A Look at Global Converged TV Trends with TV Squared’s Jamie Lemle

 “The future is all about tying everything back to an audience,” noted Jamie Lemle, CMO of TVSquared. Her company has just released a first look at the global marketplace according to buy-side marketers in the U.S., UK, Germany and Australia, which also examined incremental reach in ad campaigns. In this interview she explains the methodology and the revealing results.

Charlene Weisler: Give me an overview of the methodology.

Jamie Lemle: In late August through September, TVSquared partnered with Advertiser Perceptions to survey 300 U.S. buy-side marketers. In September, TVSquared commissioned Dynata to survey more than 200 buy-side marketers per country in the UK, Germany and Australia. For the incremental reach analysis within the report, TVSquared analyzed 20 converged TV ad campaigns running in the ADvantage platform throughout 2021 (ad impressions across linear and streaming). The analysis included campaigns from a variety of advertisers across verticals, including retail, insurance, QSR, finance and education. This is the first year TVSquared conducted this study. We believe it’s the first of its kind, looking at global converged TV trends, ever done in the industry. 

Weisler: What are the takeaways?

Lemle: Globally, TV has transformed into a cross-platform, cross-channel ecosystem, with 75%+ of all respondents agreeing that TV is now defined as linear and steaming platforms. As a result, there is also a growing spotlight on the need to move away from legacy models and toward new currencies and processes. Again, globally, 70%+ believe that all forms of TV should be sold on impressions – a uniform, consistent way to count and ascribe value.

To support converged TV initiatives, the need for holistic, cross-platform measurement has never been greater, as advertisers look to reach audiences across a growing number of platforms. In the U.S., 89% of respondents said “holistically managing linear and streaming campaigns” was a top factor for investing in converged TV. Additionally, 86% cited the need to achieve cross-platform TV measurement and attribution as one of their current top priorities. 

Weisler: Were there any surprises?

Lemle: Buyers are breaking through silos that have long existed between digital and traditional TV advertising by approaching linear and streaming in a much more similar way than previously believed. In the U.S., we found that 40%+ of respondents are measuring linear and streaming for performance/outcomes weekly. And 10-15% are even doing it daily.

For linear, this is a change – having been long known for significant lag times and a lack of flexibility when it comes to insights. In fact, each week, 33% of marketers are optimizing linear campaigns for performance and optimizing linear creatives as well. These stats closely matched those for streaming at 35% and 31%, respectively.

This portion of the survey really shows two things. First, that marketers are proactively tying linear to performance metrics and making optimizations on that back of that. Second, that marketers want to bring linear and streaming more closely together and are now leveraging the available data to treat them in more similar ways. It is no longer just about “thinking about TV differently.” Rather, marketers are now acting on TV and altering their practices based on a converged marketplace.

Weisler: What is the most important metric?

Lemle: The most important metric(s) will be unique to each advertiser and their campaign goals. We did notice that “incremental reach” was consistently a top KPI for survey respondents across the globe. In the U.S., 43% of respondents said they were currently measuring it. We believe that stat will increase significantly in 2022 as streaming continues to play a bigger role for advertisers looking to reach fragmented audiences. As part of our report, we also analyzed 20 converged TV campaigns running through our ADvantage platform to illustrate the importance of understanding incremental reach. We discovered that, on average, 70% of audiences reached via streaming could not be reached with linear only. We also found that brands should be committing at least 10% of TV ad impressions to OTT/CTV to generate at least a 15% gain in reach. 

Weisler : Is it really possible to achieve a holistic measurement process?

Lemle: Yes; it’s possible and it’s happening. We see it every day with our clients as they embrace new technology and leverage the right datasets to achieve a consistent way of counting and ascribing value across all forms of TV. The data and technology are here. Now it’s about the industry embracing new metrics and platforms that make TV easier to buy, sell and measure. 

Weisler: Did the pandemic impact the results and if so how?

Lemle: The pandemic certainly accelerated a lot of the trends and momentum we’re seeing around converged TV. While we were heading in this direction prior to 2020, COVID-19 and the challenges it brought along with it for advertisers, sent this evolution into warp speed. With that, as the world moves back to normal (ish), we don’t see anything slowing down. The pandemic may have gotten us moving quickly, but we’re keeping that pace into 2022 and beyond.

