DISH Media Expands Cross-Platform Addressable With Best-in-Class Technology and Consultative Sales

To be successful in sales, one must monitor where the market is going while being flexible enough to respond. For Dave Antonelli, DISH Media's director for Sling TV, that includes taking a holistic view of all the services that DISH Media has to offer, from live OTT to traditional linear; programmatic to addressable.

DISH Media not only offers all of these services, but also generates its own first-party deterministic data to better measure all sales outcomes.

Antonelli's breadth of experience — from large companies such as Viacom (now ViacomCBS) to smaller start-ups such as Cognitiv (programmatic A.I.) and SessionM (mobile) — enables him to easily size up the media landscape and respond quickly to client considerations.

Responding to the Marketplace
Antonelli sees the current media market as fluid, open, and flexible, offering greater opportunity to companies such as DISH Media that can deliver across platforms. Clients, he explains, "are interested in impressions-based, one-to-one targeting or linear. The pipes by which those experiences are delivered are not as crucial as a distinction. It can come in over the internet or a satellite or over cable. It doesn't matter because it is still [the same] video spot reaching consumers, whether in a targeted or traditional linear fashion."

DISH Media technologies play a pivotal role in meeting these advertiser expectations. "Sling TV and DISH have the same overall goal of delivering video, but they are on different pipes," he says. "One is over satellite and the other is over the Internet. It is essentially the same content and a similar experience." How advertisers target or use inventory can vary, but the experience remains the same for the consumer.

Addressable Capabilities
With DISH Media's first-party data, privacy-compliant processes enable impressions-based targeting on a household level. "That is one of the beauties of online advertising, especially for Sling TV, which has a registered subscriber base," he says, adding that both Sling TV and DISH have "deterministic matches, which [are a] great way of targeting people with relevant ads that are more effective for advertisers."

Addressable is a huge part of DISH Media's business for both DISH and Sling TV. "It's a core function of what we do," Antonelli says. "We have the best technology that enables addressable advertising." Its addressable sales span every major vertical, such as automotive, pharma, financial, and retail. "We can match our deterministic dataset through privacy-safe crosswalks with a variety of data vendors that are focused on specific KPIs, such as Polk for Auto," he adds. This includes data such as foot traffic and sales lift for attribution assessments.

A notable advantage in DISH Media's sales arsenal is the ability to launch simultaneous addressable campaigns cross-platform. Antonelli explains that DISH was the first to market this capability. "We can run cross-platform addressable campaigns with targeting and reporting across platforms," he says.

Reach Booster
Another valuable asset in DISH Media sales is the newly launched Reach Booster. "Reach Booster," Antonelli explains, "helps turn a traditional linear campaign into one that is positively impacted by an addressable campaign. We look at reach and frequency from a national schedule for a particular advertiser and a creative unit. We are able to determine the reach and frequency across the entire national linear schedule for that spot and then pair it with our deterministic dataset to determine the actual reach and frequency within our subscriber base."
So, if a particular household has not been reached by the linear national ad to the degree that the advertiser would like, they can then be fed an addressable ad to attain that unduplicated reach and that desired frequency. Though only launched in January, Reach Booster's results are showing substantial increases in reach and frequency stabilization.

The Team is Everything
To succeed in media sales, "You have to be someone who is curious, and you have to understand a lot of complexity," Antonelli says, adding that this is where his team excels. Selling a static product isn't an option due to the ever-changing nature of today's landscape. "You have to keep learning and asking questions, know your product, and understand the landscape."
His advice for those seeking a place in today's media sales ecosystem is to strive to be someone who is "curious, thoughtful, and has a consultative approach, who works with agencies as a resource to navigate all of the change." Good advice for other media departments today, as well.

This article first appeared in MediaVillage.com

Will The Media in India Continue to Cover Crimes Against Women?

I have just returned from India which could not have come at a better time for someone interested in assessing the impact of media on the public mind. My impressions are based this visit -- crimes as reported on TV and in newspapers, attendance at public events and discussions with hotel and tourism employees and military personnel.

