The Sept. 11 Advanced Advertising Summit, part of NYC TV Week, brought together the people and companies leading the charge to make TV advertising more effective and efficient. The day-long event also recognized winners of the Advanced Advertising Innovation Awards. Click on the gallery below for event photos. (Photos by Mark Reinertson)

The Advanced Advertising Summit panel Measuring Results looked at the latest ways to measure campaign performance, from counting impressions to determining return on investment. 

Sean Cunningham, president and CEO of the Video Advertising Bureau, moderated. He asked the panelists to define advanced advertising. Leslie Wood, iSpot.tv chief research officer, described it as the tools that were built for digital that are increasingly factoring into TV buys. “Across the board, we are bringing the digital world into TV,” she said.  

Erica Barnes, A+E Networks senior director, audience innovation, spoke about advertiser aims varying from target age and gender, to something more specific like consumers who ride bicycles. “Our industry is evolving so much,” she said, “with brands at different stages of evolution.”

As the conversation progressed, Mohammed Chughtai, global head of advanced TV at MiQ, mentioned the quality of data decreasing, causing a trust issue with the user. “The lack of trust in digital will happen to the addressable TV space,” he said. “The same audience is being recycled.”

Barnes spoke about A+E offering business outcome guarantees to build trust with partners. “We want to move away from general reach impressions,” she said. 

She spoke about a women’s health brand planning to advertise on Lifetime, but A+E research saw that it would pop in a few shows on History. The brand went with the new plan, and Barnes spoke of “unbelievable numbers” for the campaign. 

Larry Allen, VP and general manager, data & addressable enablement, Comcast Advertising, said there can be pushback from advertisers set in the traditional ways of buying ads. There used to be one way to buy television, he said, and now there are multiple ways. It can be a lot to sort out. 

“Let the data tell you what is logical now,” he said. “Before, we didn’t have the data.”

Cunningham brought up whether AI will emerge as a major factor in the ad game. “Absolutely yes, AI is going to play a part,” said Allen. “But the human has to be the copilot. Or AI has to be the copilot to the human, depending on your perspective.”

Added Barnes, “There’s a lot of nuance that is required for it to be truly effective.”

Executives from leading marketers Pepsi, General Mills, GKS and the University of Phoenix will be speaking at the Advanced Advertising Summit in New York on Sept. 11.

Marketers pay the bills for advanced advertising campaigns and these senior execs will discuss how they made their media investments pay off.

Katie Haniffy, head of media strategy and investment for PepsiCo. Beverages, will be part of a session that will also feature Travis Scoles of Paramount Global and Suzanne Irving of OMD.

Raquel Navarrski, consumer VP, eCommerce Pure Play at General Mills, will talk about engaging viewers during Thursday Night Football with Amy McDevitt, head of sports brand partnerships at Amazon.

Sierra Bodor, director of U.S. vaccines communications at GSK, will talk about the power of emotional storytelling with Maura O’Donovan of A+E Networks/

Laura Schmidt, senior media director for University of Phoenix, will discuss creative rotation optimization with Laura Grover of EDO.

The Advanced Advertising agenda also features keynote speaker, Jon Steinlauf, chief U.S. ad sales officer at Warner Bros. Discovery.

There will be panels on measuring results, addressable advertising, branded content and local advertising.

Executives from Comcast Advertising, The Walt Disney Co., A+E Networks, MiQ, Alliant, iSpot.TV, Spectrum Reach, fullthrottle.ai, AMC Networks, Vizio, Premion, Compulse, Effectv and ShowSeeker will also be speaking.

The event concludes with the presentation of the Advanced Advertising Innovation Awards.

The Advanced Advertising Summit will be held at ETC.venues at 360 Madison Avenue. 

The summit is part of NYC TV Week, which is produced by Future U.S., the publisher of Broadcasting+Cable, Multichannel News and Next TV.

A full agenda and information about attending live can be found here. 

A lineup of leading industry executives shared insights and best practices for making television advertising more effective at the Advanced Advertising Summit, held Wednesday, June 21, at the Sofitel Los Angeles as part of the L.A. TV Week of events produced by Future plc’s Broadcasting+Cable, Multichannel News and Next TV. The day-long conference also recognized the winners of the Advanced Advertising Innovation Awards. Click below for photos from the Summit. 

Leading off the Advanced Advertising Summit on June 21, part of L.A. TV Week, B+C longtime business editor Jon Lafayette chatted with Mike Fisher, executive director, investment innovation, at media agency GroupM. Their chat followed a presentation by Fisher about pressure points facing the advertising industry as identified by GroupM. Audiences are fragmented: Top shows were generating 10 Nielsen ratings points in 2014, but now they barely break a 1.0. People are watching on numerous devices, not just a TV, and premium content lives across all of those outlets, increasingly being streamed, not broadcast. Specific “walled garden” approaches to measuring viewers across platforms don’t necessarily communicate with each other, and data can be hard to pry away from the platform providers to benefit the advertiser. Topics like that. Highlights of their chat, at the Sofitel Los Angeles in Beverly Hills, are presented here with edits made for clarity and space.  

