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

Addressable Campaigns: From Data Quality to Optimization

We are hearing more conversations on Addressable that focus on data optimization and quality. The media industry has historically relied on third party data but as more companies can amass first party data from their own customer pools, we are seeing a shift in how all types of data are being integrated and analyzed.  

Kemal Bokhari, General Manager Data and Analytics, DISH Media Sales, and Allison Metcalfe, General Manager, LiveRamp TV, take a look at this complex data issue from a right brain (holistic thinking and imaginative approach, or in this case, data quality) and a left brain (analytical or methodical approach) perspective. How can data optimization provide a continuous and confident feedback loop for advertisers to utilize in strengthening their creative campaigns? 

Charlene Weisler: How are companies finding the right data to use and making sure it's used correctly and to the greatest benefit? 

Kemal Bokhari: Dish is data agnostic so we don’t necessarily recommend that a client use a specific dataset. We find that many advertisers and agencies who come to us for addressable campaigns come with a target audience in mind and / or their own dataset. I believe that there is really no such thing as “the right dataset”. It all depends upon the specific goals of the campaign. We help our clients strategize and accomplish those goals.

Weisler: Given all of the discussions about data and privacy today, how do you protect user privacy while using data to give them a better experience?

Allison Metcalfe: To insure privacy, you use privacy-conscious deterministic onboarding like LiveRamp and only the highest quality data providers. LiveRamp had the first Chief Privacy Officer ever and we take this very seriously, requiring all partners to go through an audit, and annual audits thereafter to ensure that consumer privacy is being handled correctly. 

Weisler: What is the difference between first party data vs third party data?

Bokhari: First party data is data that you own yourself; Where you have a direct relationship with that subscriber or customer. CRM data is considered to be first party data. Third party data is the aggregator of first party datasets. They get a list of subscribers to target and then sell that to interested advertisers. 

Weisler: If you had to explain the use of first party, third party and data privacy to your grandparents how would you explain it?

Metcalfe: I would tell her that first party data is like Bloomingdales mailing you catalogues. You've given Bloomingdales your info and they have it to market to you. Third party data is like Visa packaging up buying behavior into segments like "department store spenders". Data privacy is about making sure that both Bloomingdales and Visa are responsible with your data and don't let it get to bad actors. (And I want to add that my grandma is an avid shopper so she will understand this explanation!)

Weisler: How can these two types of datasets enhance each other?

Bokhari: We have advertisers who come to us with their own CRM data that they may want to match to demographic data and other targets. An example would be with a credit card company who would want to contact existing cardholders for a new type of card and who live in a specific geographic zip code or DMA and earn about a certain income level. That is where we could help them enhance their first party data with our third party data to help them reach and hyper target these consumers. 

Weisler: How can data best be used for continuous ad campaign optimization? We all know that advertisers are using data to target, but how are they using previous campaign measurement to influence the way they target, the type of data they use, etc. 

Bokhari: Everyone can use their CRM data to create a targeting file. They use third party data to enhance their audience. And they learn from previous experiences what has worked and what has not worked. What has worked can be used in the next iteration of studies and campaigns to get a bigger ROI. 

Metcalfe: Many of LiveRamp's brands are conducting closed-loop measurement and are able to quite easily see how data has performed for their campaigns. Our most advanced advertisers are using multi-touch attribution modeling and/or data lakes so they can really analyze the impact of data on the customer journey.

Weisler: What is the biggest pain point for addressable advertisers when using different data sets, and how do you suggest avoiding it?

Metcalfe: I would say that the biggest pain point is probably scaling up a precise target to make sense for a TV ad campaign. They can conquer that problem by using trusted partners to onboard and model their audiences.

Weisler: Where do you see the use of data in addressable going in the next three years?

Bokhari: The only way is up. Advertisers will continue to use audiences in targeting. We expect this to expand and to be able to seamlessly target across platforms –across TV and digital. We know from our experiences that when someone runs an addressable campaign, they come back and do another. There is no waste and it is highly targeted.

Metcalfe: I see both growth and adoption as there are more and more addressable households and more inventory on a national scale to buy.

Weisler: What do you see as the biggest reason for advertisers to start using data to target audiences through addressable?

