Upfront Relevancy and the Importance (Or Not) of Data. The IRTS Newsmakers Panel.

The IRTS is an industry organization of top media executives and also serves as a charity to build future leaders and industry diversity through an educational program initiative. The recent Newsmaker Breakfast not only recognized the thirty students comprising this year’s IRTS fellows program, it also offered a provocative panel of noted agency leaders moderated by Jack Myers, Chairman and Founder of Myersbiznet.

The panel included Lori Hiltz, CEO Global Brands, Havas Media Group, Dave Penski, Chief Investment Officer, Publicis Media, Dani Benowitz, EVP Director of Investment, Magna Global, Rino Scanzoni , Chief Investment Officer, GroupM and Donnie Williams, Chief Digital Officer, Horizon Media. Myers led a lively discussion of the state of the industry from the upfront and newfront to data, automation and disintermediation. 

Upfront 2016

“The upfront has taken some interesting turns this year,” Myers began, “What do you see happening?” Hiltz responded, “The Upfront is the social currency of our industry. It doesn't matter what platform or channel – we are platform agnostic when it comes to investment. But the Upfront becomes the jump start.” Scanzoni countered, “The Upfront marketplace is irrelevant to what the overall market really is. Last year we saw market declines and this year we expect to see low to single digit growth. There is change and disruption but the fundamentals of our business are not changing.” “There is more of a shift from national TV into digital. We have been looking at digital holistically for a while as a way to reach consumers,” Benowitz noted.

The Importance of Data and Closed Loop Initiatives

 Is data a game changer? “We are all talking about data,” Scanzoni said, “But there is nothing new about data. Yes it is more sophisticated and there is more first and third party data. But we’ve used data in TV for many years. We are doing it better – it is more objective and reliable - but there is no nirvana here using data.” But data is being collected and leveraged in new ways. “The closed loop is new,” said Myers. “There are closed loop initiatives from companies like NBCU, Viacom and Turner. Do they have scale and are they sustainable?” Scanzoni responded, “If I were a seller I would do exactly that but as a buyer I do not see the value in closed loops. You have to have a consistent data set to apply to a full TV portfolio. The correlations are different between Kantar and Nielsen, for example. They point you in different directions. You need a consistent dataset and have to find a way to optimize across vendors. Sellers have to work as a group but that is impossible because they have their own self interests. Agencies need to choose data and do their own correlations.”

Automation versus Human Relationships

Programmatic continues to loom large over the industry. Williams noted, “Programmatic has the ability to help decision-making over multiple media touch points, which is great. Investments become more efficient and it is a true value proposition.” But what about the balance between sales automation and the human relationships that are the cornerstone of our business? Penski responded that, “Relationships are important if not more important in the industry now. We have added people to our staff because to buy programmatically now requires even more people. Keeping talent is a big challenge for us. We are still a very human based industry.” Benowitz added, “It is not a matter of traditional versus programmatic. There is room for both. We look at content, engagement and watercooler talk. But the ability to buy auto intenders is certainly where we should be headed. It won't go all one way or the other. It still takes two people talking to hear the passion in their voice. If we lose that we are in a different place.”

Looking Ahead

Between the impact of data and programmatic on creative and consumers, the industry continues to evolve and innovate. Some final words of wisdom were offered by the panel. Benowitz advised, “Don't be afraid. There is a lot going on but there is room to do business.”  Penski added, “There is still a need for humans in our ecosystem. We must continue to work together and find ways to bring competitors together to work together. It is not just about data.”

This article first appeared on www.MediaBizBloggers.com

Cadent Network's Great Upfront "Debate"

I believe there is always room for an energetic discussion in the media business, even when it is billed as a “debate” and both sides essentially agree on the matter at hand. There was just such a “debate” presented this week by Cadent as part of its Upfront event. It consisted of two panels designed to answer the question: What can we expect from this Upfront and future Upfronts when data moves to center stage and content needs to further adapt to multiple platforms?

"We are exploring the pros and cons of audience versus content today,” said Jim Tricarico, CRO of Cadent. “There have been many changes in the media ecosystem in the past two years and today is a coming out party for Cadent. We have rebranded for a new heritage and a new vision, repositioned and totally reinvented the service backend with technology, data, analytics and automation."

This is certainly a media market in flux. But many look at it as an opportunity. “The marketplace has never been more exciting and challenging,” Tricarico explained. “The market is changing fast with programmatic, addressable and advanced TV. While the TV landscape changes and evolves, prices continue to go up and ratings are down. There is fragmentation in viewership and shrinkage in ratings.”

With lower ratings and reduced ad loads, networks can be selective on what types of business they decide to take. Right now it looks like they may make room for higher priced scatter. Cadent’s promise is that they deliver across a full national footprint comprised of more than 200 partners, 210 DMAs and 80 million homes. The company is focusing time and resources on technology development, automation and data analytics and has just built an inventory management system for more effective media planning.
Nick Troiano, Cadent’s new CEO, revealed the company’s future plans. “I came to Cadent through their acquisition of BlackArrow, which we then rebranded for Cadent,” he said. “We are able to do dynamic ad insertions through VOD, OTT and DVR and even deliver targeted ads in live TV. TV is changing. The living room is changing. We are uniquely qualified to transition advertising into this new TV world.”

Agency Perspective
In moderating the debate between content and audience, Jack Myers, Media Ecologist and Chairman of MyersBizNet, asked the first panel of agency executives where they thought the market was going. Erica Schmidt, Executive Vice President and Managing Director North America, Cadreon, responded with a data-centric perspective. “From the data viewpoint, we are in an interesting time in the industry and are thinking differently about TV buying,” she said. “There are the issues of pricing and harder to find audiences. This gives us an opportunity to think differently and we are basing our decisions on audience and data. There are huge pressures on CPMs but we continue to push the envelope.”

“So are we moving away from the golden age of programming?” Myers asked. Rino Scanzoni, Chief Investment Officer, GroupM, responded in the affirmative. “We have used content as a surrogate to identify audiences for years,” he explained. “The TV business is going away from looking at content to find audiences to using data to do so. We are moving to an audience-based transactional system.”

Catherine Warburton, Chief Investment Officer, Assembly added, “We have always been buying content and audience, so the idea of content versus audience is not new. You have to balance super premium content for a client. We are looking beyond TV for audiences. We look across all screens. There are places other than actual TV to get these audiences.”

Client Perspective
Turning to clients in the second panel, Myers asked Tim Sullivan, former Vice President, Media at The Wendy's Company and Andy Jung, Director of Marketing and Communications at The Scotts Miracle-Gro Company whether they, like the agencies, had business silos. “You are dealing with silos even on the client side,” Sullivan responded. “We are currently in an evolution as to how to move money to different forms of advertising. TV is trying to learn about new solutions and we clients need to be willing to change.”
“Silos are a huge reality of the business,” Jung added. “I need to sell a certain amount of grass seeds within this year and we rely heavily on big box stores. But we also see changes with new home ownership and the new entry points. We are looking at technology. Weather is a big data factor for us and we need to reach audiences in an abbreviated time period.”

“Is the business becoming more adversarial with the use of data intelligence?” Myers asked.  “Definitely,” Sullivan replied. “Everyone is leveraging different types of data. It will be interesting to see if we can work together or if there will be turf battles. We want solutions so that everyone understands that we are trying to build our business in the most effective way with the highest results.”

Conclusion
The debate of content versus audiences may not be settled during this Upfront but if we as an industry can all work together to find the right balance of creative and quantification, we will be able to move the entire media ecosystem a big step forward.  As Myers summed it up, “It is a changing game and we need to remain flexible.”