WarnerMedia Upfront 2019 Connects the Consumer Dots

I love it when an upfront starts off with warm up research slides as the WarnerMedia upfront did this year. Did you know, for example, that CNN.com has 30,000 visits per minute? Or that half of TNT viewers say that they can’t function without coffee in the morning? Or that 52% of adult Cartoon Network viewers admit that they sometimes let their children influence what they buy? Or that 87% of truTVs audience watches the network live?

WarnerMedia’s CEO John Stankey greeted the assembled crowd, “excited about future of the advertising business. We are a new company with new ambitions and a new approach to the industry.” Now a subsidiary of AT&T, WarnerMedia can now take advantage of the data capabilities and insights divisions of their owners. “We are working with Xandr,” Stankey explained, as their “set top router and mobile data partners. And we are investing in premium content across all platforms to connect with fans at scale.”

Media companies must keep up with changing tastes, consumer consumption patterns, expanding platforms and choice of devices. Omni-channel curation with engaging content for a range of different audience tastes is a pivotal goal and one that WarnerMedia is aggressively addressing. Stankey noted that, “consumption is changing, technology is changing, the business model is changing but our need to connect with passionate consumers at scale is not changing.”

To that end, Donna Speciale, President Ad Sales, offered advertisers, “Expanded reach, measurable outcomes and driving impact,” with a unified WarnerMedia sales department and content available across all platforms. “It is a full funnel solution,” she explained. The company is offering content initiatives including Chasing The Cure which gathers in experts and audiences across social media to help those suffering from undiagnosed diseases.

“Marketers are seeing the value of partnering differently,” she stated, citing as an example, Lego’s initiative with Cartoon Network that, through an app, garnered over 12 million minutes spent with the advertiser. “What sets us apart is that we can leverage AT&T data with Xandr insights of 170 million consumer touchpoints and guarantee business outcomes.”  Hewlett Packard was one of the first clients, followed by Volkswagen and McDonalds. Volkswagen used AT&T dlinearata to target auto-intenders and spurred visits to the dealership by +6.5%. McDonald’s matched to A&T subscriber data, focusing delivery on custom strategic targets and drove double digit lift in in-store visits.

“Linear TV is critical to media mix,” she made sure to include, “but the only way to reach our fans is to advertise on all of our platforms. We are closing the engagement loop by leveraging data insights with meaningful advertising experiences that are needed and wanted by our consumers.

This article first appeared in Cynopsis.

Digital’s Intimate Relationship Between the Brand and the Consumer. Interview with Turner’s Nick Johnson

As Nick Johnson, Turner’s SVP of Digital Ad Sales Strategy, Turner Ad Sales, launched into a career in advertising right out of college, he soon came to the conclusion that, he confessed, “Media was not the right place for me.” His lack of enthusiasm for agency buying led to a complete change in lifestyle – a move back to Asia where he spent his formative years. 

Leaving the agency in the early 1990s and moving to Japan, he joined a joint venture between Grey advertising and Daiko. “That in itself was fun, but what became my career epiphany ultimately was the launch of Netscape,” which gave Johnson a greater choice of English language content in real time in Japan. “I didn’t know what that would become, but I knew that I wanted to get involved in digital,” he concluded. And the rest is history as he was hired as one of the first digital account executives at CNN almost 20 years ago.

I sat down with Johnson and asked him the following questions:

Charlene Weisler: What are the major changes in the digital landscape since you first started?

Nick Johnson: When I first got into the business at CNN, digital was very nascent. It was a rigid advertising environment at that time with limited video inventory. In fact, when we started launching video, we built it as a subscription business, which I think slowed the growth of video overall as it was expensive to serve. As there were a lot of companies competing in the space, it wasn’t easy to turn on an ad server. There were five of them and you had to figure it out. 

Today you are dealing with high levels of addressability, massive distribution opportunities, video consumption and growth, and new platforms that are launching almost every day, many of which have high consumer options and levels of video as well as ad inventory. There are also layers of complexity to ultimately get the right ad to the right person. But I think we are at an important inflection time in the industry, where this non-traditional video consumption is happening very quickly and people are getting comfortable watching video in different environments.

And too, the advent of branded content, native and now this notion of building off channel distribution of both your video content and branded content is light years away from where we were 20 years ago. 

Weisler: What aspects of digital are evergreen and non-changing?

Johnson: Since the beginning, the consumer experience is very direct. You can either keystroke in a URL or discovery through search. But the relationship across time is a very lean forward one, involving active participation, hands on keyboard and mouse, as opposed to a passive one where you choose to watch a show and lean back. I think the relationship between the brand and a consumer digitally is very intimate.

Weisler: What do you think will be the next big digital incarnation?

Johnson: Active consumption of this content in these new distribution channels is big. The volume of content being consumed through OTT is huge – it is something that has gotten very big very quickly. We are spending a lot of time wrestling it to the ground and developing strategies to super serve our customers. Branded content is another initiative we are focused on. We are seeing a lot of interest in that today.

