Working Together to Find Solutions … While Remaining Competitive. The Advanced Advertising Summit

At last week’s Advanced Advertising Summit in New York, Dan Aversano shared his version of an “ah ha” moment: the key to success for OpenAP will be building scale, consistency and simplicity. The Senior Vice President of Ad Innovation and Programmatic Solutions for Turner Ignite was just one of the speakers reporting on how data can best be used in advanced television advertising at the B&C/Multichannel News conference.   

Panels focused on a range of data, measurement and industry initiatives that highlighted the frenetic and changing landscape for marketers and media, each with a common theme of making data-driven targeted advertising more effective. 

Cross corporation partnerships is a significant step forward. In addition, the industry can benefit from monitoring data usage, creating industry standards and protocols and using data in an ethical manner. 

OpenAP – An Update

In talking about OpenAP, Aversano was joined by Noah Levine, Senior Vice President, Advertising Data and Technology Solutions, Fox and Gabe Bevilacqua, Senior Vice President, Product Management Advanced Advertising, Viacom. Aversano went on to say that media companies can work independently and reach their own, great solutions but they will all be different and difficult to merge. The ‘ah ha’ realization can take OpenAP from a custom solution to an industry standard.

“OpenAP focuses on linear TV,” added Levine, “and makes it easy to transact on the same ad across optimized linear.” It enables all types of advertisers, from short purchase cycle CPG to longer cycle Automotives, to better achieve their goals beyond adults 25-54. “We are bringing new types of advertisers to the table, which is critical to continued success of TV. Also, it allows us to improve the end user viewer experience. Long term goals include lowering the ad loads and offering different types of ad experiences,” he concluded.

The partnering of frenemy companies is both new and welcome. Bevilacqua noted, “We are extremely competitive and want to deliver the best results for our clients but we won't win by coming up with our own definitions. It doesn't scale this business for any of us. So we can agree and still have our lanes. There is a lot of land out there that is right spot for us to compete.” Currently OpenAp has 30 agencies on-boarded in time for this upfront.

Attribution

The best industry standard attribution model for media continues to be elusive, but there are many media experts focusing on the issue. Data+Math is a TV metrics company that focuses on TV attribution. John Hoctor, Co-founder and CEO, explained, “We take exposure data from Smart TVs and Set Top Boxes and connect exposure data anonymously to other datasets.” 

Adam Gaynor, Vice President, Advertising and Data Solutions Sales, AMC, found this data output useful, “Now we can help tie what brand is trying to do. And it adds extra elements of insights. TV works and now we are able to prove it.” But for Keith Kazerman, Group Senior Vice President, Client Solutions, Discovery, the question is, “How do we standardize measurement? Eighty percent of questions from clients are about how we can do better than yesterday. How can we measure outcomes?” Attribution is table stakes - not across categories, but by clients. “For example, financial clients demand attribution,” stated Kazerman.

The biggest untapped targets for this next TV Upfront are, according to Gaynor, measurement, technology and collaboration. “We need to work together as an industry to find solutions,” he added. For Kazerman, the target is “Standardization. Make it efficient.”

Optimism in the industry is high ... and focused on data and how it maps the consumer journey. “2018 is the year of audiences. And attribution is another tool that enables us to see what happens. It all gets us further down the funnel,” concluded Gaynor.

Conclusion

The core takeaway for me is that the media industry needs to exert both optimism and vigilance. “Optimism” that this continuous industry evolution is beneficial and creates opportunities to better serve consumers and improve the overall business model. “Vigilance” that the data we use is not only scientifically fact-based but also appropriate for the analysis and ethically obtained.

This article first appeared in www.MediaVillage.com

The Secret Society Presents the Multi-Uses of Data

The Secret Society may not be so secret anymore since Steve Lanzano, President and CEO, TVB, gave it a shout out at the recent TVB Advertising Week event.  But some mystery still remains - the latest Secret Society meeting at the Turner offices in NYC was held in a non-descript conference room behind an unmarked door.

This meeting, which included presentations from Viacom, Hulu, NBCU and Turner, collected around a theme of data, audience targeting, addressability and branding. “Consumer choices are changing,” stated Mitch Oscar USIM’s Director, Advanced Television, “1975 was the first year that broadcast networks guaranteed age and gender in the uprfonts. Prior it was household guarantees. Now we look at households with people of a specific age, gender and behavioral characteristics.”

