The Intersection of Viewing, Buying and Selling With Comcast’s Advertising Report

The media landscape is not unlike a big jigsaw puzzle where disparate data needs to be interlocked and then interpreted in order to see the full picture of behaviors and results. Comcast has in its arsenal two long standing but separate studies on viewership and on advertising and has merged the results from these studies into the Comcast Advertising Report, now in its second year. This report enables a better understanding of the dynamics of viewership in tandem with advertising results. “We have access to a lot of data, whether it's viewership data or ad exposure data and we want to be able to share so everybody wins,” noted Travis Flood, Senior Director of Research for Comcast Advertising.

According to Flood, the merged data focuses on three industry tent poles – viewers, buyers and sellers. “We go through our data and see what have has repeatedly shown up that we think is interesting,” he explained. One big takeaway is that, “TV is still the foundation still drives the majority of reach. Streaming is an audience extension that we expect to grow over time. But the two of them are going to be very separate for a while. We're here to help leverage the advantages of both for our advertisers and for the marketplace.” However to the viewer, TV and streaming are both viewed on the same screen and are therefore considered somewhat the same.

One big takeaway was the viewers’ continued preference for the big screen. “We think that has benefit because that allows you to maximize the connection. Eighty-two percent of our streaming impressions are happening on the big screen. Last year it was 77%,” noted Flood.

Further, the study found that traditional TV continues to drive reach, with a caveat. “We still drive the majority of our reach with traditional television but maximizing incremental reach is a challenge in today's marketplace. How are you driving it? How much TV should I have? How much streaming? Should I buy addressable? Should addressable be the focus of my campaign or should it be a tactic on top of that? Then, because we work in a premium video environment, we look at types of customers and type of content. We want to maximize that connection,” he stated.

One of the big misconceptions among advertisers is that traditional TV is diminishing in impact. This is a mistake according to Flood because, “They're giving up on where they can maximize their reach. What we've seen is when people invest more in streaming, they get more to begin with, but after a point, as they invest even more in streaming, they start talking to the same people over and over again. There's a diminishing return at some point as you sacrifice linear reach for streaming frequency in a lot of cases.”

Finally, the growth of FAST services has accelerated. “Last year in this report, FAST was really an introduction. This year nearly half of all OTT impressions were served through FAST. That's a really important stat because it has significant volume to it,” he stated and added, “FAST services have been a way for viewers to engage in content in different ways.”

In last year’s study, “Share of reach for traditional TV was 82%. Nine percent came from streaming-only and 9% were reached by both,” he noted, “This year those same numbers, instead of 82, 9 and 9, are 78, 10 and 12. So you'd say, wow, it's still relatively strong for television but the streaming is up a third from what it was last year. We're seeing movement, but it's not drastic.”

When it comes to programmatic, “The space is growing every year but we see hesitance for a couple of reasons,” Flood said. ”Sellers may be wary about selling programmatically. They think it will degrade their content and downgrade the potential to maximize revenue. Buyers may not be set up to be programmatic in the same way that they find television today. How can you buy streaming or connected TV and programmatic? That's a different world. So we tend to talk about programmatic just being a way to buy in an automated way.”

Looking ahead, Flood sees a convergence between traditional TV and streaming but it will happen slowly over time. “You'll continue to see convergence of the two,” he posited. ”TV will become more like digital or streaming in the way it's bought with more targeting capabilities through things like addressable. Hopefully, you'll have a unified approach to measurement across both television and streaming especially as there is more first party data.” He added that, “Hopefully, industry collaboration will continue because in a world where you want TV to be more like digital, it requires a lot of groups to collaborate with one another. But it won’t happen on its own. The industry has to be behind it and help guide it through the process.”

