Turner’s Upfront – More Glitz, Programming and Data with Fewer Ads

With a stage designed by Atomic, a star cast that included Wolf Blitzer, Anderson Cooper, Charles Barkley, Conan O’Brien, Samantha Bee, Anthony Bourdain and even a CNN drone, the Turner Upfront was filled with energy, glitz and over 2,000 agency executives. It was quite a spectacle. 

After a crowd warm-up by Anderson Cooper, Conan O’Brien and Charles Barkley, things got down to business with a presentation by Donna Speciale, President of Turner Ad Sales. Her message was - more content integration, context, storytelling and therefore engagement and attention with less clutter. She spoke of her company’s efforts to merge the use of data and analytics with content creation, “We are offering more content, more solutions and bigger results. We are a data driven content creation company that puts consumers first.” 

Merging data driven solutions with content creation is something of a theme this upfront as other companies have also announced such initiatives. But in addition to this, Turner’s efforts also include a less cluttered environment by reducing the ad load. This is a bold and welcome move in an industry that has come to rely on more and more ads to meet their guaranteed advertiser commitments.  In addition, in a nod to the contentious issue of accurate digital content viewability, Speciale noted that when Turner talks about online views, they refer to a thirty second length, not three seconds. 

Speciale announced that “bold, engaging, less cluttered content” that are then matched to brands and “paired with smart data solutions” are all part of a new initiative at Turner called Turner Ignite. This is a powerful marketing platform where they will test, optimize and learn more about cross screen behaviors. “But,” Speciale added, “This isn’t new. We have been doing this type of targeting now resulting in $50 million in media spend. And it is a pure audience guarantee. We offer provable ROI guarantee outcomes.”

Turner is applying more digital data to TV and putting it to work with their brands. One such initiative is the roll-out of Team Coco Digital Studios for branded content. This will help in the development of native content for advertisers during breaks with branded storytelling. It is possible that such content can help in maintaining viewership through the breaks in addition to their shorter pod lengths.

The full program included sizzle reels and programming announcements for News, TBS, TNT, TruTV and Sports and highlights from other Turner properties such as Adult Swim. Highlights include a new Wyatt Cenac comedy, People of Earth, about a support group of people who have had alien encounters for TBS, Animal Kingdom, a drama starring Ellen Barkin and The Alienist, a crime drama set in late 1800s New York City for TNT. 

Delivery of quality content with a lower ad load and the ability for greater brand integration for advertisers could lead to Speciale’s hope for higher ad rates. "Branded storytelling and shorter breaks have driven significant performance lifts,” she said, “The experience is everything."

This article first appeared in www.MediaBizBlogger.com

Q&A with Turner Broadcasting Ad Sales President Donna Speciale

Donna Speciale, President of Turner Broadcasting Ad Sales, started out in the industry as an intern at an ad agency which led to a stellar 27 year career at some of the top advertising agencies in the business before joining Turner in 2012. She heads up a sales organization that is in the forefront of cross platform opportunities and innovative research at a time when media companies need to be data savvy and creative in their market positioning.

In this fascinating interview, Speciale talks about how the media world has changed – even within the past three years, what the next generation needs to do to prepare for a career in media, how Research has gained a seat at the table and how proxy measurement of age and gender will no longer work for television sales.  

There are four videos in the interview:

Subject                                                          length (minutes)

Background and Agencies                             5:57

Sales and Cross Platform                               6:58

Programmatic and Addressable                     5:31

Predictions and Next Generation                   7:07

Charlene Weisler talks to Turner Broadcasting Ad Sales President Donna Speciale about her background and agency experience in this 5:57 minute video:

 

Donna Speciale shares her views on Sales and Cross Platform initiatives with Charlene Weisler in this 6:58 minute video:

 

CW: How is the agency world different from the network world?

DS:  The agency business has changed a lot. Digital has definitely changed our landscape with a lot more choices for marketers to advertise their messaging. The agencies have had to learn more about the advertisers’ target consumer. It’s not really about Nielsen anymore with Adults 18-49, 25-54. Those days, unfortunately, are over. Now there is a need to focus more on actual audiences rather than proxy measurements.

Charlene Weisler talks to Turner Broadcasting Ad Sales President Donna Speciale about programmatic and addressable advertising advancements in this 5:31 minute video:

 

CW: You have been on the network side for three years. Have you seen any changes in your time at the network?

DS: Yes – three years is a lifetime by now in our business. There have been many new companies – Facebook wasn’t Facebook three years ago. Google now has a huge footprint on our industry. Twitter now has taken on a life of its own. Pinterest is sure to make an impact. Instagram too. Snapchat is now doing advertising. All of these new media companies are offering more choices for marketers and that is making it harder for marketers to discover who their consumer really is and targeting them efficiently. It is also challenging for media companies to continue to get their share of the money. Advertising budgets are not expanding and the dollars have to spread over a lot more companies. The good news is that we at the networks are changing. Turner is now not just a television company. We are a content company on multiple screens. That has changed drastically over the past three years. Turner Broadcasting wasn’t as deep then as we are today.  

CW: And all of these new companies and applications in the industry are all throwing off their own data. Turner is in the vanguard of harnessing data. Can you talk about that?

DS:  Digital has changed the way that we need to think about data. Facebook and Google all have a lot of data at their fingertips … and media companies have a lot of data too. Research now has a huge seat at the table and it is very exciting.

Turner has seven networks and each one of our networks is very distinct by audience and we do that for a reason. We have audiences from kids at the Cartoon network to both Millennial and mature news seekers at CNN. Our digital landscapes also have different audiences. Marketers can now reach mostly anybody they want to reach on any platform on any network by advertising on Turner. We never had to sell it that way before. We only sold it on what Nielsen offered – the buckets of age and gender. That is not good enough anymore. We now have to reach that “auto buyer”, that “auto intender”, that person going to a site to look for more information. The more information we can bring to a marketer as to who our audience is, larger share of advertiser budgets we can garner. We need to prove that we reach those consumers with the intent to purchase. We never had to look at that before and that is why data is so important now for our success.

Looking ahead at the next five years, Donna Speciale talks to Charlene Weisler about her media landscape predictions. She also talks about what the next generation of media executives need to do to stay current and successful. This video is 7:07 minutes.

CW: Is there any advice that you could give to a student to prepare for a career in media?

DS: You have to stay completely up to date with the new technology and discovering all those new, on the bleeding edge companies in the space. There is so much entrepreneurial spirit going on. But you have to know both the new technology as well as the traditional media. It is not smart to focus only on digital. And focusing only on television is also not smart. I have spoken to digital people who don’t want to learn about television because “television is dying”. Television is not dying. Print didn’t die. It is just going through a huge transformation. They will all still be here and you have to understand the complete landscape if you want a successful career in media.

This article first appeared in www.MediaBizBloggers.com