Jon Lafayette: You talked about the way that you may have to change the way you approach planning. Does that entail starting with traditional media and filling it with streaming? Or are you starting with streaming in order to, in order to build a plan?

Mike Fisher: Yeah, I think traditionally we are starting with traditional and filling it in with streaming. I don't think this is the desired state long-term. I actually believe that we should be starting with audience, starting with streaming and audience optimizing. Linear does still drive a good amount of tonnage. And being able to include audience-based linear in a plan is important as well. We don't want to break out a streaming budget, a linear budget, an addressable budget, a data-driven budget. It starts with an audience. And if we can find that audience in traditional reach and frequency, linear, that's great. Increasingly, as I talked about, we can't, so we need to add these things in. But they shouldn't be thought of as add-ons later on. We should be looking at all supply equal and what’s the best way to take that audience and find them everywhere they're watching?

JL: You also talked about the walled gardens getting higher. Are the YouTubes and the Netflixes and the Amazons becoming more transparent as they sell more advertising and measurement, as companies like iSpot, Comscore, even Nielsen get better at measuring streaming?

MF: They are starting to open up a little bit more on the data front. I don’t think we have any illusions that we’re all of a sudden going to start getting real-time data feeds from Google that give us all sorts of information about their users. That's not something that they've built their entire business on. Privacy is paramount to these people. But we have seen more open understanding of why we need some sort of interoperability, whether or not it's some sort of common identifier or common industry-led standard, to at least give us the ability to do cross-publisher frequency capping, cross-publisher audience rolling up, stuff like that.

JL: You are head of a new investment innovation group. Tell me about investment innovation and what it takes to convince a client to try something new.

MF: Sure. That’s a loaded question. So the idea of investment innovation is to figure out, you know, how do we spend our clients’ money better using technology? And it’s not just how do we do it with clients. I would say 60% of my job is internal. How do I get our team to think about how convergence works? How do I get legacy TV buyers to better understand the value of impression-based buying and audience-based buying? How do I get digital buyers who are thinking in tonnage and thinking in, ‘just deliver an impression, at a moment’ to understand the value of premium content and the importance of content and context matching up with an ad message. So it’s all sorts of internal blocking and tackling as well as our clients understanding how do they use the technology ecosystem better to accomplish their goals. And then I also work very closely with the networks themselves who we buy media from to make sure that what they’re working on and developing are the same things that our clients are asking for from us.

JL: So you must see all the new stuff first. What have you seen lately that really looks like it might have some value to the agency and tier clients?

MF: I mean, the easy answer to say is AI. But I don’t believe that. I don’t think we are at a point right now where AI can help us do our jobs any better than the tools that we already have. I think some of the cooler stuff is around measurement and longer-term understanding of the value that a specific airing or delivery of an impression-based ad has on, not just driving viewership and audience, but driving long-term brand outcome. And the tools that allow us to take that and do more of that. The idea is that we have savings goals with all of our clients. What we tell our clients, and one of the things that my team has been telling our clients for the last two years, is we need to pay more for impressions, but we should buy way fewer impressions. We need to make the impressions that we're buying, they’re going to cost more, more goes into it. They're going to look more expensive as an actual impression. But they’re going to generate far better results and we’re going to buy far fewer of them. And our clients are going to save money by reducing waste. And then we’re going to take that understanding and feed that back into the planning cycle so we can do more of what’s working.

JL: So which is more important, the saving money part or the becoming more effective part? Which, which one sells better?

MF: I’m not going to answer that question. [Audience laughs.]

JL: So have you ever found a thing, it sounded like a really good idea and it just blew up, didn't work, was vaporware. How much of that goes on in the advanced advertising realm?

MF: I’ve said this before, a lot of times we as TV people score ourselves a little bit too harshly. I was at a conference a couple of months ago where I was on stage with a panelist. He was talking about how, you know, the level of innovation that's happening in the TV space is not the same as the level of innovation that’s happening in other spaces. I think it’s bullshit. I think we”ve done a really great job and should celebrate the wins of pulling a industry that was stuck in their ways in television for the same 40 to 50 years forward rapidly. And I'm not saying it’s perfect. There are technology limitations that make it more difficult for us to conduct business the way we would ideally want to be conducting business. But we’ve done a damn good job of getting clients and getting our network partners and the ad tech ecosystem and everybody, even as an agency, all of us coming together to say we can be doing our jobs better and we can be delivering more accountable, targetable, measurable impressions today while the backend plumbing gets built for tomorrow.