Ultimately for advertisers who want to maximize their impact, “There is not a magic bullet or a one size fits all approach. You can't just do streaming or linear television. I wouldn't tell someone to just buy data driven linear - broad appeal versus very addressable. It's combination of all of those,” he noted.  “It's important to be talking to your customers who buy from you today as well as those who will buy from you tomorrow. For your current customers, have a message that's more addressable. For those in the future, concentrate on broader reach.” But since advertisers need to reach both current and future customers, “You essentially need both strategies together and once you implement those two strategies, you have that data driven techniques and you can split it up between TV and streaming,” he concluded.

This article first appeared in www.MediaVillage.com

Artwork by Charlene Weisler

AMC Audience+ Offers Advertisers Addressable Targetability for the Best of AMC Programming

As television addressable advertising incorporates more data and technology, media companies are stepping up with better delivery and measurement tools. For AMC’s Evan Adlman, Executive Vice President Commercial Sales and Revenue Operations, his company’s solution, Audience+, “is a data targeting and insights platform that is the culmination of all of our addressable development that we've been doing over the last 3 years.”

As Adlman explained, Audience +, “allows an advertiser, as well as our internal media planning teams to understand who is watching, what are they watching, when are they watching and where are they watching.” This platform brings together all of AMC Networks’ addressable capabilities across all of their platforms, where, he noted, “The advertiser can take those insights, build a segment and target that audience across linear, VOD, all we are streaming and, soon on October first, our ad supported AMC+.”

The ability of an advertiser to message across all available platforms through segmentations that are de-duplicated is currently offered to advertisers at three spots per hour but will soon expand to twelve spots. “We believe in 100% addressability across all of our inventory,” he asserted. This is important because this offering expands to, “all networks, all programming and all platforms so it doesn't matter what the viewers are watching. We enable this capability. We also fully integrate it into all of our trafficking systems so there is no managed service behind it.” Essentially the system can, “traffic a single campaign in the delivery system and it optimizes and delivers the advertisement across all available inventory based on where the audience is as well as the standard flight information all within 24 hours for every campaign that runs in real time,” he noted. The ease at which reporting can be done seamlessly is one big competitive advantage for Audience+ over competitors.

As far as data is concerned, Audience+ can accommodate AMC’s first party data, a range of third party data including advertiser proprietary datasets. With AMC first party data, “We have all of our viewership data which is unique to AMC. We understand what shows are being watched, when they're being watched, on what platforms and so on. We have the ability for an advertiser to bring their data to create a segment and ingest it using LiveRamp, for example, and we work with our MVPDs, our distributor partnerships to match against their footprint. Once it matches, we curate the inventory in FreeWheel (a Comcast-based platform that integrates media) and away we go. We also have the ability to create a segment for them.” This, according to Adlman, enables the system to, “build something that is the closest to, or that exact audience profile of, what the advertiser is looking to reach.”

In order to get the most value out of the system, Adlman advises advertisers to, “let Audience+ do what it's supposed to do,” and follow the segment that is targeted even if that means going against an advertiser’s gut feelings or previous buy compositions. It all goes back to whatever consumer target is more important. “You may think you need more prime but in reality 70% of your delivery may be during daytime, and that's because that's where they are,” he explained.

In terms of the future, the next steps for Audience+ on an internal basis are, “expanding the types of creatives that we can run through the platform and continuing to refine the delivery and capabilities.” Externally, for advertiers, the next steps are, “Education for the market. We want to be bold with advertisers and show them that they can really buy media this way and make linear more efficient.”

Adlman understands that the viewer holds all of the control. “Today it's the viewer that is more and more setting the appointments of where they're going to watch, when they're going to watch, what they're going to watch,” he asserted. Everyone has their own premiere viewing depending on when and where they decide to tune in. With viewership so fragmented today, the ability to seamlessly integrate all platforms with de-duplicated data to more efficiently match the desired target segmentation is, “even more important to make sure you're getting the most reach that you want. Viewers are in a lot of different places than just one,” he concluded.

This article first appeared in www.MediaVillage.com

Artwork by Charlene Weisler

Comcast’s Look Back at 2020 and Look Ahead to 2021

This has been an unusually challenging time for prognostication. The once-in-a-generation pandemic and the current political environment have upended expectations and has created what some believe is a “new normal.” 