This article first appeared in www.Mediapost.com

 

 

The Many Facets of OTT and Its Expansion – A BIA Webinar Explores the Landscape

OTT has been a hot topic, made even more so by the fragmentation of television and the advancement of streaming options. To better understand the current OTT market and its expansion, Mitch Oscar, Director of Advanced TV Strategy at USIM and Rick Ducey, Managing Director, BIA Advisory Services, presented a panel of experts last week that included Kemal Bokhari, GM, Data and Analytics at Dish, Jessica Daigle, VP Sales Intelligence at Tegna, Nelson Ferreira, Senior Director, Regional Sales at Gamut, Justin Fromm, Head of Research at LG Ads, Phil Herring, VP Digital Strategy at USIM, Jo Kinsella, President at TVSquared and Adam Noble, Director of Product Marketing at Advanced Video.

The Challenges and Opportunities in OTT

OTT is not without its challenges. For Ducey, the biggest challenges to OTT today are, “Fragmented inventory, cross-platform measurement of linear TV + OTT, frequency capping and applying linear TV business rules using pods, pod positions, brand separation, brand safety, etc.”

But according to Noble, “OTT is not as hard as we think it is and as many perceive,” and while, ”there is a lot of disruption in the industry, any new method of reaching viewers is going to create new opportunities for advertisers in the industry.” Owners can now go direct to consumers, there is a splintering of buying opportunities and channels and the replacement of certain hardware such as set top boxes facilitates the convergence of linear with digital. There are also many new competitive entrants into the space like Pluto TV, “which gives consumers the option to view for free.” All of this impacts the business model.

“Confusion is driven in large part by fragmentation,” he noted. This confusion drives the need to sort through ownership of data, the coordination between services for a seamless advertiser buy and the lack of measurement standardization. “Who has the right to sell what inventory,” he queried, and how can it best be measured?

Yet, a myriad of opportunities abound in OTT. Ducey listed, “Converging the power of digital targeting, workflow, optimization, attribution with the power of premium OTT video combined with linear TV at scale.”

The Importance of Incremental Reach

For Daigle, “Fundamentally, OTT was formed to fulfill a promise of bringing together what I like to think of as digital superpowers of measurement, targeting with the magic of sight, sound and motion. That is why attribution, measure-ability, reach extension, etc. are so critical.” She added that the stakes are higher as clients are demanding more.

Ferreira agreed that, “Brands are demanding more of us, especially in local where it is harder to measure and define those attributes. That challenge is even more challenging.” To that end he is working with clients on solving for reach extension through frequency capping and recency capping.

Television’s overall value is unsurpassed in the marketplace. Fromm explained that, “TV remains one of the most if not the most important medium for many advertisers,” in both national and local. “It also enables tremendous reach in a short period of time. But linear viewing has changed drastically over the last decade or so.” This reduction in viewing underscores the need for reach extension in the OEM universe. “Reach extension is certainly something we are thinking about and the OEMs are well positioned to do.”

According to TVSquared’s recent survey on CTV engagement, Kinsella noted that, “the main reason for advertising on streaming was incremental reach. The people that we surveyed 70% cited the ability to extend reach and engage with audiences beyond linear was why,” they advertised on CTV. She added that, “17% said that understanding deduplicated and incremental reach across streaming platforms is their biggest barrier from fully leaning into streaming.” She advised that we have to be cognizant of the walled gardens and OEMs. “Most of the time they can only measure their data, their piece and more and more, marketers need to be able to measure everything.”

Bokhari noted that reach extension is, “an important part of the advertiser’s strategy to continue to maximize their reach for their ad. What we have done at Dish is to utilize our addressable technology, our viewership data to be able to let the advertiser know what their reach was on the Dish platform for that linear ad and then be able to target one-to-one to those household that were either missed, not exposed to that ad or who were underexposed and create a plan to maximize their reach.”

