TV Ad Targeting: Lessons From the Digital World

Advancements made in TV ad targeting are proving to be a boon despite linear viewership erosion. A recent Advanced Advertising Summit highlighted how advanced advertising, precision audience targeting, and cross media measurement are adding to television’s assets and fueling its growth.

Advanced Advertising for TV Full Speed Ahead

According to Summit speaker Irwin Gotlieb, senior advisor to WPP, there are no technical obstacles standing in the way of TV ad targeting. The obstacles lie in business operations that continue to silo television and digital as well as in the measurement that has not kept up with the changing ecosystem. “A significant portion in the decline of TV viewing is poor measurement,” Gotlieb stated, as flawed measurement causes undercounting and less inventory.

But TV has an advantage. Its unparalleled reach, combined with newly available granular data, better targets the consumer through the purchase cycle and moves TV down the purchase funnel.

Learning From Digital’s Mistakes

As with any targeting technology, privacy looms large. In a recent article for AdExchanger, Alison Weissbrot wrote, “As digital marketers enter the TV buying world with sophisticated targeting capabilities, identifying the right balance for personalization in the living room is crucial.” At what point does a message become intrusive? While digital ads target individuals, the advantage for television is that ads target households. Relevant ads for the household protect privacy more so than those targeted to a specific individual.

Ad fatigue, ad irrelevancy, and brand safety are other problems faced by digital. TV ad targeting can avoid these issues with frequency capping and a fair ad rotation to avoid fatigue. Additionally, curated ad campaigns, bolstered by data analytics now available in advanced advertising platforms, ensure ad relevancy and brand safety. Jason DeMarco, vice president of Programmatic and Audience Solutions at A+E Networks, told MediaVillage, “We have identified the ability to increase the frequency of advertisers to have a more well-balanced delivery of ads and creative.” This helps the consumer on the user experience side and avoids saturation on the advertiser side.

Learning From Digital’s Successes

TV is also learning from digital by reaching out to smaller advertisers who might have previously been priced out of that marketplace. A recent example, reported MediaVillage, is A+E Network’s Precision1. According to Peter Olsen, executive vice president of Ad Sales and Content Partnerships, it “gives access to people who aren’t traditionally big spenders in TV.”

Some companies are also advancing the connection between digital and TV through initiatives such as CFlight. According to conference speaker Mike Mayer, executive vice president of Sales Solutions at NBCUniversal, CFlight “combines linear with digital impressions and sells deals with total impressions.” Consortiums like Vizio’s Project OAR, which stands for Open Addressable Ready, is another industry initiative.

Currently, addressable advertising for TV is two minutes local time per hour. But nothing will be ready on a national level until the measurement systems can handle it without any manual effort by the back office. However, the lessons drawn from digital will enable TV to more successfully and quickly move into this new advertising paradigm.

This article first appeared in Videa blog.

Just in Time for the Upfront, A+E Guarantees Audience Based Advertising

The folks at A+E Networks understand the value of a careful process. Now, as they announce the launch of their Audience Based Advertising Solutions for both Digital and Linear platforms, all of the critical elements that have taken years to achieve, are now in place. “Seven years ago we started the digital iteration of precision,” noted Peter Olsen, Executive Vice President, Ad Sales and Content Partnerships, “three years ago we added the linear focus. And last year we launched the attribution-based performance system.”

Although the digital and linear marketplaces are very different, the complex integration of data, the streamlining of processes and the ability to customize and then guarantee results places this initiative in a new, higher class of offerings and just in time for the upfront.

Addressing Marketplace Frustrations

Why do all of this? Olsen explained that there are two big frustrations for advertisers. One is the price of entry into the digital and, even more, in linear marketplaces where it is perceived as cost prohibitive. “That is why we launched a new product called Precision One or P1 which is a single network optimization tool intended for clients that want to test in this space or people who aren’t currently big spenders in TV,” he stated.   In this way, smaller clients could participate in television where now, as in digital, they could get rich data and advanced targeting opportunities “as a way to welcome new people in.”

The other frustration, Olsen posited, is the general inability to do cross-platform or multi-platform strategic target optimization. “There is the lack of common currency as well as other measurement issues out there, but we are willing to take a leap and say ‘you give us your target and we will buy the audience wherever it may be.’ Essentially, we need to be able to optimize any target audience wherever they are watching.” 

“These are the new initiatives,” stated Jason DeMarco, Vice President, Programmatic and Audience Solutions, “but the underlying foundation remains, which is to find a solution that is beneficial to all parties involved. We are focused on optimizing the user experience with relevant targeted ads and keeping intact the premium experience of our content.”

Premium Programmatic

How does the team at A+E overcome the nagging but incorrect perception of programmatic as remnant inventory? “I have been fighting that fight for a good seven years,” admitted Olsen. “Programmatic started as a race to the bottom because basically it was a way to sell off distressed inventory.” But the reality is, he added, “No inventory, whether on TV or in digital should be considered distressed when you are applying data sources to it. Each and every impression will be relevant and valuable to someone.”

When it comes to the premium viewing experience, the relevant ads within that experience will have greater resonance as well as brand safety. In addition, there is a wider rotation of ads so viewers will not see the same ads over and over again. “We have identified the ability to increase the frequency of advertisers to have a more well-balanced delivery of ads and creative which helps the consumer on the user experience side,” Olsen noted. On the advertiser side, this method avoids saturation so that, “the premium is maintaining that TV-like environment across all platforms and screens.”

