Linear TV Means Consistent Ad Revenue

Every year brings a bit of trepidation in the media marketplace about rates and budgets. Will CPMs hold or increase? Will there be consistent ad revenue? Now there is the possibility that a recession, per Adweek, could impact the media ecosystem entirely.

However, these fears are unfounded: Even if the overall economy restricts, it only means that marketers will have more of an incentive to get their brand propositions in front of consumers to bolster revenue goals. And many look to television as a safe, verifiable must-buy.

Popularity and Reach

Despite the proliferation of viewing choices, there are many advantages that linear television offers advertisers. Linear television still enjoys great popularity and reach, even among younger viewers.
According to a recent Nielsen Total Audience Report, linear commands a majority of viewing time across all age ranges. CMO.com reported that most people are still watching traditional, scheduled television, including younger generations. Linear still constitutes half of Gen Z and millennials’ viewing habits, according to the Nielsen report.

Measurement Confidence

With currency measurement and internal content standards, linear offers advertisers placement safety and viewability as well as measurement confidence. You know where your ad will run and who viewed it, offering consistent ad revenue.

Live Events

Live events, especially sports, drive viewer interest and attention: Sixty-six percent of adults watch live TV on a regular basis, according to the NCTA. Further, when it comes to long-term viewing habits, twenty percent of viewers are watching more live TV than five years ago.

Data-Rich and Granular

Television is becoming more data-rich and granular through the addition of big datasets such as set-top box data. According to Capital Media, this “has allowed the industry to rely on addressable TV, which allows advertisers to go beyond basic demographic information and more narrowly target households based on data.”

The interconnectedness of TV and data—including online indicators, like website visits—provides increased visibility to conversion analytics and attribution, according to AdExchanger.

2020 Forecast

Stayed tuned for 2020, which is shaping up to be a robust time for media in general and linear television in particular. Political advertising spend alone is expected to reach $6 billion, according to Forbes.

Linear is not going away, according to Betsy Rella, vice president of research and data at NYI. With the explosion of content and the engagement of viewers in this content across platforms, television still stands tall.

“We see it in the campaigns. We see it in the data. Television still has massive reach over other platforms,” Rella concluded. “It is still a big portion of what’s driving consumers to take action.”

This article first appeared on the Videa blog

Automated Ad Sales: Past, Present, and Future

Automated ad sales have been around longer than some might think. The first central ad server was actually introduced in 1995 for online advertising, according to Clearcode.

Over the course of the past few years, media companies have realized the value of automated ad sales beyond digital, and it’s currently expanding into a range of platforms.

Early Days of Advertising

Ad buying started as human to human interaction. Research departments would track performance trends and create estimates for sales. Agency planners would find the best fit for their client’s target consumer. Then, agency buyers and media sellers would meet to negotiate price, delivery expectations, and contract guarantees that would be executed over the broadcast or calendar year.

Transitioning to Automated Advertising

With the rollout of the internet and digital platforms came the ability to more easily capture data at various points in the consumer experience. More data-driven systems entered the marketplace and, as a result, merged the planning and buying processes. Digital, with its real-time capabilities, enabled a seamless planning to execution process, with buys electronically moving from the spreadsheet or database to ad server.

For those with a deep history in media sales like Arlene Manos, president emeritus of advertising sales at AMC Networks, data has been the game-changer.

In an interview with Manos, she noted that “Selling is now more applicable to specialized projects, which go beyond running a straight ad, such as sponsorship of events and integrated marketing.”
Direct response sales departments, in particular, aren’t needed if proper automation is in place. Sales digitization through automated advertising enables sales executives to forgo the elemental aspects of sales and apply their talents more strategically.

The Television Marketplace

Today, digital supply and demand marketplaces streamline processes by instantaneously calculating availability, negotiating price and CPM, delivering the units, and solving the problem of under-delivery closer to real-time. And, because the process removes human fallibility, there is also greater transparency and control for both buyer and seller, delivering greater value to both sides of the transaction.

But for some, the movement to a data-centric automated ad sales market has resulted in a stand-off. “Agencies, media companies, and independent tech companies are all building proprietary platforms,” said Hanna Gryncwajg, VP of enterprise accounts at TVSquared. Agencies believe they should have the process control because “they know their client’s marketing goals and needs” while media companies that have invested heavily in platforms and processes “don’t want to give up the ability to optimize their content, data, and platforms across their asset portfolio.”

