Is It Now or Never For Advanced TV?

Changes in the media ecosystem didn’t start with the pandemic. In fact, some aspects of media buying and selling have been in discussion since the 1990s including Advanced advertising, according to Research futurist Bill Harvey, who has been touting the concept of advanced advertising since then.

Harvey participated in a recent Myers Collective Leadership conversation on the future of Advanced TV with a panel that included Kevin Arrix, Senior Vice President, Dish Media Sales, Jamie Power, Chief Operating Officer, Cadent, Marcien Jenckes, President of Advertising, Comcast and moderated by Jack Myers, Founder of MediaVillage.

The Addressable Market Landscape Today

Myers launched the panel with an opinion that I believe many of us share in the industry. “I have been studying the advanced, interactive, VOD, addressable market for a long time,” he began, “and truthfully, I’m not all that clear on who’s who and what’s what.” There is a litany of companies in the media space, who seem to offer opportunities that can overlap or conflict or split the market.  “Help me understand the dynamics,” he asked.

For Powers, one of the reasons that there might be some confusion is, “because we over complicate it.” In looking at the current set top box addressable marketplace with the MVPDs, she explained that there is, “Ampersand that has about 60% of the addressable households … then you have Dish and then Xandr,” which, combined, rounds out to the rest of the 40% of the country. She then noted that they have expanded to IP addressable to get their clients full reach in television. Cadent’s role is that they have, “created a platform to make it easy to execute across all the different screens and channels with consistent workflows and universal data, to get measurement aggregated all in one place” she stated.

“It’s worth noting,” added Arrix, “Advanced television is a holistic category. I would define it as anything that is data driven. I think Addressable is a part of the Advanced television marketplace. From my point of view addressable is defined as deterministic. That is the line that makes something addressable or not.” Ampersand, Dish and Xandr all have deterministic, set top box data, he noted, adding Sling, ATT TV Now, YouTube TV, Google Live and Fubo TV that are also subscriber based MVPDs.

Jenckes believes that the competitive set within advanced television is complementary because, “different distributors reach different households. So in order to reach the full US market you have to figure out ways to work across them.” He agreed with Arrix that, “there are other new forms of distribution that are emerging, like Roku which is a virtual distributor in some sense and there are others with addressable capabilities out there.” He added that once the national networks are enabled, we should expect significant growth in the amount of addressable inventory available in the marketplace.

“I agree with everything that has been said. Addressable is the umbrella term and the one type we have not called out yet is data-driven linear,” explained Harvey who added, “All of this is aimed at better results for advertising. That’s the whole point.” For Harvey, the topology maps out as such: MVPD addressability through a switch from the set top box and the Connected TV which can be a Smart TV or a connected device. The challenge from a data standpoint (which is something Nielsen and Project OAR is tackling) is how to best combine different data streams (such as from a smart TV in a local household or from terrestrial and satellite sources) that may have different latencies, delay times and black screens.

The Addressable Market Marketplace

So where is addressable headed? Forrester predicted in 2000 that addressable advanced television would be a $30billion industry in 2020. “Well here we are in 2020,” Myers noted, “and it’s significantly less. It’s a fraction of that.” He added that, “our forecasts are that in 2025 it will represent about 8-10% of the television ad revenues which will be significant growth but not the $30billion that Forrester recommended we would have today.“ Considering how off predictions were in 2000, one could be forgiven for being a bit skeptical about the robustness of addressable revenue growth in the next few years.

And yet, Jenckes believes that the biggest barrier to addressable growth – the technological challenge of switching from programming to ads - has now essentially been solved. But, he added, “the limitations we are having right now are around the amount of inventory we have available,” which is the two minutes an hour for addressable but even then, this inventory is often used in other ways. “So the challenge is how you improve inventory and how you manage yield. You can sell the inventory in a lot of different ways. I can sell a full spot at a set CPM or a much narrower sliver of that spot for a higher CPM but as the owner of the inventory I have to figure out which is best and how I optimize the value of that.”