From the agency perspective, Herring explained that, “We are being held more and more accountable for the media we purchase on behalf of our clients. So while it is hard to make a one-size-fits-all statement when it comes to reach extension, it depends on the campaign, I would say the majority of campaigns, reach extension is important especially in the CTV space.”

The Future of OTT

The Future of OTT is bright. Ducey concluded that three years from now, “In local OTT, BIA is forecasting nearly 2x the ad spend we’ll see in 2021. I suspect we’ll adjust that to be both sooner and higher as time goes on. The industry is working toward an environment where impressions-based trading, measurement, and attribution will have increasingly less friction in cross-platform (linear TV + OTT) activations. I see linear for reach and OTT for targeting and extension to reach non-linear audiences. Linear and OTT will make a formidable 1-2 marketing punch in local video.”

This article first appeared in Mediapost.com

 

Don’t Stop Advertising During a Pandemic. An Interview with Hanna Gryncwajg of TVSquared

Recent events from the pandemic to the protests have not only changed the ways we live with each other but also the processes by which we interact. Looking specifically at our industry and the way we transact business, it is clear that the old processes need to be updated to reflect the new realities. 

For those is the media sales sector, what was once hands-on and meeting-in-person has, by necessity, changed. TVSquared’s Vice President of Enterprise Accounts, Hanna Gryncwajg is a media expert with experience that spans linear and advanced TV, OTT, digital, and programmatic sales. For her, the pandemic, “has put an even stronger spotlight on the importance of speed and agility for advertisers. Those that react quickly – in smart, strategic ways – survive and thrive.”

Here are her thoughts about where we are and where we are going:

Charlene Weisler: How has your job changed pre and during the pandemic?

Hanna Gryncwajg: At TVSquared, my job is primarily working with MVPDs and media owners, providing them with attribution and measurement tools for their advertisers. While the sell-side was certainly in the midst of change, moving toward more transparency, accountability and outcomes, the pandemic has accelerated it. They are even more hyper-focused on providing their advertisers with proof of performance and the data-backed insights needed to reach audiences whose viewing habits and patterns are changing constantly. Brands want to be able to dynamically manage and optimize linear and OTT campaigns (like they do with digital), and MVPDs and media owners are adapting to that demand quickly.  

  

Weisler: What are the greatest challenges for sales today?

Gryncwajg: For sales across all parts of the advertising ecosystem, two challenges stand out. The first is staying on top of the rapidly evolving industry, which is no easy feat. Our space is changing by the day, with automation, data and technology moving us forward. It’s so critical for sales to be able to articulate these changes and trends clearly and in context of clients’ needs and challenges.

Second, the shift away from “traditional” metrics to ones that are more business-specific, has created a disconnect in the market. Don’t get me wrong, outcomes- and performance-based metrics, and being able to measure TV’s direct impact on them, are very good things. But in the case of agencies and sell-side sales, they are still being “graded” on delivering GRPs. That is a disconnect that is tough to balance, but we’re seeing the divide lessen.

Weisler: What are the greatest opportunities?

Gryncwajg: There are so many opportunities, but most have one thing in common: they benefit the advertiser. At the end of the day, we’re all serving the advertiser – whether you’re a DSP, agency, an enterprise seller, you name it. The end user has the money and they want to leverage TV to move products. They are not interested in GRPs. They want flexibility and transparency into what’s working and what’s not, and the data-backed insights to inform continuous optimizations.

In the case of streaming services, at the very moment (that’s how quickly we are evolving) it’s all about incremental reach, proving out how OTT extends reach over linear campaigns. OTT providers are seeing an influx of ad spend.  Some of it is clearly due to increased viewing during the pandemic, but much of it is about the content, not where or on what device it is being viewed.   OTT providers want to make sure they are finally given the credit of viewers they deserve, and to keep those additional dollars flowing. The time is now to prove what incremental reach can do for a brand – to measure it and also to attribute response to it. TVSquared plays a critical role here because we measure TV everywhere, across linear, data-driven linear and digital. We provide this critical piece of information to our partners as well as brands directly.

Weisler: What are you able to tell advertisers and clients regarding their flights during the pandemic?