The struggle for control is still being played out, but it’s clear that automated ad sales’ ability to streamline processes and provide transparency across the selling-buying ecosystem delivers value for content owners and distributors while also maximizing ad targetability. “Content is no longer king,” Gryncwajg asserted. “It is audiences that are king and finding an audience match that provides ROI to a marketer via automation always wins.”

This article first appeared on the Videa blog.

How Ghost Ads Can Help Prove the Incremental Revenue of Campaign Spend

It’s not enough for an ad to simply trigger a sale: Today’s marketers want to know which ad it was, and on which platform and network it was featured. Ghost ads are emerging as one of the most popular measurement solutions to monitor ad efficacy and efficiency.

These types of ads, introduced by Google in 2015, are now receiving more recognition by the industry at large for their use on Google and Facebook. As Google notes, “It’s difficult to know whether that marketing expenditure is making an impact . . . The pressure to prove value is all the more important because marketers know the budget for one campaign can often determine the investment for their next one.”

But what are ghost ads? And can brands really benefit from their use? Let’s take a look at how this form of advertising is being used by publishers today.

The Potential to Reach More Consumers

Ghost ads are essentially conversion lift tests which, as Shane O’Neill, director of content at Nanigans, explains, monitor a control group of target consumers and flag when a brand’s ad would have been served to a user in that group. An advertiser can then bid on that impression using a ghost ad, which is so named because it is invisible to the user. If the bid wins, the ad is fed to the control group.

This data can be seen by the advertiser and ad platform and is used to ascertain whether there is a difference in consumer behavior among those who have seen the ad versus those who did not see it. O’Neill concludes that ghost ads “create apples-to-apples comparisons of users who were exposed to ads versus users who would have been exposed to ads.”

Another Means to Measure Incrementality

The use of these ads to test consumer behavior answers a huge question for the advertiser: Did my campaign spend result in incremental revenue? Incrementality is “measuring the lift that advertising spend provides to the conversion rate of the target population,” explains Rick Bruner, vice chair for the U.S. at i-com.

“We’re good at targeting the people who are already most inclined to buy a product,” he continues. “So for the advertiser, the question then is: What effect did my ads have on that target audience above the rate at which they would have bought anyway, absent the advertising?”

Using these ads to measure incrementality is easy. An ad campaign is fed out to a group of targeted consumers while at the same time, a control group of consumers who would have normally been chosen to see that ad is shown the exact same message. Each group’s reactions to the ads are then tracked.

The data from each group can then be compared to identify which ad creative, publisher, platform, user behaviors, piece of content, scheduling, etc., are more likely to generate a winning bid and eventual purchase. This not only answers the incrementality question, this comparison also gleans information for attribution measurement—a win-win.

How Valuable Are Ghost Ads, Really?

In understanding which ads facilitated purchasing and increased revenue, advertisers will be better prepared to optimize their future campaigns. For researchers, these ads eliminate selection bias in the testing. Algorithms often target consumers who are the already the most likely to buy; with ghost ads, publishers discover if the consumer would have bought anyway—regardless of whether they saw the ad.

For advertisers, these ads are a cost-effective measurement tool that’s easy to implement and tracks near real time, putting us one step closer to knowing exactly when a consumer made the decision to buy.

This article first appeared on the Videa blog.

Traditional Media Planning and Buying Still Have a Future

In the past, media planning and buying were simpler. It was a time of four broadcast networks with the rumblings of some emerging cable networks as competition. Broadcast sales ruled the day and negotiations were made with a lunch and a handshake. Contracts were stewarded and posted using Nielsen, and at the end of the campaign (often a full year), there was either an over-delivery for the client or a shortfall.

With the advent of automation, the use of data to form targeted segmentations and the ability to transact in real-time, the advertiser/network relationship is less personal but more efficient. However, there are lessons to be learned from the old ways of buying and selling media, and a place for traditional buying and the human touch in today’s media world.

Sales Personalization

Consumer personalization through automation, where messages are tailored to household or individual, offers relevancy and a greater call to action. But personalization in business transactions also has a place in this new advertising world. Being able to connect with a human sales expert to ask questions, research possibilities, and discuss ideas is a legacy sales hallmark that is still valuable in today’s automated sales arena.