Weisler: Talk a bit about measurement - what metrics do you use?

Johnson: It is everything from leveraging our data solutions to identifying the best audiences. Standard measurement is important for validating who and how we reach consumers and whether we are delivering the right numbers. Platforms’ viewability. There are so many that address different parts of the value chain. We are focused on all of them.

Weisler: What is the prime focus for this year?

Johnson: A big focus for us is leading in the marketplace in terms of branded and native content. We have some great internal assets. For CNN, we have a brand studio called Courageous, which is winning awards and our engine for creating all of that branded content. And we have a social agency in-house called Launchpad, which we use to deliver that branded content both off and on channel with socially informed data. Getting organized around the wave of consumption that is happening around OTT is also priority. Attention on our social and mobile brands is another. Also, turning programmatic from a back office function to a consultative offering. 

Weisler: What is CNN digital's long term strategy?

Johnson: It’s very much about taking advantage of this brand that we have. We have had a big moment in the spotlight in the last eighteen months around the election and adding to that is the hard work that Jeff Zucker and his team have done building a great consumer destination. Our audience has gotten younger and is very engaged. Our goal is now to take advantage of all of this to grow and disrupt the business over the next five years. 

This article first appeared in www.MediaVillage.com

Looking at TV at the Speed of Light at the TV of Tomorrow Conference

TVOT, one of the most forward thinking conferences in our industry, focused on the concept of time for this year’s NYC event. In past years, TVOT has explored how technologies such as VR would change how we use TV, how the rollout of apps and TVE would impact how we access content and how big and small data would impact how we measure everything. 

Time is a precious commodity, made even more precious by the continued fragmentation of consumer attention, platforms, content forms and data sources. The scarcity of time has impacted the strategies of traditional media companies and advertisers. 

What ad formats work best by platform? How can you develop successful content by platform? To content creators like Lung Huang, Head of Strategic Partnerships at 84.51”, "This is the golden age of TV." but there is still a lot of uncertainty. "Marketers must make decision what works best. But we are not there yet," he added.

The TV of tomorrow, according to Tracy Swedlow, Editor-in-Chief, itvt, is “coming up with new content formats, inventing it on the fly and to some extent launching it on the same day. They are competing with traditional media offerings as well as the social media world and individuals who are creating their own channels. There is so much competition now to come up with incredibly new content that the TV of tomorrow is happening today and every day in every moment.” 

 

Here are some takeaways from the conference.

The Harnessing and Consolidation of Rapid Change

Perhaps because of the swiftness of change and transformation, many media companies are working towards a consolidation of efforts, a look towards standardization of measurements and a nod to traditional media forms as foundational keystones. Panels on eSports, for example, acknowledged how they owe a lot to traditional sports coverage and sales. As Nathan Lindberg, Director of Global eSports at Twitch, stated, "eSports is the newest thing you've always heard of."

Starting with what we know about traditional sports, Seth Ladetsky, SVP Sales at Turner Sports, said he, “started realizing that young males were consuming a lot of eSports. So, Turner invested in it with ELEAGUE, a professional eSports league the company debuted in May 2016 in partnership with WME/IMG.” As eSports “scaled and had multiple touchpoints,” according to Stuart Lipson, Executive Director, eSports Ad Bureau, “We established the eSports Ad Bureau rules to execute against this complex environment.”

Designing Across Platforms

Maintaining coherent branding across platforms is much more complex than one might think. Take CNN, for example, which traditionally attracts an older audience. Dewey Reid, VP/Executive Creative Director CNN, is charged with creating “a CNN news habit across all age groups” and grapples with “design challenges to hold the brand together across platforms.” This is because “every platform has a different content management system.” 

Samantha Barry, Head of Social Media at CNN, explained how it might be possible to young-down news using an example from the recent election. “Election night is our Super Bowl at CNN,” she noted, “and we wanted to have defined success across each platform. Our work with Kick targeted 13-17 year olds. We launched stickers – they love stickers – and gifts and emoticons. We learned that we have to speak their language.” The strategy went further. “We wanted to have a design brand across all platforms – designs that could be used across TV, desktops and social platforms. We did instagram portraits for all candidates and used them across platforms,” she added.

Be Flexible

Understanding the differences in platform usage and behavior is key to maximizing marketing efforts. Barry noted that, “Good news is shared more on Facebook and on social platforms. Triumphing over adversity. Climate change does well on Snapchat.” So CNN tries to tailor the news by degree of user interest.

Agencies are also become more adaptable. Jonathan Steuer, CRO, Omnicom Media Group, sees a holistic, synergistic approach as the road to success. “We are in later stages of consolidating our media investment teams so we aren't siloed,” he noted. “We want to find the balanced diet for our clients and think of it as a holistic process.”