How are the advertising and publishing spheres of media looking back and looking forward? Comcast FreeWheel offers a look back at 2020 while Comcast Advertising looks ahead to 2021.

Programmers 2020 Look Back

2020 was a year of major changes from the global pandemic to the Black Lives Matter movement to the U.S. Elections and aftermath. But the first look at the year 2020 began with a push forward on addressability with Comcast FreeWheel’s initiative on enabling addressability.

 

The full force of the global pandemic hit the market in March, changing viewing patterns across dayparts, devices and platforms. According to Comcast FreeWheel, in the first half of 2020, premium video views increase 17% year-over-year and premium video ad views increase by 32% in the U.S. Europe saw a significant increase in TV viewership as well with average daily viewing per household up to 6 hours and 25 minutes per day on average from 90 minutes. Tent pole events had mixed performances with the Superbowl achieving a five year ratings high while the Oscars slumped and the Olympics in Japan were postponed.

Certain advertising categories benefited from consumers sheltering at home, such as Food, while other categories such as Travel held more optimism for an eventual recovery in 2020 than actually happened. Sports returned by the start of summer, registering huge increases in viewership especially for Baseball, Hockey and Basketball. Notably, by the fall, more sports resumed including Tennis, Cycling and Rugby. Programmers, anxious to offer more viewing options to content starved consumers, launched a range of streaming services including Peacock from NBCU.

Certainly the impact of Black Lives Matter in the summer brought into the forefront the malignant and enduring impact of structural racism which expanded beyond the U.S. into the global zeitgeist, forcing the media world to lean in to be part of the change.

As the year progressed, Upfront was proving to be very different from prior years with smaller-than-normal and delayed events. Adding to this was the uncertainty of TV schedules with delays in production due to the pandemic and advertisers buying closer to program airings because of the uncertainty.

As 2020 wound down, the world braced for a COVID-19 resurgence and further lockdowns. But there are signs of optimism and hope for 2021. A FreeWheel survey of 500 European Marketers reveals that when it comes to advanced TV budgets, 84% expect spend to grow in the next 12 months.

Agencies 2021 Look Forward

For agencies, 2020 has been a year of adversity, complexity and, yes, opportunity. According to Comcast Advertising, Measurement has risen to the top of priorities for both the buy side and sell side of the business. Comcast has found that, “the whole industry is looking for workable solutions,” in an area that has historically lagged behind in innovation, relying on legacy data sets.

But 2021 looks to be a very different measurement environment. For Michael Law, President Amplifi USA, “As consumers have clearly shown they are in control of their experiences with brands and with media, it’s imperative our industry works collectively to evolve to a consumer-centric, cross channel and platform measurement solution, that can be used universally as a future trading currency and benchmark for the efficiency and effectiveness of all brand communications efforts.”

Programmatic is projected to be another hot growth area for agencies and as media converges, it is accelerating adoption of this advertising format. As Hayley Diamond, EVP, US Digital Investment and Partnerships, Publicis Medi, noted, “Two factors are driving new investment behavior in the TV space: increased buying automation and utilizing data for enhanced targeting. We see increased programmatic interest and activity, directly driven by a need to drive efficiency, the higher volume of options in terms of supply and investment options, and the unique dynamics of 2020 and into 2021.”

The Black Lives Matter movement has highlighted what has always been an important issue among agencies – Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. There can be no more delay in implementing policies and actions that foster substantive change in this area. “This has to be a key objective for our industry, it’s not ok to sit on the side-lines and hope someone else will do it. As leaders of businesses we have to be better educated in recognizing that we don’t know what we don’t know, learning more and learning how to actively make those opportunities available to all,” warned Stephanie Marks, Managing Director, Havas U.

A major area of change that might lead to a new normal for viewership is streaming which is now 25% of total video consumption, fostering further fragmentation. Agencies realize that Unification is necessary for the healthy future of television that can be bought at scale more holistically.