The final challenge, Jenckes added, “is measurement and the biggest issue around measurement has been the historical restrictions that Nielsen has imposed on us as an industry,” Addressable is easy to measure because it is impressions based. The challenge is to measure, “the under addressable part of the campaign. What happens to the rest of the spot? Since Nielsen is panel based, if one of the panelists happens to get a different ad it breaks the model because Nielsen doesn’t know if that is one impression or a lot of impressions represented by that one panelist. There is a lot of work that needs to happen on that front,” he concluded.” But,” he then added, “these hurdles have been coming down. There has been a lot of progress around standards, around enablement and even on the measurement front although I think that will be the last frontier.”

For Powers, “the opportunity of addressable has been around for years. But agencies haven’t done it because we haven’t invested in the ad tech,” to facilitate the consistent measurement across platforms and services. In addition, “as a marketplace we are not articulating what the value-proposition is. We are over-complicating it. Advertisers and agencies are not understanding it.” She advocates for the creation of standards and a common currency. "If we cannot even agree … it makes it really confusing and there is not trust in the marketplace to try it.”

According to Arrix, “The key to the future is all about interoperability. The technology is getting better, the process is getting better. There has been a significant amount of progress made in the last few years.” That, with the recognition by the industry that, “data-driven advertising is just smarter,” is leading the industry to a growth surge for addressable.

The Future of Addressable

Propelling a robust future for addressable is data and measurement. In the past, the industry was wedded to the Nielsen panel. “But,” as Harvey pointed out, “right now there is more data each individual party has. The data is now disaggregated into these silos and if we put them all together we have the measurement system of the future. We don’t need panels except for nuances like co-viewing projections and stuff like that. Eventually that goes away too.” He admonished the industry to, “work together. Not just say it like we used to do but actually do it.”

That is the underlying structure for the business. “The big money comes when we get the network inventory. The two minutes an hour is not going to make it a big business. The $30billion comes as soon as you start switching to network addressable,” Harvey concluded.

“It is at the beginning of the game,” Arrix noted. “We see two paths right now. There is the true addressable path where you are breaking up the linear spot into impressions and you end up having the 80/20 rule with the 20% as the target and the 80% is the underlying impressions that you have to figure out how to monetize. That is how we operate now in our addressable business. The other initiative is creative versioning where you are not breaking up the linear spot but you are using deterministic data to deliver the right creative to the right household.”

But the stakes are high and the future is not assured if we all can’t come together as an industry to create standards and work together. “My fear is that unless we do that, we will be relegated to … the weakest player within television,” Jenckes warned. “And if that’s the case, we can all start the clock right now for the full and predictive demise of TV folks have been talking about for a long time. The good news is that because of the progress we’ve had, I don’t think that is going happen. There is a path and it requires collaboration.”

When it comes to business during the pandemic, “is business a bit little softer than usual? Yeah. But I don’t think COVD has a major effect on this,” Powers stated, “The same problems that existed before COVID, exist now. One thing that has happened is that there are more eyeballs watching the television and we know that we will pass the threshold (of 50%) at the end of this year from linear to non-linear viewing. Data is the only thing that is going to win in this marketplace.”

This article first appeared in www.MediaVillage.com

Advancing Advanced Advertising. An Interview with Tripp Boyle of Connekt

The world of advanced advertising continues to innovate. Take the example of Connekt which makes use of A.I. to dynamically insert interactive advertising in content and synchronize with T-commerce and E-commerce. As linear TV moves onto the IP, this form of advertising is poised to become more pervasive. Tripp Boyle, SVP Sales Strategy and Business Development, is not only leveraging A.I. in advertising. His company is also offering the first-ever voice activated, national TV ad campaign which was recently showcased at CES. 

Charlene Weisler: What is your definition of advanced TV?

Tripp Boyle: Advanced TV is what defines today’s TV ecosystem.  The proliferation of connected smart TV devices (now active in 74% of US TV households) be it through HD streaming content, TV everywhere technology, the advent of t-commerce, addressable linear and VOD opportunities and more means that TV is more advanced than ever and will continue to evolve.

Weisler: What do you see as its greatest opportunities and challenges in advanced TV in 2019?