Technology Partnerships

A+E Networks has also partnered with several technology firms to replicate the TV experience on digital platforms. Ethan Heftman, Senior Vice President, Precision and Performance Advertising Sales, explained that, “The SVOD services are taking viewership and therefore impressions away from the ad-supported video market. Where do we turn? Do we go to unsafe, hard to measure spaces that get gets brands really nervous but help on the efficiency? Or do we find ways to explore places in the premium market?” To that end, A+E Networks is placing more of their premium content on Hulu, Roku and Pluto. In this way they can keep the ecosystem “healthy and also retain clients who understand that video works while also making it affordable.”

The ability to blend of all of the different datasets from both the household and individual level is another selling point to this initiative. “This is where we find the best in class partnerships,” noted DeMarco, like LiveRamp, DataPlusMath and iSpot for data, ad serving and tech stack partnerships such as FreeWheel as well as trade desks on the buy side like dataxu. There are a lot of test cases using ingested client data, matching it with viewership data and delivering against targeted audiences with results expected in the next several months. For the upfront, there is the promise that all of these datasets will enable cross-platform measurement and deliverability for advertisers.

“A+E offers the premium content and distribution to deliver audiences. We are partnering with the best in class technology and data to bring together all aspects of cross-platform viewership synchronized, collaborative way,” concluded Olsen, who backs up his beliefs by guaranteeing the buy results.

Next Steps

While the full holistic integration of digital and linear is possible, it is not simple. Heftman summed it up, “We think that the only way to compete and not overpromise and under-deliver, is to have a product that, from a cost perspective, reduces the barriers to entry for new advertisers and move from digital and into a linear television world with reduced complexity.”

The response from advertisers has been encouraging. “We were the first in market with outcome guarantees which created initial demand,” Heftman added. Now bring on the upfront! 

This article first appeared in www.MediaVillage.com

A+E Reveals Their Multi-Platform Data Initiative

Over the past several years A+E Networks has expanded its data solution capabilities and now, with A+E Precision, their recently debuted audience data platform solution, they deliver, according to Peter Olsen, EVP of A+E Network Ad Sales, “an insightful, actionable and measureable opportunity to advertisers and agencies.”

A Multi-Platform …Platform

A+E Precision’s origins can be traced back to 2012 when the network launched its programmatic video offering. “We established our programmatic strategy in the mobile app space and were able to create new revenue streams on our way to being leaders in the marketplace, “explained Jason DeMarco, VP Programmatic and Audience Solutions. From there they embarked on a larger initiative to include all data that can be used to buy and target ad campaigns through both direct and programmatic sales. This now includes a DMP (data management platform), first party data, licensed (third party) data and on-boarded client data. “It has been a joint effort across sales and marketing, “Jason added. The result is A+E Precision’s Digital Audience Data Platform.

As advanced analytics and big data practices started to make their way into the television space A+E was ready to respond with their Linear Ad Optimizer, the TV specific arm of A+E Precision. The Linear Ad Optimizer platform ingests data from disparate sources (first, third or client proprietary) to “deliver an on-air media schedule optimized against a client’s strategic target, proving to be a valuable planning and execution tool for advertisers”, according to Santosh Mathai, VP, Data Analytic Strategic Sales Solutions. “First we tackled the digital side,” he explained, “From there we applied our knowledge to the linear side.” 

There is also Synch, Reach & Address, A+E Precision’s advanced data testing area. “With a ‘flexible/open’ approach, Sync, Reach and Address affords our partners the ability to extend their reach and frequency (at the household level) across screens by collaborating with strategic partner such as SAMBA TV, Cablevision and others,” stated Santosh.

 

Santosh and Jason treat data as a critical asset that they are utilizing to create value for A+E and their partners. “Collaboration prepares us for the future. As we look down the road, the walled garden approach will be difficult to maintain. It is critical for us to work collaboratively in this evolving landscape if we are going to create real value and deliver against strategic and business goals.  We are in favor of an open and connected exchange as it allows our partners to see the, up until now, hidden value of our audiences. A consultative approach with transparency, collaboration, sharing and applying insights is the smarter route that we believe will deliver the best results,” replied Santosh, “There are lots of moving parts and platform specific labels, but at the end of the day A+E Precision is our multi-platform audience targeting solution.”

Data Sets and Metrics

The Audience Data Platform (digital) focuses on first party data – emails, ids, cookies, etc., and, according to DeMarco, “the CRM team is continuously working to incorporate quality, first party data as well as developing solutions for data synching and modeling look-a-likes to increase scale.” The Linear Ad Optimizer (TV), Santosh said, “is data agnostic. We have the ability to work with any data that is available out there”.

These two Ad Sales department executives collaborate closely with A+E’s Research department.  In fact, it is important to the company to leverage all of the datasets that A+E has access to – beyond even that found in the Research department.  “We work internally across the entire organization to see what datasets are available to us. Data is a strategic asset that is being deployed throughout the company to deliver the best products and solutions. It’s not just limited to ad sales,” said Jason.  

As far as measurement is concerned, digital is still planned and reported on impressions. With TV, it is based on discussions with clients as to which metrics makes the most sense. According to Santosh “Every advertiser has a different definition of success and we are open to working with them to identify the best measurement method that works for all parties.”

Next Steps

Peter feels the time is right to launch the A+E Precision platform and that Santosh and Jason are the right people to lead the charge, “Data is the key to unlocking value that the current media ecosystem suppresses. I, as well as the whole organization, am confident that Jason and Santosh have the knowledge and experience to take A+E Precision out to market and provide the best in class products and solutions for our partners.”

The A+E Precision team continues to work closely with clients to help move their business forward.  Santosh added “With more data becoming available every day we believe it is critical to cultivate that data into actionable intelligence and deliver against key objectives for our clients. 

 This article first appeared in www.MediaBizBloggers.com