Viacom – Enabling a Currency of Fandom

Bryson Gordon, EVP Data Strategy at Viacom, gave a stirring presentation on fandom through the lens of data and analytics. He is relatively new to media, starting his career at McAfee where he used audience insights and segmentations to move that business from box software to subscription. From there he moved to Microsoft to build up ecommerce services. The similarities these companies have with media companies, he posits, are the patterns of deconstruction and cultivation. When you examine the audience data, Gordon explained, “The pattern of deconstruction concentrates on sub communities within a homogenous base. The pattern of cultivation concentrates on a community who often doesn't transact or behave as a community yet. You don't know you are in the club yet. You share attributes and behaviors that can be targeted but don't yet share a common purpose.” He concluded, “TV doesn't participate in that today. Legacy approach in TV is failing to keep pace with the advancements within audience demographic traction and cultivation.”

His work in Viacom is to insure that all marketing efforts target the right audience. “The audience we believe we attract may not be our audience at all,” he added.  When Microsoft introduced their newest PC, they initially thought that hipsters who owned Apple devices would be their target. But using very advanced data science they found that the hipster focus was wrong. “Women who had two kids under the age of ten who lived in Midwest and who voted for Romney would be the target for this device,” he explained. “The good news,” he assured us, “is that data science is transforming TV. We can fuse data sets, the hygiene of the data is so much better than years ago and data science is way more sophisticated.” And the future for data in TV is bright. “There is a fundamental democratization of data science which allows us to take incredible sets of data and do precise analysis of fan segments,” he stated. At Viacom, he assured, “We plan with advertiser to understand custom target, inboard the data set, offer 17 predictive models and optimize on ongoing basis. We can do it without creating liability and we are transparent. This is leading to a new way of selling and a currency of fandom. TV can now be delivered in a variety of ways with both a custom audience and custom creative.”

Turner  - Data, Technology and Analytics Lead to Opportunities for Buyers

Major network groups like NBCU and Turner are focusing their efforts on data driven sales solutions. Larry Allen, VP Ad Innovation and Programmatic at Turner, presented an overview of two innovative approaches to buying media using technology and advanced data analytics - Turner Targeting Now and Turner Audience Now – through its Turner Ignite initiative.  

Part of the challenge of evolving to a more data driven approach is historical. “It is jarring to say you've been buying one way for 20 years and now you buy in a new way,” explained Allen. With Turner’s solutions the client can supply any custom data set they want. Dan Aversano, SVP Ad Innovation and Programmatic Solutions Turner, said, “We will use any dataset. We are data agnostic and can achieve consistency across solutions. We build a consistency of metrics without having a currency.”  “But seasonality is factor,” cautions Allen, “as is viewing between platforms and modality. Lots of touch points create a new dynamic. There is the issue of data freshness and audience changes for quarter to quarter. So we plan the impact quarter by quarter for plan optimization.”

The next step for Turner is Addressable which is a careful process. Aversano explained, “All of this has to work within our traffic system. It is a challenge for us because TV is a giant jigsaw puzzle and all of our inventory has to sit together from the traffic, deal and proposal systems.”

Secret Society Takeaway

The application of innovative data-driven solutions appears to be gaining traction among the major media companies. Through the efforts of the Secret Society and other industry initiatives, the sharing of initiative techniques and solutions will hopefully lead to a standardization of processes for the industry at large. Let’s continue to keep the conversation flowing.

This article first appeared in www.MediaBizBloggers.com

Data is a Multi-Faceted Gem With Sharp Distinctions

The world of advanced advertising is expanding in terms of attention and participation. There are more opportunities for advertisers to improve performance and for content providers to maximize the value of their inventory. A range of industry speakers outlined all these new initiatives at the recent MultiChannel B&C Addressable Advertising conference. The conclusion? It all comes down to data.

In discussions involving the use of data in advanced advertising or programmatic and across the myriad of proprietary data initiatives being offered by content companies, it is easy to become confused. I have over 38 years of research and data experience and I get confused by who is doing what and how they are doing it. But in all of this industry confusion, there is a way to see through the fog of announcements and claims. My suggestion is to look at data according to areas of purpose.