Boyle: TV data has remained largely untapped due to insufficient and unproven technology that has had difficulty scaling across providers.  Brands are still reliant on TV for reach and have built proven models that show it works, which why we’ll never see the switch flip overnight.  Connekt is building technology, integrated at the smart device level that’s allowing advertisers to leverage both front and back end data to deliver smarter experiences within linear TV. 

Advanced TVs biggest challenge remains device and platform fragmentation.  It’s not a simple task to unite an ecosystem whose technological backbone is housed within OEMs that have historically battled each other for market share.  Add to this MVPDs and MSOs who are also looking for new and enhanced revenue streams and it’s hard to get everyone to see eye to eye on a unified solution rather than build or buy their own and scale only among their user base.

Weisler: What are the most critical data points in advanced advertising?

Boyle: Factors vary campaign to campaign.  Right now in Advanced TV advertising, we’re seeing data like location, HH demographics, and context bubble to the surface in terms of activation prioritization.  Enabling dynamic local messaging on top of national ad spots, highlighting different products from the same brand depending on household profile or keying in on a specific offer tied to a precise moment on the television within ads or programming are some of the most common use cases.

Weisler: Describe your solutions for an ecommerce project.

Boyle: Our ecommerce solution is an outsourced, multi-channel, white label storefront that offers  clients a new channel of revenue without the traditional funds and manpower needed to set up an internal site.  Connekt handles the back-end technology, product development, merchandising, marketing, fulfillment of orders and customer service. For example, we recently announced the launch ShopABCTV.com. 

With our ongoing partnership with ABC, Connekt’s platform supports every aspect of the network’s ShopABCTV.com by managing site hosting and web development. We also create official brand gear for its franchises, including apparel, drinkware, home goods and collectibles. Once a viewer purchases a product, Connekt then fulfills the order, ensuring that the item is processed and delivered, and all customer service inquiries are met. Connekt is introducing a future where viewers will be able to purchase items with their remote or voice through our owned and operated ShopTV smart TV application, which is currently available on Sony, LG and Hisense smart TVs. 

Weisler: Can you talk a little bit about your recent patent? 

Boyle: Our patented technology gives audiences the ability to interact with, research and purchase items viewed on TV and video, in real-time.  When an ad is displayed on screen, viewers can purchase directly through a wide array of devices, such as remote controls, phones and voice-activated assistants. 

Weisler: How real time is your realtime?

Boyle: On linear TV our technology reacts to what is on the screen within milliseconds to deliver the right message, at a precise moment.  On the data side, we’re returning viewership and engagement data at the network, program, state, DMA, daypart, and hour levels within 24 hours of delivery.

Weisler: Do you collect data? If so, how do you use it?

Boyle: The non-PII data that we gather is centered on viewership, attention, and engagement at the device level.  Our data helps identify who’s watching, what content, for how long, on what networks, and who’s engaging, at what time, to understand who is most receptive to a message.  We share that anonymized data back to our advertising partners to help as a planning tool, we also build audience segments around that data.

Weisler: In the span of your career what has most surprised you?

Boyle: It is the growth curve we’ve seen with mobile commerce.  It seems intuitive now, given how capable smartphones are and how easy it is for a new device to make us forget the previous version, but mobile e-commerce is projected (eMarketer) to make up half of all e-commerce next year, or roughly $319B. In 2009, it was at just north of $1B.  Take a second to reflect on what your response would have been 10 years ago if someone asked you if you purchase laundry detergent on your mobile phone.  Now we’re setting up automatic re-orders via our smartphones on all kinds of CPG goods and doing much of our holiday shopping via mobile as well.  

Weisler: What are your overall predictions for the state of the media industry 3-5 years from now.

Boyle: The roll out of 5G services and the host of benefits that will come with exponentially faster internet connection.  Overall, continued convergence is going to significantly re-shape the media landscape and drive how, and through whom, we access what content we watch/listen to.  Sports rights will continue to evolve and it will be interesting to see how that impacts traditional cable service subscriptions now that you have social networks, TV companies, and streaming services competing.  I think the networks are too big in the foreseeable future to lose much ground on sports but it will be interesting to see how those rights deals are structured.  Terrestrial radio, digital radio, and podcasted content are also at a bit of a crossroads and I’m sure we’ll see some convergence there with a few big players making moves to stay ahead.