Gryncwajg: TVSquared is a single, unified platform that measures outcomes, impressions, reach, frequency and reach extension across linear and digital TV anywhere in the world. We currently have clients in 76 countries and counting. We’re not in the business of attribution studies, which provide findings six weeks or more after a campaign. We are always-on, so you get real-time insights on the business impact of your campaigns. During the pandemic or not, we’re able to tell our clients optimal campaign delivery, reach and frequency. They get granular performance analytics by creative, day, daypart, channel, program and genres – with insights down to the DMA an ZIP code levels. They understand the immediate, longer-term and household-level impact of TV, and can uncover unique reach across OTT, as well as incremental reach vs. linear.

Weisler: In those industries where product sells itself like hand sanitizer, why should advertisers continue to advertise? What is the right mix during these times?  

Gryncwajg: It’s about adapting your creatives to be situationally aware and then testing and learning. There are products that are much more in-demand now than ever before. But there’s still competition and consumers have many options. At the start of lockdown, we saw many clients go off-air for a week to adapt their creatives to address the pandemic in some form or another. They then were right back on a few days later.

The right mix is 100% dependent on the brand. What works for one, isn’t necessarily going to work for another. Once a brand is on-air, it’s so critical to test and learn – see how new buys, timeslots, OTT/linear mixes, etc. are impacting the bottom line. And then use everything you learned to inform your next flight. Viewing patterns and audiences are always going to be shifting, so constant measurement and then acting fast to make those learnings actionable are very important.  

Weisler: For those categories that are hurting like Hospitality, should they continue to advertise? 

Gryncwajg: One of our biggest pieces of advice for advertisers is to not go dark. The damage we’ve seen from brands going off air, and essentially relinquishing their share of voice to competitors, is hard to come back from. It’s about finding the right messaging and staying on-air. Consumers are not necessarily buying cars or booking vacations at the moment, but you still see auto and travel brands on-air to maintain brand awareness. Their creatives aren’t about direct selling at the moment, but they are still staying in front of consumers so when the time comes to purchase a new car and book a holiday, they are top of mind. 

Weisler: As states open up, are you seeing a shift in the business? Are KPIs changing?  

Gryncwajg: The KPIs we measure for our thousands of advertisers are unique to each advertiser, so it’s hard to generalize. I will say that some of the brands that were on-air to maintain awareness have been slowly shifting back to more performance-based KPIs as things get back to normal (or as normal as things can be now). We’re also seeing verticals like travel, real estate and auto start to increase their presence across linear and OTT. While they never went dark, they are starting to show patterns of returning to pre-COVID schedules.

Weisler: What types of platforms are working best overall at this time for advertisers and why?

Gryncwajg: TVSquared has been growing steadily since its start, but the last few months have been extremely busy. Advertisers need to know that every dollar in their ad budgets are working, so cross-platform attribution that generates real-time insights has climbed to the top of many priority lists. Our platform was built to be data agnostic, it is versatile and flexible to serve a global community with different datasets and media needs. For an advertiser to be agile, its partners have to be as well. We quickly ingest any type of dataset that a client wants to work with to provide immediate results. There is no need to wait weeks for reports. Instant gratification and results = impacting change towards efficiency.  

  

Give us an overview on a global level on the state of advertising - maybe comparing countries?

Gryncwajg: We work with global accounts every day. We are the only GDPR compliant attribution provider and the only one that measures both linear and OTT globally. We have hundreds of clients that run campaigns in 20 countries or more. In fact, I’m working with a global data partner right now and we are training their sales teams in US, Europe, Asia and Australia. Understanding each country’s culture and media nuances are key to communicating in a way that is respectful, engaging and will drive response.

This article first appeared in www.Mediapost.com

TV Works. An Interview with TVSquared’s Jo Kinsella

In talking to Jo Kinsella, Chief Revenue Officer and EVP, TV Squared, about the launch of the company, one thing became clear to me. As much as I see great changes in the media landscape over the past seven years, Kinsella sees great constants. 

TVSquared boasts of being able to, “measure linear and digital, OTT and VOD, TV everywhere, local and national, on a global level via a single platform offering results based on impressions, reach and outcomes.” Further, she stated, “We do 100% attribution. We will do short term spike analysis and longer term impact. We do OTT across publishers. We will do household deterministic match. The only thing I can’t do right now is walled gardens.”  But then, I think, who can? 