Marketing Initiatives

As part of the legacy system of negotiations, additional sales placement opportunities for advertisers were possible, such as in-program insertions (which are increasingly computerized) or signage at an event. While automation is excellent at placing messages in advertising slots created by the sellers, it can’t always take advantage of these other, less formatted marketing opportunities that require human intervention to implement and monitor.

Brand Safety and Fraud

There is nothing worse than running a commercial for an airline during a news report on a crash, but it happens. With automation, algorithms can help to prevent such mishaps, but it is also valuable to have a sales and traffic compliance team monitoring activity. Having a human touch also reduces the risk of ad fraud.

Consumer Safety

With the high degree of personalization in automation, there is the risk of the right message for the household being received by the wrong family member, such as a pregnancy kit being served to the father of the household when it was intended for the daughter. Traditional media may not be as hyper-focused as programmatic, but it offers viewers a degree of anonymity while still targeting the household.

Soft Human Attributes

As Business Insider noted, humans remain masters in skills that AI and machine learning can only mimic, whether using common sense to solve problems, feeling and understanding emotions, or harnessing creativity. While there is much to be praised about the efficiency of automated buying, there are also advantages to retaining the human element of media planning and buying legacy protocols.

This article first appeared on the Videa blog.

Excess TV Campaign Ad Impressions: Too Much of a Good Thing?

One of the dark secrets of television advertising is the ad impressions waste that occurs in a campaign. Waste is defined as impressions that reach the wrong audience or reach those who have already been over-exposed to the ad. When an advertiser targets adults 18–49, for example, there is a good chance they will also inadvertently reach both older and younger viewers in their media mix.

A recent study reported in MediaPost found that more than half of a typical campaign’s TV ad impressions are wasted. Although that’s a large percentage, impressions waste is not always bad and can actually be beneficial. Here’s why.

The Current Posting System Is Antiquated

The current method of ascribing target audiences for campaigns is age and gender, and not all 18–49s are alike, nor should 50+-year-olds be dismissed. By accepting a certain level of so-called waste, advertisers may reach audiences primed for their products and services that were previously ignored.

Targeted Segmentations Can Convert Swing Consumers

Even those advertisers who are not relying on age/gender proxies and instead use targeted segmentations can benefit from waste. Targeted segmentations speak to those who have a high propensity to purchase or may already be purchasers. But what about swing consumers? There is a value to exposing your message to those who may be on the fence or are open to hearing different messaging. Think about the Democratic candidates appearing on Fox News, as reported by The Hill. Sure, there will be those viewers who are not open to the messaging, but there are some who might be.

Effective Reach Levels Are Not as Low as They Used to Be

In a landscape of increasing distraction and multi-platform devices that have different quality levels of exposure, the theory that three ad impressions are enough has been debunked in several studies. A study reported in New Neuromarketing found that 10 exposures are needed to effectively influence consumers’ attitudes toward a brand: “You have to get into their brain to really create attitude changes. Multiple exposures of a clear message can cause a transfer of information to long term memory, which in turn affects consumer attitudes.”

The most efficient way of capitalizing on impressions waste is with media that offers both targeted opportunities, such as a local presence, and a certain level of mass reach, as is the case with television. Savvy marketers who understand the targeting complexities and consumer evolution in the media ecosystem shouldn’t worry about ad impressions waste but should instead find ways to maximize its value.

This article first appeared in the Videa blog.

Trust in Advertising: Where Does Traditional TV Stand?

There are many challenges facing advertisers today, from attention and engagement to ad blocking and fraud. But trust in advertising trumps them all, according to MediaPost. If you don’t have trust, you don’t have viewer connection. Here’s a look at the state of trust in TV advertising today.

On-Demand vs. Linear TV
A recent Advertiser Perceptions study of 200 ad executives found that 73 percent factor in trust when deciding how to allocate their media ad budgets. For consumers, YouGov found that there is an attitudinal difference among on-demand TV viewers compared to linear TV viewers; on-demand viewers are more averse to traditional television commercials. For example:

• 56 percent of on-demand viewers tend to mute TV ads compared to 48 percent of linear viewers.
• 43 percent of on-demand viewers enjoy watching TV ads compared to 47 percent of linear TV viewers.
• 54 percent of on-demand viewers don’t trust TV ads compared to 48 percent of linear TV viewers.