This article first appeared in www.Mediapost.com

Using Advanced Technologies in Advanced Television. Interview with dataxu’s Sandro Catanzaro

There is a lot of talk about the introduction of AI and machine learning (ML) to better understand human behavior. Now, as these protocols move into the media industry, we are finding more companies employing AI and ML to better target consumers over time. 

Sandro Catanzaro, Founder and Chief Innovation Officer at dataxu describes himself as a serial entrepreneur. He was one of the co-inventers for dataxu’s real-time optimization algorithm, based on research he did at MIT. Here is an overview of his company, the world of advanced and addressable television and the data work being done in the industry.

Charlene Weisler: What is your definition of advanced TV? Is it the same as addressable?

Sandro Catanzaro: Advanced TV is TV advertising that is purchased on an impression basis using advanced audience data and software automation, creating additional value for both the buy and sell sides of the transaction. Addressable TV is a form of advanced TV where households are targeted on a one-to-one basis via cable and satellite set-top boxes, Smart TVs and OTT devices, but not all advanced TV is necessarily addressable. Other forms of advanced TV may be based solely on automating the purchase process, but still displaying ads on a one-to-many broadcast basis.

Charlene Weisler: What are the challenges in advanced TV?

Sandro Catanzaro: One of the primary challenges in advanced TV right now is the ability to target and provide attribution for OTT campaigns. This form of TV is accessed by the viewer via internet enabled televisions and streamed either live or on-demand. The connected nature of OTT makes it very similar to digital video, but as these ads run on actual TV screens and not traditional digital devices (PCs and mobile phones), the typical digital markers (cookies and mobile IDs) are not available for identification, making advanced targeting difficult.

Charlene Weisler: How can they be overcome?

Sandro Catanzaro: This issue can be overcome through new forms of identity management made possible by cross-device graph technology. A device graph is the unification of several otherwise separate devices, such as a laptop, mobile phone, tablet and smart TV under one unique household. In the real world, these devices don’t exist in a vacuum; they are linked through ownership and usage and can be used to understand the full context of a person’s digital footprint. By including smart TVs and OTT devices in a device graph, marketers are able to leverage advanced audience data, built using legacy digital IDs, to enable addressable targeting on televisions, even though these legacy IDs are not present.

Charlene Weisler: What metrics do you use?

Sandro Catanzaro: Advanced TV is typically purchased on an impression basis as opposed to ratings, but it is possible to provide traditional TV metrics such as GRP. However, we find that marketing professionals are also frequently leveraging more detailed metrics to prove success, such as lift studies which compare conversion rates of exposed populations versus control groups. This is made possible through addressable forms of advanced TV and device graph technology, where specific viewers are directly targeted and others are intentionally excluded, in order to compare their actions across all devices, and in the real world, after having viewed the ad.

Charlene Weisler: What is dataxu?

Sandro Catanzaro: dataxu is a software company that helps marketing and media professionals use data to improve their advertising using AI to optimize ROI on marketing investments. dataxu ingests first-party data (e.g., customer purchase information), matches it up with many other kinds of data across devices and identifiers and creates a customer machine learning classifier for each campaign that invests more budget into what’s driving acquisition and less into what isn’t. We offer three products: TouchPoint™, our demand side platform (DSP); OneView™, our identity and data management platform; and ClearSight™, our advanced analytics and data visualization product.

Charlene Weisler: Where does it reside in the ecosystem? Who are your competitors?

Sandro Catanzaro: Sandro Catanzaro: Some of our products, such as TouchPoint™, compete with other DSPs, including The Trade Desk or MediaMath, but our analytics, cross-device identity management and advanced TV capabilities stand alone.

Charlene Weisler: How will GDPR impact your side of the business?

Sandro Catanzaro: dataxu has always placed the highest value on transparency, quality and privacy. We have had a dedicated task force for GDPR since it was announced. We expect GDPR to have an impact on the entire industry, not just dataxu; however, we know we are prepared and well-positioned to face the challenges coming. We were fully prepared when GDPR came into effect; we are active in industry-wide schemes (such as the IAB Technical Consent Program), are a registered vendor with the IAB Europe and are members of self-regulatory organizations [e.g., Network Advertising Initiative (NAI), Digital Advertising Alliance (DAA) and European Digital Advertising Alliance (EDAA)] to make sure our customers are best placed for success under the new rules.