Charlene Weisler: How has the TV landscape evolved since you first launched TVSquared and how much of has remained consistent?

Jo Kinsella: The TV landscape has evolved in that it’s fragmenting – “TV” no longer means just linear, but linear, OTT, VOD, CTV, you name it. But what has been slower to evolve is the culture where performance is a norm for the advertiser, new currencies are adopted and data interoperability exists to make us all better at proving TV’s ROI. While we are still playing catch up, 2019 has been a pivotal year for progress. I see a lot of the same terminology being used today as was used all those years ago when I worked in fin tech. It takes me back as to how it went from a highly unregulated, very fragmented industry to a highly regulated, very data autonomous industry. I actually see some overlap in TV media as we go into 2020. The evolution will continue and we have to keep up. It will be very interesting as we see how it all plays out.

Weisler: Can you measure television and prove its performance in the same way as you would digital?

Kinsella: That was TVSquared’s mandate objective from Day 1. When we did the world tour and visited a lot of agencies in a lot of countries, they said, ‘yes we do TV measurement and we have excel spreadsheets and people and you’ll never do it.’ Here we are, fast forward seven years, and what started off as an ability to measure traditional linear in as many countries in the world as our clients would take us (now 76 countries and a platform translated into four languages including Japanese), it proves that it wasn’t that the industry didn’t want proof of performance via digital-like measurement, it was that the industry didn’t realize it could happen. Now that they realize that it has happened, it has changed people’s perception of TV and the stories of TV viewership declining. It turned it into: TV Is Content and Distribution At Scale All Over the World. 

Weisler: So it sounds like TV is still very relevant and even gaining momentum.

Kinsella: We know that TV advertising drives the most reach and the most awareness of any channel. Now that we can measure it, and prove that it works, people are spending more. It’s not about linear or digital. It’s about the mix that drives an ROI positive story for the marketer, the advertiser. If you can tie your TV spend to business outcomes, you can prove that TV is a positive return on investment story. And the more granular you can get in regard to addressable audiences the more success you see. The conversation has changed whether you’re a brand yourself, whether you’re an agency or whether you’re media owner or a publisher. That is why the attribution space is so popular now. Now that people realize that TV can be measured, they realize that it works and Google doesn’t take that last click credit. That is why we see dollars coming back to TV.

Weisler: What is your definition of TV?

Kinsella: Content, distribution, video. When it comes to measuring TV, people are producing amazing content whether it’s on ad-supported streaming services or whether it’s on good old traditional linear. Every advertiser should be able to measure any commercial aired on any platform at any time in an always-on software analytics platform that is accessible day or night by anyone to see how TV is performing. 

Weisler: What are the biggest trends that you have seen in the past seven years?

Kinsella: It sounds obvious but the biggest trend that we’ve seen is that TV works. People always knew it worked but could never prove it. Now we’ve proved it works, and it is also that we can now see which audiences are really driving the business outcomes needed by advertisers. We are now able to shine a light on insights that have really got people to lean in because we are seeing things that were never expected and can now be proved out. Whether it’s a brand strategy or a performance strategy for a campaign, cross-platform and cross-device attribution is now something marketers expect in an always-on platform like ours.

Weisler: What do you see as the biggest challenge going forward?

Kinsella: We need to make sure that there is a performance currency in the industry. How do we bridge the gap between the new world of performance and the old way of planning and buying, which are still so integral in the industry workflows? How do we bridge that gap so people can drive performance as a currency and not be held back by maybe what has worked for the last fifty years but isn’t going to work for the next fifty? It’s changing so quickly. While impressions are great for telling you “who” saw your spot, performance tells you what the “who” actually did in response to it. And, at the end of the day, that’s what matters most to marketers. Brands have led the charge with performance and we’ve seen the sell-side increasingly adopt it as well, including firms like Effectv, Amersand and NBCU.

This article first appeared in www.Mediapost.com

Getting to Action-Based Metrics in TV Measurement. An Interview with Calum Smeaton, CEO and Founder, TVSquared

“TV measurement has gotten a lot more sophisticated, moving from reach/frequency to performance-based metrics,” stated Calum Smeaton, CEO and Founder of TVSquared. 