“OTT and CTV’s scale and maturity have placed it on an even playing field with linear TV in terms of quality and engagement and offers incremental audiences via advanced targeting capabilities. Holistic planning across all flavors of TV will be key to take full advantage of these platforms so that marketers can maximize unduplicated reach and use the strengths of each platform to deliver the right advertising message,” stated Marissa Jimenez, President, MODI Media.

Fueling this need for convergence is Addressable which, for agencies, is the necessary next step in television’s growth and relevancy to marketers. Comcast Advertising noted that in June 2020, nine programmers began addressable trials for project OAR (Open, Addressable, Ready) and AMC was the first to join Comcast Advertising’s On Addressability in the U.S. This is expected to expand in 2021.

For Jason Han, Senior Vice President of Addressable Innovation for Matterkind, “Addressable TV is taking significant steps in its evolution as programmers are opening up their national inventory and new solutions are being tested. 2021 promises to unlock new levels of scale for advertisers looking to reach specific desired audiences in a premium environment that clients value.”

Will 2021 hearken in a “new normal” for our business? There is every indication that the seeds planted in 2020 from measurement to addressability to programmatic to inclusion will blossom into a stronger, more viable media ecosystem that is, indeed, a new, robust normal.

This article first appeared in www.MediaVillage.com

 

 

Ignore the Hispanic Consumer at Your Peril. An Interview with a4’s Glenda Villanueva-Marchetta

As datasets get more granular, advertisers are able to maximize their ability to hyper target a range of important consumer groups. One important consumer constituency, Hispanics, is poised to become a significant percentage of the U.S. population in the coming years. 

A company like a4, with its rich dataset that includes the highly diverse New York DMA, is a must-have for advertisers as Glenda Villanueva-Marchetta, a4’s Head of Multicultural , explains in this exclusive interview.

Altice and a4 Advertising

According to Villanueva-Marchetta, a4 is, “the national, audience driven multi-screen ad division for Altice USA.” Altice, as the parent company, “has a very strong presence in Europe and the Caribbean in the Dominican Republic and in 2016, 2017 purchased Suddenlink on the West coast and Cablevision on the East coast making us the fourth largest operation in the U.S. for video services and broadband with operations in over 20 states.”

Over the years, Altice purchased several data companies. That, in addition to the granular data provided by its footprint, enables a4 to offer advertisers hyper-targeting opportunities. “Our super power is our proprietary ISP authenticated IP targeting technology, which is unique to us,” she explained. This enables a4 to, “Marry our IP addressability with multicultural audiences,” she added. There is arguably no better dataset to reach a range of ethnicities as a4’s with the Cablevision footprint. “I didn’t realize that the most diverse area in the world was Queens,” she explained. 

Changes in the Media Marketplace

In assessing the state of the current marketplace, with all of these seismic society changes and challenges, Villanueva-Marchetta is introspective. “There have been so many changes. From a personal standpoint, working from home has changed everything with added screen time and,” she explained, “telling a Latino to social distance, it just goes against our social being. In terms of business, some of our clients have changed drastically from Covid to the social movement. So just when you thought you would get back to normal, there has been an impact to our customers’ needs. This has made us refocus. Connection to multicultural consumers is more important than ever and the social movement has given us a voice.”

This change is not only growing, it is forming new alliances. “Something that I find is exciting is that all of the different groups are actually aligning and allying with each other,” she stated. “Our customers, brands and ad agencies are looking to connect to multicultural consumers in an authentic way. I also think they are acknowledging that they need more flexibility than ever.”

Priorities for 2021

In looking ahead to next year, Villanueva-Marchetta  sees a new type of media marketplace. “Maybe upfront buys will change in the future,” she noted, “You have to be able to pivot. Pivoting without penalties is critical and pivoting your budgets and creative, we realize that we have to be more nimble than in the past.” The future also brings more of what we are seeing during the pandemic such as “device proliferation. We are watching more screens than ever, so we need a strategy that is all platforms. And there is greater competition for consumer attention and binge watching,” she explained and added that it was important to reach consumers in the language that they are speaking.

