster and this work to make linear television more data-enabled is the type of partnership that helps move the entire television industry forward. Bringing data to the top of the marketing funnel provides better targeting and addressability to television investments, with overall television advertising spending slated to surpass $200 billion by 2020.

Advanced linear television optimization brings more precision to the buying process, allowing targeting beyond age and gender and allowing greater automation in the buying and selling workflow. By layering first-party and third-party data over television viewing data, media buyers and sellers can understand more about reaching their best consumers, most efficiently across Univision’s linear properties.

The relationship with Amobee enhances Univision’s ability to create end-to-end solutions for clients who are seeking advanced data solutions and precision targeting against the valuable Hispanic-American consumer segment. This partnership signals our commitment to collaborating with major broadcasters to deliver best-in-class digital and linear TV capabilities that help bridge the gap between digital and TV and are specifically designed to enhance the TV advertising proposition for advertisers and agencies.

This article first appeared in www.Mediapost.com