Charlene Weisler: What does the future of TV buying look like 3-5 years from now?

Sandro Catanzaro: In the next three to five years, we expect more and more people to follow the growing trend of taking their viewership to connected devices, not only leading to more innovation surrounding those devices, but creating a larger pool of inventory for advertising to be served. We expect that in this time period all major TV programmers will have made their content available via connected devices and most will be providing marketers access to this advertising via programmatic channels. The largest portion of TV buying will still operate through legacy methods, such as upfronts, but advanced TV will soon constitute a much larger piece of that pie in the near future.

This article first appeared in www.Mediapost.com
 

Joining Forces to Create Addressable Measurement Standards

Cross MediaWorks, parent company of Cadent, one2one Media and TCA, is partnering with TV data analytics firm, 605, to advance addressable by creating a new measurement standard. Not only will this effort promise to scale the addressable television marketplace, it will also create an independent, third party verification of performance to standardize impressions - based television campaigns and actionable insights.

Nick Troiano, Chief Executive Officer, Cross MediaWorks, and Ben Tatta, Co-Founder and President of 605, explained their joint vision and approach:

Charlene Weisler: What are the expectations from this partnership?

Nick Troiano: At Cross MediaWorks our main objective is to make it easy for TV buyers to understand and use Advanced TV solutions. Our new agreement with 605 will help us build a seamless solution to utilize important data and inventory providers in the Advanced TV space, making it easier for brand marketers to add targeting capabilities to their traditional TV buys. 605 has an expansive data portfolio that allows Cross MediaWorks clients to better target on TV.

Ben Tatta: This partnership centers on the development of a standardized approach to planning, measuring and optimizing audience-based ad campaigns on TV - executed on either an addressable or optimized-linear basis.

Weisler: What datasets are being used and how will they be integrated into Cadent’s business?

Troiano: We work with more than 200 MVPDs across the country and have access to more than 100 million TV households. The new solution with 605 allows our clients to home in on a specific target audience and go beyond simple segmentations, like age and gender, on a tremendous scale.

Tatta: Cross MediaWorks will leverage 605’s census-level viewership data, combined with a vast array of third-party audience attributes including both behavioral and transactional data-sets.

Weisler: Will it be guaranteed?

Troiano: We work with all our clients to make sure they reach their target audience and are happy with their campaign results, but do not offer specific guarantees.

Weisler: Any challenges in implementing the data?

Tatta: 605’s core data platform was designed to transform raw TV tuning records into refined, measurement-grade, match-able data. We’ve worked closely with Cross MediaWorks on the design and implementation of these new capabilities to ensure they can now take advantage of more robust data and measurement in a more seamless and scalable way.

Weisler: What are the next steps?

Troiano: Evangelizing and helping educate clients. The evolution of TV targeting is still fairly new, but is real and actionable today. We look forward to working with clients to help them reach their target audience at scale on TV.

Tatta: While the initial focus of the partnership is on the introduction of standardized planning and measurement for audience-based TV campaigns, the next phase will encompass more advanced campaign analytics, including brand and sales attribution, ROI analytics, etcetera.

Weisler: What have been the reactions from the clients? 

Troiano: Overwhelmingly positive – clients are excited to scale the business and really zero in on their target audience.

Tatta: This partnership was based solely on client and market demand for more robust targeting and measurement solutions for TV.

Weisler: Can you give an example of how it will be executed?

Troiano: I will provide you with an example of how we work with an Auto client – for both Cadent and one2one Media: With Cadent, we provide an efficient broad reach campaign on TV – then follow up in another campaign to target a specific audience of consumers who are looking to buy a car and target the specific days, times and networks that audience watches. With one2one Media using addressable advertising, we target specific households of that same audience with the same message. By utilizing 605 data we can create an independent, third-party verification of performance providing a standardization of an impressions-based television campaigns.

This article first appeared in www.MediaVillage.com