She continued that, “Industry regulations are changing. We have to refocus our third party cookie campaigns. That’s going to be a priority for 2021. Digital campaigns now need to place an emphasis on using first party data. There are a bunch of things coming together at once at the end of this year and moving forward into 2021.” For Villanueva-Marchetta , “Data driven advertising, because it is addressable, is efficient. So when you are looking to do more with less, this is the best way. It is an audience driven play. Addressability will definitely play a bigger role going forward.”

The Hispanic Market Explained

If there is one ethnic group that advertisers cannot afford to ignore, it is Hispanics. According to Villanueva-Marchetta, there are 28.8 million Hispanics in the U.S., which represent about 20% of the population. It is one of the fastest growing segments and represents $2trillion in buying power.  “To put it into context, the U.S. Hispanic population is larger than Canada. If it were a separate Latin American country, we would be the second largest and wealthiest in the world,” she noted. In the next five years, the non-Hispanic white population of the U.S. is set to decline while the Hispanic population is poised to grow. “Negative 1.3 million versus positive 6.6 million,” she added, “This growth isn’t stopping. The growth has and will come from birth rates, not from immigration. One in every three in the Alpha generation is Hispanic.”

Seventy percent of the Hispanic population is bi-lingual and even among the younger generations, the language is not lost. “There is a misconception that if you are born in this country that you are not using Spanish anymore. That’s not the case. We hold our culture very dear to us. Speaking Spanish at home, especially to your elders is a sign of respect,” she noted. “It’s easy to mingle when you are bi-lingual.”

Hispanics account for 63% of all U.S. home ownership, fueling purchasing behavior in all of the consumer product and services that go with that lifestyle. Further, “we represent 81% of the labor force growth,” she stated, as well as influencing the overall culture such as the SuperBowl in the large Hispanic market Miami that boasted three Latina performers.

Why Target Hispanic Consumer?

When I asked Villanueva-Marchetta this question, she explained, “As a brand, as an advertiser, it is crazy to continue to advertise to a segment of the population that is declining and not advertise to a segment of the population that is growing. We are not only growing in size, we are growing in wealth and in influence. Thirty-two million of us will be eligible to vote. Look at the numbers. Look at the buying power. Look at the money that is there. If you are a company looking at your five year plan, and you are not considering multicultural, how will you grow your business?” Then she paused and added, “I don’t see how.”

This article first appeared in www.MediaVillage.com

 

 

Power of Local and of Data. Interview with Spectrum's Kim Norris

It is certainly a strange time for those of us grappling with the pandemic's impact on media. Budgets are more uncertain as advertising is readjusting to a new reality. For someone like Kim Norris (pictured at top), Group Vice President, Advanced Advertising Sales at Spectrum Reach, who manages a team across all TV and digital sales channels, COVID-19 has posed strategic challenges, creative opportunities and a cause for optimism.

The Redefining of Television Before and After the Pandemic
"Pre-pandemic we were seeing a significant shift in the way that television was being consumed and the way advertisers were starting to think about TV as an advertising medium," she explained, as digital technology expanded into the ecosystem and with television increasingly migrating to the IP-based digital platform. "We have seen an expansion of capability," she noted, "fueled by the use of data and its use in planning where linear television is increasingly employing digital techniques. And all of this innovation has ramped up fairly quickly."

She explained that, "For us at Spectrum Reach, television service has been available on the Spectrum TV app for a number of years with ads. That technology, along with consumers time-shifting their viewing with VOD, has propelled television viewing across devices and platforms in our households. Cross-platform has become much more of a way to consume TV."

