TV Works. An Interview with TVSquared’s Jo Kinsella

In talking to Jo Kinsella, Chief Revenue Officer and EVP, TV Squared, about the launch of the company, one thing became clear to me. As much as I see great changes in the media landscape over the past seven years, Kinsella sees great constants. 

TVSquared boasts of being able to, “measure linear and digital, OTT and VOD, TV everywhere, local and national, on a global level via a single platform offering results based on impressions, reach and outcomes.” Further, she stated, “We do 100% attribution. We will do short term spike analysis and longer term impact. We do OTT across publishers. We will do household deterministic match. The only thing I can’t do right now is walled gardens.”  But then, I think, who can? 

Charlene Weisler: How has the TV landscape evolved since you first launched TVSquared and how much of has remained consistent?

Jo Kinsella: The TV landscape has evolved in that it’s fragmenting – “TV” no longer means just linear, but linear, OTT, VOD, CTV, you name it. But what has been slower to evolve is the culture where performance is a norm for the advertiser, new currencies are adopted and data interoperability exists to make us all better at proving TV’s ROI. While we are still playing catch up, 2019 has been a pivotal year for progress. I see a lot of the same terminology being used today as was used all those years ago when I worked in fin tech. It takes me back as to how it went from a highly unregulated, very fragmented industry to a highly regulated, very data autonomous industry. I actually see some overlap in TV media as we go into 2020. The evolution will continue and we have to keep up. It will be very interesting as we see how it all plays out.

Weisler: Can you measure television and prove its performance in the same way as you would digital?

Kinsella: That was TVSquared’s mandate objective from Day 1. When we did the world tour and visited a lot of agencies in a lot of countries, they said, ‘yes we do TV measurement and we have excel spreadsheets and people and you’ll never do it.’ Here we are, fast forward seven years, and what started off as an ability to measure traditional linear in as many countries in the world as our clients would take us (now 76 countries and a platform translated into four languages including Japanese), it proves that it wasn’t that the industry didn’t want proof of performance via digital-like measurement, it was that the industry didn’t realize it could happen. Now that they realize that it has happened, it has changed people’s perception of TV and the stories of TV viewership declining. It turned it into: TV Is Content and Distribution At Scale All Over the World. 

Weisler: So it sounds like TV is still very relevant and even gaining momentum.

Kinsella: We know that TV advertising drives the most reach and the most awareness of any channel. Now that we can measure it, and prove that it works, people are spending more. It’s not about linear or digital. It’s about the mix that drives an ROI positive story for the marketer, the advertiser. If you can tie your TV spend to business outcomes, you can prove that TV is a positive return on investment story. And the more granular you can get in regard to addressable audiences the more success you see. The conversation has changed whether you’re a brand yourself, whether you’re an agency or whether you’re media owner or a publisher. That is why the attribution space is so popular now. Now that people realize that TV can be measured, they realize that it works and Google doesn’t take that last click credit. That is why we see dollars coming back to TV.

Weisler: What is your definition of TV?

Kinsella: Content, distribution, video. When it comes to measuring TV, people are producing amazing content whether it’s on ad-supported streaming services or whether it’s on good old traditional linear. Every advertiser should be able to measure any commercial aired on any platform at any time in an always-on software analytics platform that is accessible day or night by anyone to see how TV is performing. 

Weisler: What are the biggest trends that you have seen in the past seven years?

Kinsella: It sounds obvious but the biggest trend that we’ve seen is that TV works. People always knew it worked but could never prove it. Now we’ve proved it works, and it is also that we can now see which audiences are really driving the business outcomes needed by advertisers. We are now able to shine a light on insights that have really got people to lean in because we are seeing things that were never expected and can now be proved out. Whether it’s a brand strategy or a performance strategy for a campaign, cross-platform and cross-device attribution is now something marketers expect in an always-on platform like ours.

Weisler: What do you see as the biggest challenge going forward?

Kinsella: We need to make sure that there is a performance currency in the industry. How do we bridge the gap between the new world of performance and the old way of planning and buying, which are still so integral in the industry workflows? How do we bridge that gap so people can drive performance as a currency and not be held back by maybe what has worked for the last fifty years but isn’t going to work for the next fifty? It’s changing so quickly. While impressions are great for telling you “who” saw your spot, performance tells you what the “who” actually did in response to it. And, at the end of the day, that’s what matters most to marketers. Brands have led the charge with performance and we’ve seen the sell-side increasingly adopt it as well, including firms like Effectv, Amersand and NBCU.

This article first appeared in www.Mediapost.com