His company was started in 2012, to move the measurement needle by making, “TV a performance-marketing channel – one that could be measured and optimized quickly and easily, just like digital.” To do that, TVSquared’s platform, ADvantage, “combines real-time spot, response and audience data to give advertisers the who, what, when and where of spot and campaign performance for linear and advanced TV.”

Charlene Weisler: What do you see as the state of TV measurement today?

Calum Smeaton: Brands were the first to embrace performance analytics for TV. They’re accustomed to the real-time measurement and optimization of digital, so applying it to TV was natural for them. Today, most TV advertisers know exactly what aspects of campaigns are working and not (creatives, programs, networks, genres, days, times, etc.), and then use those insights to optimize for response. Agencies were the next to adopt performance-based measurement, recognizing that it’s a crucial component to establish trust and transparency with clients. And while networks were the last holdouts, they are growing fast. There’s a real shift with how they are embracing analytics for proof of performance and tying TV to business outcomes.

 

Weisler: What metrics are most important and which ones have outlived their utility and why?

Smeaton: Brands use TV for different reasons, so there will never be one-size-fits-all metrics. Performance metrics used for TV should align to the specific KPIs of a brand, whether it’s driving sales, registrations, web traffic, app activity, you name it. I don’t want to say that ratings, reach and frequency metrics have outlived their utility, because that would imply they ever told advertisers much of anything. If a brand uses TV for awareness alone, then these metrics can make sense, but for those that use TV for response, they are not as relevant. 

Weisler: What new metrics should TV be using?

Smeaton: Brand-specific, performance-based KPIs. TV drives second-screening viewers directly into the digital funnel. Measuring immediate actions like online sales, app activity, registrations, etc., is a quick-and-easy process. Even for higher consideration brands, when the end result doesn’t happen right away, these metrics are often action or intent-based because measuring middle-of-the-funnel activities is an excellent indication of TV performance.

We’re also seeing networks such as multichannel video programming distributors (MVPDs) and local/national broadcasters start to offer this type of tailored, brand-specific measurement to advertisers as proof of performance, which is a real game-changer in the space.

Weisler: Tell me about your recent partnership with TiVo?

Smeaton: We measure the immediate and long-term performance of linear and advanced TV by day, daypart, network, program, genre, creative and audience segment. With the addition of TiVo’s deterministic viewership data, we can analyze TV’s impact down to the household (HH) level too. Deterministic attribution is a hot topic, which makes sense, understanding TV’s effectiveness at the HH level is invaluable. As an emerging space, deterministic has value, but also limitations, including fragmentation, small datasets and privacy/security concerns. A purely deterministic attribution model can’t measure the true TV-driven uplift in response and sales. But adding a layer of HH/impression-level data with a high match rate (like TiVo’s), an advertiser can get deeper insights into the “who” behind that response.

 

Weisler: How has the TV landscape evolved in the past five years and where do you see it going in the next five?

Smeaton: The past five years have marked TV’s evolution from a channel used only for reach, to one used for reach and performance. I’d argue that the majority of advertisers now use TV for the latter. The reason TV is now a performance-marketing channel is twofold. First, viewers have second-screen devices nearby when watching TV. They actively participate with brands when interested. Second, the analytical technologies exist to measure those immediate and long-term actions.

In the next five years, we’ll see TV measurement and optimization get a lot more sophisticated. New data sources will emerge, advanced TV will become more mature and an increasing number of advertisers will leverage automation and analytics for processes that are still time- and resource-intensive things like TV planning and buying.   

Weisler: How will Connected TV impact the TV marketplace?

Smeaton: Connected TV, advanced TV, whatever you want to call it, is just TV. Our platform measures “TV” whether it’s on linear, OTT, VOD, etc. While advanced TV is still in its infancy, we’re seeing advertisers start to experiment with different platforms. By “experiment,” I mean they are doing a lot of testing and learning, and even taking insights from measuring linear and applying them to advanced TV as a starting point.

This article first appeared in Mediapost.com