Metcalfe: It is because addressable offers advertisers the best of precise ad targeting within a powerful brand advertising medium.

For more info on DISH Media Sales’ Addressable Solution and additional Addressable Insights such as Wins and Reports, please head to the DISH Media Sales website. 

This article first appeared in www.MediaVillage.com

LEAP Ramps Up to Enable Instant Buys via LiveRamp

In a move designed to make advertisers and brands more enthusiastic about audience buying, LEAP Media Investments has created a partnership with people-based audience clearing house LiveRamp.  LEAP's patented process helps marketers identify and activate audiences who are deeply and emotionally connected with specific brands. The partnership, which includes LiveRamp modeling and scaling partner Tru-Signal, means marketers can easily and quickly buy and reach audiences at scale who are hyper-engaged with a brand.

"Now marketers and agencies just have to go to one platform to find and select audiences made up of their most engaged and emotionally attached consumers from over 100 different platforms -- digital online to social to TV," explained LEAP Founder and CEO Gary Reisman.  "This is no small feat!"
He shared more with me in a recent conversation.

Charlene Weisler:  Why is the addition of LEAP so important to marketers and advertisers?

Gary Reisman:  LiveRamp is a platform that provides easy onboarding and distribution of audiences for a variety of companies in the market.  It's essentially a clearing house for audiences.  Companies provide their audiences to LiveRamp which then provides the technological platform to transfer those audiences to many distribution partners which marketers and/or agencies can use to target those audiences.  The addition of LEAP makes our audiences easily available on any of these platforms in real-time.

Weisler:  How does it work?

Reisman:  First we measure consumers' emotional attachment for 400 brands.  We've identified the most enthusiastic fans through what we call "potential conquests" to the less loyal "expansions."  In our partnership, we delivered our two most desirable seed audiences to LiveRamp which then worked with its partner Tru-Signal to model and scale.  The result was that Tru-Signal developed a customized, high-fidelity scaling of each "enthusiasts" and "conquests" audience -- both very large groups that consist of between 6 million to 20-plus million targetable impressions depending on the brand and audience ("enthusiasts" vs. "conquests").

LiveRamp then integrated these scaled audiences in their buying platform.  Marketers and agencies can now tap into the platform through a website, look for our audiences and, with a quick click, send them to their preferred distribution partner (DMP/DSP, etc.).  So let's say GroupM has an upcoming campaign for Jaguar and wants to target Jaguar LEAP "enthusiasts" audiences: They can get the scaled audiences immediately and transfer that audience to their trading desk to use in their media purchasing decisions.  LiveRamp's distribution platform connects to rich media supply partners where the marketer can target the LEAP Jaguar "enthusiasts" within that supply with their advertising.

Weisler:  So, the LiveRamp platform adds faster, easier access to LEAP audiences?

Reisman:  Yes, exactly.  Basically, through the click of a mouse.  Want to target Pepsi "enthusiasts" on AOL?  Go for it!  Want to target those audiences on Adobe, The Trade Desk, Videology, etc.?  Now it's much easier to do -- like buying media.  Any publisher or ad tech platform that wants to sell LEAP audiences on their platform can easily download our audiences into their platform.  Think of these distributor platforms in the same way that a cable network would use the cable operators to distribute their networks.  LEAP's audiences can now be widely and easily distributed and used for targeting.  Our highly emotionally attached audiences are available for over 400 brands across 25 categories, including Auto, Tech, Telecom, Gaming, Travel, QSR, Casual Dining, Beverages, Snacks, Banking, Finance, Credit Cards, Retail, Home Improvement, Cosmetics and OTC Healthcare.
I believe success comes to those who understand just who their most engaged, emotionally connected audiences are.  Think of it … how do you really evaluate media before you buy it?  You want to buy media that you believe contains more people more likely to engage with and act on your ad messaging.  LEAP audiences provide a direct line to serve ads directly to the highest potential consumers.  The LiveRamp partnership adds the ability to target those prospects across any platform.

This is why we're so excited: Together we're really helping marketers and advertisers better align their strategic planning efforts in their DMPs and better identify and buy their most enthusiastic consumers at scale.

This article first appeared in www.MediaVillage.com