India’s Demographics

India is a country of contradictions. We might tend to think of it as a place of call centers, technologists and competitive university training. In fact, the vast majority of citizens are either working poor or destitute. According to Wikipedia, 69% of India’s population lives on less than $2 a day.  

Against this economic backdrop, combined with a traditional culture where there is a female to male ratio of 940 to 1000 (as of 2011), crimes against women tend to go unreported and unpunished. India’s female population seems to bear the brunt of heinous crimes. Read any daily newspaper and you will see a litany of brutal sexual attacks against females of all ages – from infants to grandmothers. They say rape occurs in India every 22 minutes but that is certainly understated since many go unreported. Up until recently, there seemed to be no galvanized women’s movement. 

India’s Media Distribution

While rated as an emerging economic powerhouse, India is predominately rural with 85% of the population engaged in agrarian work. Yet even rural villages have access to television. The number of TV homes in India stands at 148 million in 2011 – almost 29% larger than the US. There are 515 channels available and you can see satellite dishes dotting the landscape throughout the country often on the most meager of structures. And there seems to be many news networks. Our hotel in Delhi offered 38 news channels out of a total 95 channel choices.

According to Wikipedia, India's telecommunication network is the second largest in the world based on the total number of telephone users (both fixed and mobile phone) and the world's third-largest Internet user-base with over 137 million as of June 2012. One tour guide told us that mobile was the most common way for Indians to access the internet, as opposed to computers or tablets.

While newspapers are not as prevalent among the poor because of cost and distribution challenges, Businesstoday.com reports that India has the largest number of newspapers / publications (72,000) of any country in the world.

In spite of the poverty, information and editorial can now easily reach deep and wide, urban to rural. But reach is one thing. Can media help to change entrenched attitudes and impact societal change?

Media’s Impact – Recent Events

By now, many of you will have heard about the heinous December 16, 2012 assault of a 23 year old female student who boarded a bus with her date after seeing an evening movie. Once on the bus, six men gang-raped and brutalized her and beat her date before dumping both of them on a Delhi street, naked, battered and bleeding. She eventually succumbed to her injuries and died on Dec 23 after being airlifted to a Singapore hospital.

Rape and other horrific crimes against women are not uncommon in India but there was something about this attack that touched the nation. The country convulsed. Public demonstrations sparked media coverage. Media coverage encouraged more demonstrations and put pressure on politicians, police and the legal system. In a rare display of efficiency, the men were arrested within 24 hours. Charge sheets were filed in record time.

Protecting her identity in a country that punishes and shuns rape victims, she was named “Braveheart”, “Nirbhaya” (Fearless) and “Damini” (Lightning). But it was her father who (illegally under current Indian law) revealed her real name to the press because he wanted her to be an inspiration to rape survivors.  Other rape victims then came forward. Then there was a backlash from traditionalists followed by a surprising backlash to the backlash. “Godmen” espousing insensitive and injurious opinions were vilified.

 
With all due respect to Gil Scott-Heron, the revolution was televised.

An employee at one of our hotels spoke to us at length about this crime and the pervasiveness of all crimes against women. He lamented that, as media attention to this assault and murder fades, the public’s ability to effect change will fade too. Therefore, he said, it is incumbent on the media to continue to spotlight this and all crimes against women.

Media in India (like media in our own country) seems to play two roles – fueling the problem with sexually violent content (think Bollywood and their "item songs") or advocating for change. Here is a chance for our industry to not only inform public opinion but also be a catalyst for much needed cultural change. Let's hope these efforts continue.

There are many Facebook pages for Nirbhaya. Here are some links:   

RIP Braveheart

Nirbhaya

Nirbhaya Indian

Article by Charlene Weisler, Weisler Media LLC. She can be reached through her blog www.WeislerMedia.blogspot.com or at WeislerMedia@yahoo.com. Twitter: www.twitter.com/weislermedia