All of these results are unsurprising. Linear TV viewers expect commercials, whereas on-demand viewers find commercial breaks to be intrusive.

Digital vs. Linear TV

Read the full article on the Videa blog.

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.

Connected TV Advertising Roadblocks and Advantages

Connected TV advertising is on the verge of a breakthrough. Television is facing an advertising revenue challenge as linear viewership continues to decline, leading to a focus on finding new inventory sources. eMarketer predicted that connected TV users will represent 60.1 percent of the US population by 2022. As a result, connected TV is viewed as a potential source of additional inventory and revenue.

Challenges of Buying Automated Connected TV

The promise of connected TV riches is not matching the reality. According to Digiday, while there are more automated buys for connected TV than last year, advertiser investment levels are not what they could be. Some of the challenges lie in measurement where data is captured in silos, while other challenges lie in developing up-to-date metrics for that data.

Read the full article on the Videa blog.

A Focus on Linear Media Today and Tomorrow: MediaPost’s Forecasts for 2019 and 2024

Today in linear media, we are going through the Fourth Industrial Revolution where advanced technology is disrupting several industries, according to Forbes. MediaPost’s Media Forecast 2019-2024 conference had experts peer into their crystal balls to see where our industry is headed in the next five years.

2019: Smooth Sailing

Since US ad spending growth at 3.7 percent is expected to lag behind national GDP growth, as reported by Broadcasting & Cable, are we beginning to see a seismic shift this year in ad spend and linear media?

Most panelists at the conference generally agreed that there will not be any dramatic change in 2019, even with GDPR. But for David Campanelli, EVP, co-chief investment officer at Horizon Media, agencies will see significant operational change to prove that ad campaigns drive sales results. Geoffrey Sanders, SVP of Growth at Casper, believed that there will be greater emphasis on attribution so as to better understand “which partners help us get incremental value.” This push towards attribution incrementality could bode well for local TV. The medium benefits from the addressability of ATSC 3.0 and programmatic, which has always been focused on targeting and accountability.

TV is projected to remain a dominant medium as it pivots....

Read the full article on the Videa blog.

“Pause Advertising” and Its Implications

Pause advertising is a new form of messaging where advertising automatically runs when viewers pause content. 

According to Variety, it’s currently being tested by streaming services Hulu and AT&T. The thought is that a contextual ad, such as an ad for soda as you pause to get something to drink, might spur greater viewer attention and retention. Also, it enables the creation of new messaging inventory at a time when the trend is to reduce the length and number of ads within pods while still meeting revenue goals.

This leads to questions and implications. For one, when someone presses pause, it’s usually to leave the viewing area to do something else, like get a beverage or take a bathroom break. That potentially leaves the ad to play to an absent audience. It can also be construed as intrusive. Pause often is exactly that, a pause from viewing anything at all.

Why Pause Advertising?
But there is good reason to consider pause advertising.

This article first appeared on the Videa blog.

How Are Gross Rating Points (GRPs) Evolving in the Media Industry?

Gross rating points, or GRPs, are standard television measurements used in ad buying and selling to ensure the delivery of an advertiser’s contract. This measurement is based on age and gender, requiring a universe estimate to calculate. How will GRPs evolve with the industry moving toward addressable advertising and audience fragmentation?

Evolving Gross Rating Points
The industry has relied on these metrics for many years, and it takes hefty investment to change systems based on long-established protocols. Lorne Brown, CEO at Operative, said in a MediaPost interview, “Agencies don’t have the capital structures necessary to dismantle their systems that are based on Nielsen audience measurement.” Yet, it is clear that people are viewing TV in very different ways than just a few years ago, so there may be room for evolved forms of measurement.
The GRP universe estimate calculation is prone to variation in a multi-platform world. “In television, the universe estimate changes every year,” noted Brad Adgate, a media consultant. “But if you move toward audience-based buying, like weekend moviegoers, the universe changes every day.” It might be possible to form agreed-upon segments and universes that change frequently, but that will take time.

It is evident that, “GRPs have to evolve,” said Mitch Oscar, a director at U.S. International Media, “because all advanced television platforms are starting to transact on impressions whether it’s optimized linear, TV everywhere,......

Read the full article on  the Videa blog.