Consumer Viewing Patterns
For Norris, this evolution in consumer viewing patterns has only accelerated during the pandemic. "What we are seeing is an interesting spike in the viewership. All of television viewing has increased. We are seeing it across live television, across the Spectrum app and across VOD," she said. It is an especially unique situation for advertisers, who, according to Norris, need to reassess their messaging and take into account the sensibilities of the time while also keeping an eye on brand positioning and long term strategy. "Do they have the right creative?" she asked. "The irony is that we have so much activity, inventory and impressions at a time where some advertisers have had to stop and rethink their strategy. It is certainly interesting times for both television and advertisers."

Seeing Opportunities for Advertisers
The changing environment need not be a barrier to messaging. In fact, one could argue that viewers are paying greater attention in their viewing experiences. The opportunity is there for advertisers. "One of the ways we responded at Spectrum was to very quickly address the issue of creative. Your creative message in television of all kinds is very important," she stated. One of the first things that Spectrum did was to offer advertisers a turnkey approach to producing their own creative. "We are already on the path of offering self-provisioning creative platforms primarily for local and regional advertising," she explained, "and this is certainly available for big brands as well." Currently, Spectrum "was able to offer these services at no charge to our local advertisers. We saw a very quick response being able to flip creative very quickly. And more of the agency holding companies and the large national advertisers came back to television with different types of messaging."

One of the biggest changes Norris sees in the advertising ecosystem is the nature of the messaging. "It's almost a positive (change)," she said, "Brands are trying to speak to their consumers in a very human-like way with supportive messaging, such as at a hyperlocal level by letting people know what stores are open and a lot of social service work."

Notable Bumps in Viewing Patterns
Viewing patterns during the pandemic obviously shifted as a result of people sheltering-in-place. Norris, whose company focuses on impressions data especially in local, is able to adeptly monitor trends across platforms. She has seen increases in content type with specific success in Spectrum Reach. Spectrum News' local coverage since mid-March has resulted in its highest Nielsen ratings over a two-month period dating back to at least 2011 and likely in its entire existence. "We have seen a pop in localized content," as well as content that offers escapism. "Entertainment content (viewing) has increased and we are seeing that the total viewership is increasing. It's not just viewing across screens, they are viewing a lot more overall. VOD is increasing and people are searching for new content. There is a lot of social chatter about 'what are you binge watching this week?' across screens."

Norris noted that their business is driven by impressions, especially through their apps. This is an advantage when it comes to measurement and planning. "Our inventory is a direct correlation to consumer engagement on platforms. We've seen a high in May in terms of how many impressions we actually saw coming through the platforms as a result of usage," she noted.

The Greater Importance of Data
When it comes to data, Norris is an expert with years of experience both at Cablevision (where, full disclosure, she hired me for a set-top box data project) and now at Spectrum. "We have been able to pull together our first-party anonymized and aggregated data in combination with third-party datasets, which have allowed us to be able to do more data-infused planning in linear TV as well as more targeted planning across all screens," she said, and added, "I think what we are seeing is an increasing interest into what types of insights and analytics we provide advertisers around that."

Norris shared an example where an advertiser who previously appeared in sports programming could be efficiently re-expressed into non-sports programming with the confidence that they would be reaching the same targeted viewers on both a national and local level. The application of data to ascertain reach and further target audiences has been accelerating since COVID-19 according to Norris and sparking greater interest among advertisers.

Looking Forward
Since the outbreak, Norris has seen that "local is the new normal. There are so many differences in what is happening in states and regions, parts of the country. I think our ability to utilize household addressability or reach at a geo level or a state level, all of our capabilities around broad reach versus more targeted reach can help brands be specific in their messaging in a more localized manner."
As dire as events may seem today, Norris is optimistic about the future. "It's amazing to me to see how adaptable we all are in the human condition. The optimist in me sees this marketplace of advertising come back in the third quarter. And it will be back in some sense and force for us in the television space. The activity we are seeing cross-screen will accelerate ever more than we might have seen before the pandemic as consumers and advertisers get more familiar with the shifting TV landscape."

This article first appeared in www.MediaVillage.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