“There are two big transformations occurring in the media industry: the consumption of media across a plethora of digital devices and the growth of purchasing and behavioral datasets that enable advertisers to segment customers more precisely with messages.  New measurement solutions need to address both trends,” explained Jane Clarke, CEO, Managing Director of the Coalition for Innovative Media Measurement (CIMM). 

Data for Currency – The Industry POV

Data for currency includes any industry accepted metric that is used at both buyers and sellers of media. In linear TV that is currently Nielsen age and gender. With the announcement of Nielsen total ratings for cross platform measurement the question begs whether this will help to evolve the current Nielsen currency. When asked, Megan Clarken, President of Global Product Leadership for Nielsen, said that their latest Total Audience product will “influence and inform the currency. There were new rules that were established in 2007 where we now report out to 7 days with the exact same ad load. So this is a settlement number. The currency today does not show total audience across platforms but our Total Audience service does.”

So is there any way to get to a generally accepted industry currency for the new suite of advertising opportunities? Dan Aversano, SVP Ad Innovation and Programmatic Solutions at Turner, is not so sure. He concludes, “Most data is third party data that is available to everybody. From the advertiser and agency viewpoint, it is better to start with data, even if progressing with different solutions. The future is not one currency.” 

In the world of cross platform, maybe instead of currency we really mean greater automation. Chris Pizzurro, Head of Product Sales and Marketing for Canoe, spoke from the cable VOD viewpoint and said, “Years ago we used spreadsheets. And we hooked clients into our systems via integration with companies like Freewheel and Broadway Systems etc. Now 60% of our business through such systems. We have the advantage of not having a traditional system for on demand so we can write the rules. We use a little bit of TV rules and a little bit of digital rules.”

Data for Planning – The Agencies POV

Partnerships and data fueled initiatives are announced every day whether it is to forward thought leadership in cross platform, addressable advertising or programmatic.  "Data influenced TV is here," noted Adam Gaynor, VP Media Sales, Dish. “We are in the beginning stage to reach impressions in TV automatically. We can get targeting and ROI. Programmatic adds automation.”

But the essential goal of advertising has not changed. “Although consumer video viewing behaviors have fragmented, an advertiser’s fundamental marketing objectives have not changed: Finding the specific, right audiences, aggregating them at scale and driving them to the desired action,” explained George Musi, Managing Partner, Analytics, Insights and Attribution, Mindshare. “To do this we need to take the different relevant contexts, modes and types of data sources and diverse analytical tools to shorten the time to opportunities.”

How much do individual company data initiatives impact the media sales marketplace for the long term? Data for planning - that which is used for sales purposes like targeting and segmentation – is difficult to standardize because if it is based on segments, there would have to be consensus on a standard set of segments. 

Mitch Oscar, Director, Programmatic TV Strategy, USIM, concurred, “Currently, there is no unified source to assist agency buying departments to purchase addressable TV. Each platform must be contacted individually to ascertain a match between a marketer's customized universe and the platform's subscriber base. And each platform defines targeting goals differently utilizing a variety of sources. Similarly, platforms work with third party data providers to vivisect subscriber attributes to sway buyers to purchase their platform. Marketers are not able to verify the data points presented by the platforms. It is still a blind match between platforms and third party data providers and the resulting segmentation presented to buyers.”

Data for Insights – The Programmers POV

As opposed to data for planning and currency, the industry also needs data for insights. Data for insights includes that which informs program and campaign performance beyond the currency - what is my conversion, what is my ROI, what are my viewers doing beyond the first platform or device? This is no easy matter.

According to Dan Aversano, SVP Ad Innovation and Programmatic Solutions at Turner, “It has to be about the data and the analytics - all of the things that make an ad connect with someone. Ascertaining how many times and measuring the creative, the context, the recency and the platform. And screens are not agnostic. My personal phone is different from the tablet I use for work. We need to measure the interrelations and the impact of how an ad performs on different platforms, devices and conditions.”