The secret to navigating these quickly changing times is to be inquisitive, open and not afraid to take a risk. Andrew Feigenson, Managing Director Digital, Nielsen, summed it up by saying, ”This is a changing world. No one has figured it out. This is a time of experimentation.”

This article first appeared in www.MediaBizBloggers.com

Listening in a Crowd – The Next Step in Out Of Home Measurement

CNN Airport Network recently announced a new initiative using Computer Vision and Deep Learning technology developed by Tunity that has the capability of adding a new dimension to out of home television viewing. 

How often are we at an airport or at bar and can view the screens but can’t quite hear what is going on? Tunity’s download-able app enables viewers to also become listeners. Yaniv Davidson, Founder of Tunity, believes that it is possible to attribute actual listening to specific out of home viewing. “Turner’s bold decision to adopt Tunity and promote it first to its CNN Airport Network viewers opens up a whole new era in out of home viewing,” he explained. “Viewers will now be able to receive crystal clear audio via their cell phones at the same time they see the video on a live TV set.”

“Our goal is to constantly improve the passenger experience by bringing air travelers quality news and entertainment programming wherever they may be in the airport,” explains Debbie Cooper, President of Turner Private Networks . “Bringing a technology like Tunity to CNN Airport Network allows us to better serve the passenger, allowing them to be engaged with the screens not only with a visual but with clear, synchronized sound at their personal volume level. We know through years of research that if someone cannot hear the audio clearly, they are less likely to pay attention. Tunity is a unique opportunity to take advantage of the technology that many of us use every day, a smart phone and headphones,” she adds.

Charlene Weisler: What is the unique advantage of using Tunity for television out of home measurement?

Yaniv Davidson: Currently there is no good metric for TV Out of Home because there is no technology out there that can capture who is watching what and where. For example, the Portable people meter needs to capture audio, which either doesn't exist in out of home, or exists, but might be just a background noise to a consumer that is merely in the TV's general area. Tunity can prove that a viewer is actively watching a TV, when and where. It is not an anecdotal piece of information, like a survey, it's hard, detailed data about real viewers. It can be the first platform one to shed a light on an audience that's never been measured before.

Charlene Weisler: How do you expect CNN Airport Network will use the information gained from Tunity?

Debbie Cooper: The data sets that we are creating with Tunity will give us insights into who our audience is, what they are interested in and, maybe even someday, where they are headed on their next flight. The strategic knowledge we get from this information will allow us to deliver a more personalized, engaging experience.

Yaniv Davidson: We are still in the phase of working on the data and we want CNN Airport Network to be a partner in that. We would like CNN Airport Network to give us their input so the end result is something they could use as a metric to evaluate how many (additional) viewers are watching a specific channel at a specific time in a specific location and communicate this to their potential advertisers. This is just the beginning. Eventually, I think that Tunity will enable content creators like Turner, to push personalized content to viewers' screens while they are watching TV - this will be based on who the viewers are, what they are watching at the moment, where they are and their past preference (or preference of viewers who belong to the same segment and are in the same context as them). Tunity can help Turner evaluate the effectivity of every piece of content - by segment, location context, etc.

Charlene Weisler: Will CNN Airport Network get demographic or lifestyle attributes?

Yaniv Davidson: There is some direct data that we have - like age and location - and there is additional demographic data that can be extracted or added to the data we already have. For now, we are focusing on location, age and gender - but there is a lot more we plan to add in the future.

Charlene Weisler: What makes this unique compared to other out-of-home measurement applications?

Debbie Cooper: For CNN Airport Network, it’s not just an issue of out-of-home measurement but constantly improving the customer experience. If we can be more available to more people regardless of their proximity to a television screen, that’s a benefit to us and to the audience. We will continue to use our other measurement tools and systems but having Tunity data will give us the best available data using best technology in as close to real time as possible. This allows us to know who, when and where our audience is. There have been several times I’ve been at an airport, either in a gate-hold area, restaurant or lounge and I’ve seen one person see the promotion we’re running for Tunity that explains how it works. They download the app and in a matter of seconds the audio is synched to the screen. Another few seconds pass and the person sitting next to them asks how they are able to get the audio and they repeat the download process. You can see the light bulbs go off as people experience Tunity for the first time. They have their phones out constantly, they typically have their headphones in too. Tying those together with what’s on the screen across the room or seating area is a breakthrough for CNN Airport Network.

Yaniv Davidson: This is the first time a major media company is working to solve the issue of measuring Out-of-Home TV viewership and leveraging a new and unique solution to both solve a real issue for its audience and advertisers as well as extract unique data - not available until today. Turner is leveraging the latest technology (this level of Computer Vision and Deep Learning could not have been done 4 years ago - computing power was just too expensive and Deep Learning did not really exist...) to statistically and scientifically measure what is a significant portion of their viewership. It also solves an issue for their viewers on the go - and the advertisers trying to engage with them.

This article first appeared in www.MediaBizBloggers.com