Q&A With ANA’s Bob Liodice: The State of the Advertising Industry

What’s the state of the advertising industry? Ask Bob Liodice, CEO of the Association of National Advertisers (ANA). He’s steering his organization through unparalleled change with a call for greater marketplace transparency. He’s also changing the business model by reappraising the agency and client relationship that helps advertising keep pace with technical advancements.

Described as “a most unlikely revolutionary” by MediaPost, he was named Media Executive of the Year in 2017. Liodice shares his thoughts on industry challenges and opportunities.

Weisler: What is the state of the advertising industry today?

Liodice: Technology has wrought tremendous change to our industry, both good and bad. Some issues remain particularly challenging including the ongoing debate over media transparency, diversity, and gender equality in the workforce; brand safety; brand purpose; ad blocking; [and] talent issues that agencies, marketers, and media companies are trying their best to solve.

What do you see as the industry challenges next year?

There are many challenges, but one of particular importance is influencer marketing. At the last Cannes festival, Unilever’s CMO Keith Weed announced that Unilever would no longer partner with influencers who buy followers. This was powerful. The rise of fraud in influencer marketing has become a growing issue as marketers pay influencers based on their follower count. Because influencer marketing is centrally built on top of two platforms—Google and Facebook (Instagram)—and the platforms control what data is available and how it is accessed, marketers will continue to remain in the dark and limited in their abilities to tackle this growing issue without greater collaboration and transparency from the social networks.

What are the opportunities next year? 

Read the full article on the Videa blog.

Takeaways From the 2018 TV Data Summit: “The Audience Is Now in Charge”

As Tim Hanlon, founder and CEO at the Vertere Group, explained at the 2018 TV Data Summit, the media business is going through a transformative time. TV grapples with data as tech navigates strategies and solutions. “It is revenge of the nerds,” he concluded, “leading to an amazing future of data and targeting.”

Panelists at the NYC Television Week event offered their insights:

Data Changes Everything

Data is taking on greater importance from content creation to campaign deliveries. More aspects of the business are touched by data through machine learning and artificial intelligence. As technology advances, it’s possible to dynamically insert different advertising messages to individual households based on audience profiles and viewing behaviors.

“Data is everything,” stated Eric Schenk, a technical director at Google Cloud. But data is often fragmented, clustered in silos and walled gardens. Analysis, depending on data sets, algorithms, and applications, often leads to different results and conclusions. Machine learning’s capabilities help address these challenges. These capabilities include video intelligence (enabling better viewer content identification and curation), translation (allowing for fast global expansion of content offerings), and custom data extensions (offering new ways to analyze and gain insights from data sets).

Business Pivots

Previously, “Sales used to be the last mile, but now it’s content,” Hanlon warned. Schenk added, “Audience is king,” requiring a pivot to audiences and what they want in content.

Read the full article on the Videa blog.

What is the Bid Caching Controversy?

Ever heard of bid caching? It’s a technique that extends the life of bids in programmatic ad auctions, as Digiday describes it, which loosely translates into an effort where unsold inventory is shifted to other auctions.

OKO Digital Limited defines it as “the process of keeping a bid when a buyer fails to win an impression and then applying that bid to a later ad-request.” Its purpose is to reduce latency and serve ads faster. However, it can also increase CPMs and may result in buyers getting a different impression than they thought they were buying.

For advertisers, it lacks transparency, but for platforms, it facilitates the sale of previously unsold inventory. Some say it is a ‘bait and switch,’ while others call it an ‘innovation.’ It has been halted almost as fast as it was implemented, but not before a heated controversy erupted.

Industry Background

In the early days of programmatic, inventory was more siloed with private marketplaces offering unique, specialized inventory. Now marketplaces have opened up and more freely allow their inventory to be sold across multiple marketplace platforms. There is more inventory ubiquity and more pressure to differentiate.

As Digiday explains, “tweaking auction dynamics to gain a competitive...

Read the full article on the Videa blog.

What Is ATSC 3.0: The Latest Updates on the New Standard

Back in February, the industry was abuzz about ATSC 3.0 and its possibilities for transforming television, especially local TV.

There was the hope that ATSC 3.0 would lead to a more level playing field by enabling local stations to sell their data as well as leverage new technological capabilities such as on-demand.
Since then, though there has been a lot of quiet, behind-the-scenes work, the lack of public announcements has led to some questions about its progress. So, what is ATSC 3.0’s current status?