The rush for more and more data analytics will continue as new devices and platforms are developed and the quest for a way to link all type of user hardware and technology continues. Ultimately it is the siloization of data and of data solutions that are causing the greatest miscommunication in the marketplace. How to bring it all together into one voice is the critical next step for currency. But we may all want to sing our own tunes when mining data for planning and insight purposes.

Is TV Currency Dead? Predictions From AOL Open Series

There is a lot of scuttle talk about the changing TV landscape from the advancement of TV Programmatic to the demise of dayparts, upfront and even our current currency. It made for a lively discussion at the recent AOL Open Series on Programmatic TV. The event featured a panel of media executives from across the spectrum including Dermot McCormack, President AOL Video and Studios, Jaime Power, Senior Partner at MODI Media, Dana Hayes Jr, Group Vice President of Global Partner Development for Acxiom and Dan Aversano, Senior Vice President, Client & Consumer Insights at Turner Broadcasting. The panel was moderated by Dan Ackerman, SVP, Programmatic TV at Adap.tv.

Programmatic TV is not what you think according to Ackerman.tv, who explained, ”Programmatic TV is here to stay. Sixty percent of brands will apply programmatic techniques to broadcast TV by 2016. But Programmatic TV is not RTB. It is not the way operates in digital space. It is data aggregation and accountability.”

I love panels that spark a bit of controversy and this one provided quite a few dissention points. Ackerman spoke about three areas of linear television disruption taking place today - in Content, Distribution and Monetization.  The one area that can bring a discussion to a boiling point is monetization. No one likes to have their planned and predictable bread and butter disrupted.

While Aversano believes that the time has come to transition from the current Nielsen currency, Power is not convinced. She said, “TV is traded on broad demographics. Now we are trading on consumer behaviors which is something that we could never do before in TV. But this is just a complement on traditional TV and not a replacement.” The discussion took off from there:

Power –“Nielsen is the currency. Until someone comes up with another way to measure television we stick with the current currency. The foreseeable future is Nielsen currency.”

Aversano – “I don't know if you need a standardized currency. Some say that is crazy talk but who are we to say to P&G that they use a certain measurement. We have to be okay with that.”

Power – “How do you scale without standards?”

Hayes – “We have deals today that are leveraging their CRM data, Rentrak, etc. it is a nightmare but…”

Ackerman – “Are you set up to trade in a non-currency environment?”

Power – “There is no way to trade at scale without a unified currency.”

Aversano – “People do it in digital today. We need a world class revenue management system to bring supply and demand together.”

Power – “Good luck to you guys.”

Hayes – “I have a Switzerland response. You can think about digital people based targeting for TV but there is too much money and too much risk today in TV. But smarter agencies and marketers are leveraging now for the future.”

While it is not easy today for television to shift to a digital model, this shift may occur in the future as larger and larger percentages of televisions in homes are connected. So, in my opinion, it is only a matter of time for the entire TV buy / sell model transitions to something more akin to what we see in digital… and even digital may evolve. Ackerman pointed out that even today, “every network group is developing their own audience and targeting products. They are having real business impacts and we are seeing shifts of guarantees.”

These shifts in guarantees underscore the real macro trends of supply and demand. Ackerman explained, “The reported TV ad impression growth is misleading. 40% of U.S. households have VOD subscriptions and there are many more programming choices. The impact is fragmentation. The core demo of TV is A18-49. It is the backbone of trade today but it is declining. It is not doom and gloom. It is transition. Adults 18-49 impressions are declining but ad inventory is increasing resulting in slight growth. There are more 15 second spots. So there is less content, more ads, more ad messages. There is an assault on value.”

No one has a lock on how the future will pan out. But if we look objectively at the state of TV we might see that further fragmentation and higher ad loads could spell the eventual end of business-as-usual. In a final stroke, Ackerman asked the panel for one prediction – what will be the biggest headline in the 2017-18 upfront? The answers - McCormack predicted, “Upfronts are dead.” Power said, “I disagree (that upfronts will be dead). Data will be more actionable. More driven.” Hayes believes, “Programmers that do better TV measurement will win.” And with the last word, Aversano predicted, “Day parts are dead. There will be new ways to structure inventory, driven by data and analytics.”

It will be interesting to see who is right next year at this time.

This article first appeared in www.MediaBizBloggers.com