Current Build-Out Status

According to ATSC, work on ATSC 3.0 is divided into layers:

• Physical – the core transmission system for over-the-air broadcasting usability and quality. This has been tentatively adopted by the industry.
• Management and Protocol – the plumbing that connects the physical layer with the application layer, enabling things like delivery, personalization, and interaction. A consensus has been reached, although details are still being worked out.
• Application and Presentation – handles viewer experiences involving video and audio coding and the run-time environment. Key features will include enhanced TV, on-demand, subscriptions, digital rights, mobile and fixed devices, and hybrid delivery with pushed content.
• Extensibility – methods that will allow ATSC 3.0 to keep up with industry changes as the initial technology improves and advances.

Though these layers are in progress, much work remains.

Read the full article on the Videa blog.

Mike Bologna Predicts the Future of Addressable Television

As the structure of the TV buy and sell paradigm evolves with advancements in automation, technology and protocols, the future of television is filled with a range of dramatic possibilities. Mike Bologna, President one2one Addressable, Cadent, presented his views of what he sees as the future of Addressable TV at the recent TVB conference held in New York. 

Bologna spoke with Videa President Shereta Williams about what’s next in targeted TV and automation for broadcasters. The discussion focused on the automation of the business model to, as he explained, “enable new business models; what broadcasters are doing to advance standard API adoption through the TIP initiative; what is the local broadcast Addressable Advertising opportunity now and in the future; and how will connected TVs and ATSC 3.0 adoption enable Addressable Advertising.” The TIP initiative is a partnership between system providers in order to streamline transaction workflows and create greater inter-activity between various buy and sell systems. 

The Pressure is On

For Bologna, TV once involved the entire family sitting around a wooden TV box viewing content together. But that was a long time ago. “TV was easier to plan, buy and measure,” he reminisced, “But that is not the case anymore. Now no one is at home watching TV. We are now in a world where consumers have all the choices in the world.”

All players in the ecosystem have their challenges. Overall, the industry needs to be nimble and forward-moving. There is a natural tendency to strive for the perfect solution but that can hamper progress but hesitation is lethal. “TV is changing,” he stated, “and we can't wait until its ‘perfect’ to adopt addressable.” He also pointed out that data and technology are the center of the TV business and the industry is poised for great change.

Brands are under a lot of pressure to “get the most bang for their buck,” while, “Media owners need the highest rent they can get so they can continue to produce great content. It is a complex marketplace,” he noted. And agencies, according to Bologna, have the hardest job of all. “Agencies have the burden of putting all of it together holistically and not in silos.”

Actionable Steps

Broadcasters face their own unique challenges in implementing addressable (including carriage agreements, unified measurement system). Marketers are limited with two minutes per hour. And between the two entities, there are a myriad of legacy buy/sell systems that have “a lot of pieces to be stitched together across twelve different systems. There is no way we can scale without solving that problem. That is where the TIP initiative comes it.” The opportunities are there for these two sides of the buy/sell to facilitate the targeting of messages to reach the right consumers at the right time.

“Define a segment and send a message to that particular home,” he stated. “Addressability should deliver audience at scale. Not 120 million households but whatever the percent of the U.S. your target audience is. And it should tie back to a sale or whatever you are trying to achieve.”

The messaging “has to be efficient as calculated by price divided by return in investment,” he noted and added, “It has to be transparent in terms of scale and it has to drive results you want. (Addressable) is the only area of TV where you start with a segment, match it, feed it in and tie it back to a sale.”

New Technology

Broadcasters need to take full advantage of the emerging technology of smart TVs. “If your TV is connected to the internet you can receive an addressable ad. This is the broadcaster's marketplace to win and conquer,” he said. “Today, implementation of addressable advertising faces challenges of scale. With an alliance between the TVB and several Smart TV OEM’s, this is a great proof of concept and interim solution until ATSC 3.0 is in play,” he advised. 

But he is also realistic about the timeline for ATSC 3.0. “Speaking specifically about broadcast, ATSC 3.0 will solve this for us tomorrow if it was mandatory, which it is not. Because it isn't mandatory and it costs money it will be a slow roll out.” Despite this, he is bullish on the ATSC 3.0 Protocol Stack as a future game-changer. “It will speed up adoption of addressable TV, though it could be a while until this protocol is widely adopted,” he hedged.

This article first appeared in www.MediaVillage.com

.

Lessons From Native Advertising and Branded Content: What Local TV Can Learn

Native and branded content have been around from the early days of radio and television. But now, in the digital age, these forms of messaging are undergoing an evolution that better adapts them to the sensibilities and behaviors of today’s consumers.

The recent Advertising Research Foundation’s (ARF) NativexScience conference revealed lessons from native advertising and branded content, and the value that television brings to the equation.

Native and Branded Are Different Advertising Forms

Although the two terms are sometimes used interchangeably, native and branded content are actually quite different. According to Marc Rappin, chief marketing officer at the ARF, native advertising is a paid experience that looks like content. Because it is essentially assimilated into the design of the publisher, it is considered a more seamless experience for the viewer. It is not necessarily used for distribution purposes.

Branded content, on the other hand, is sponsored by the brand for general distribution purposes. The differences are subtle but important.

More Spending and a Move Into Programmatic

What is similar between the two forms of advertising is that they are becoming a bigger slice of the ad spending pie.....

Read the full article on the Videa blog.

Programmatic Advertising and AI: Insight From MediaPost’s Marketing AI Conference

Among the various means of buying media content, programmatic launched as one of the few forms that fully embraced advancing technology—and it’s artificial intelligence (AI) that’s helping to bring about that profound technological change.

At MediaPost’s recent Marketing AI conference held in Manhattan, media experts explored the impact that this protocol will have on buying, selling, agencies, commerce, customer experience, and marketing. Here’s insight from some of the featured speakers.

The Changing World of Media Buying

While AI has been in the conversation for a while, “the hype is starting to get real,” according to Ross Fadner, director of event programming at MediaPost. “There are more efficient products, and questions are arising as to how AI is being applied and what it means.”

There is talk that technology like machine learning and AI will replace humans in a variety of media jobs, but author Ken Auletta questions whether that is really true. Ultimately, “you have to rely on humans and not on machines,” he stated.

Trust is a large factor in how we balance the use of targeting data and the legacy...

Read the full article on the Videa blog.

Consumer Experience Innovations: Takeaways from PSFK’s CXI 2018 Conference

If you’re looking for innovations in consumer marketing, PSFK’s CXI 2018 conference has proved to be, for me, one of the most forward-thinking conferences around. Speakers from a range of industries share their insights about the consumer experience, the key element of marketing that drives engagement, sales, and, ultimately, ROI.

Piers Fawkes, founder and editor in chief of PSFK, has made it a point of choosing speakers who “think differently from the assumed groupthink.” He noted that it’s important to have a diverse discussion around issues like privacy, security, news, and trust, and to look at the future in a more practical way. By understanding how brands and industries can impact the consumer experience, marketers can better formulate stories that truly understand and map the consumer journey.
Here’s what’s on the horizon.

The Impact of GDPR, AI, and Blockchain

Consumer experience innovations are emerging as a potent force in driving success. The advent of privacy legislation like GDPR, immersive artificial intelligence technology, and blockchain transparency for transactions will all have an impact on the level of that experience.

When it comes to privacy, Fawkes believes the GDPR legislation will first impact European...

Read the full article at the Videa blog.

Do We Really Need Blockchain in Media?

The word on everyone’s lips today has to be blockchain. Bloomberg Businessweek writes about its use in farm-to-table tracking for food safety. In brand marketing, we talk about how blockchain in media can be used in attribution to better gauge ROI. However an industry uses it, blockchain’s lofty promise is sure to change the buy-sell dynamic.

The recent MediaPost Blockchain Marketing Forum, held in Manhattan, outlined the promise and the perils of this protocol technology, how it impacts the media supply chain, how it offers verifiability, and how it might streamline logistics. Professionals across the industry offer their insight on the protocol.

The Advantages of Blockchain

Although definitions vary, Rolfe William Swinton, cofounder and director of data assets at GfK, describes the blockchain protocol as an open global infrastructure that offers a decentralized, self-owned, and self-controlled public ledger. It allows complete user access to the entire chain and is transacted in cryptocurrency. Therefore, it provides a tamper-proof method of global distribution that bypasses traditional intermediaries...

Read the full article at the Videa blog.