JL: In terms of innovation, there's been a lot of talk about currency. I guess the networks all got together before the Joint Industry Committee and then had to convince media buyers to get involved in the process. How do you see, how do you see that process working? Is that going to, is that going to move the ball in terms of, uh, creating currencies, uh, that are based on data you guys have already been using to shape your media buys?

MF: Currency is one of those things that we think a lot about, right? Currency is how we are paying for, and how a seller is selling us, an ad. The JIC, the Joint Industry Committee, which I’m very pro-JIC, is not designed to create currencies. It is designed to create measurement standards that are currency-grade. Media technology providers Nielsen, Comscore, VideoAmp, iSpot and others: They’re creating measurement tools that are validated as being currency-grade. Currency is decided between the buyer and the seller. It is up to me and Paramount and NBC and Warner [Bros.] Discovery to determine how are we transacting using the measurement vendors that are in place. So when Nielsen stands up and says C3 is the currency of record this year, it’s not unless we and the media seller decide to transact on that. So it’s not up to the media, the measurement companies to create currencies. It’s up to them to create strong measurement tools that we believe can be currency-grade.

JL: And does changing your currency change what you buy?

MF: I don’t think so. Because at the end of the day, it’s all counting. We just wanna make sure that we’re counting the right way. 

JL: Where are you guys now in terms of Nielsen versus other currencies in terms of what you're buying and how you're buying it?

MF: We were very disappointed that Nielsen was not ready this year to move away from panel-only data. Nielsen has been talking a lot around their Nielsen One suite to enable big data plus the Nielsen panel. They were not ready for this year’s upfront to be transacted on it. So most of this year’s upfront will continue to transact on the legacy Nielsen panel-only data sets. But we are running side-by-side shadow currency tests using [other] measuring companies, like I mentioned, to get a better understanding of where the discrepancies between panel only and panel plus big data lie.

JL: How much disruption is that? And how will that change when there's a choice on a menu of like five or six different currencies that you could approach different deals with different clients on? 

MF: At the end of the day, you know, I think we as an industry still need to figure out how these different currency-grade products fit together. Our clients don’t want to look at four or five different reports for four or five different media sellers. They want one number that’s validated as being able to say, ‘This is how much money I spent, this is how many of my intended audience saw that unit.’ So I think we're still trying to figure out how we bring together different measurement standards to create that. That’s really one of the benefits of the JIC, which is to create the common standards that everybody’s using, both on the buy and sell side, but also validate that the measurement standards are consistent enough that you could bring these data sets together.

JL: The networks did all of their wonderful upfront presentations in May mostly. Since then it's been sort of quiet. What's the economy look like? What does the media economy look like? What are, what are people talking about as the upfronts slowly, quietly move along?

MF: I wouldn't say quiet, I would say deliberate. We believe that it is a buyer’s market this year. Viewership has changed. You know, we are looking at a little bit of uncertainty with the current WGA strike as well as the potential of the SAG strike. We don't believe it'll have an immediate impact, but we do think it could have an impact longer term on some networks, especially ones that are heavy into scripted content. So we are being a little bit more deliberate than usual as we approach the marketplace. But we're having good conversations and we have seen a lot of excitement from our clients around the role of the upfronts.

JL: So does that create a bigger opportunity for the digital people who are selling already created content to be able to grab bigger shares of media budgets?

MF: I think yes, but it also creates a big opportunity for the traditional networks who have a vast amount of library content in streaming services that they own outright. Being able to say, you know, even shows that were huge 10 or 15 years ago — Lost, Mad Men. Those types of shows are new to an entire generation of people. That's new content. There’s a lot of people out there who never saw Lost, and that’s the type of stuff that the networks that have that library content and understand how to drive people to that during a time when it may be harder to have first-run new content being produced due to the economy, economic conditions or the strike, they will win out for that.

JL: So premium content doesn't necessarily have to be new content.

MF: Correct. It’s what's new to you, what's premium to you when you want to watch it.

JL: And that includes, and I think you talked about this a little bit in your presentation, all the stuff that’s on the YouTubes and the TikToks and stuff like that. That's where you're going when it comes time for people do their TV buying now.

MF: No, not to me and not to most of us in the room, but to the next generation, yes.

JL: And how does that affect the way all the dollars are allocated? Is it on a generational basis? 

MF: It’s all about a deeper understanding of the audience. That's where we get into the idea of multi-varied audience planning. Not just saying, ‘Hey, you're looking for somebody who eats breakfast to buy Pop-Tarts,’ but someone who eats breakfast at 6 a.m., you know, before they go to school. That's probably a TikTok audience. Stuff like that.

JL: And how do you make sure that when you're buying that kind of content that you're not getting into objectionable areas, that it's not either poorly produced, misinformation, those sorts of things? That you're not adjacent to that kind of content? That is hard to police.

MF: GroupM has a fairly robust responsible investment framework that includes user-generated content, objectionable content, news, anything that would be questionable for brand adjacency. So we do a pretty good job of screening for that and baking that into our deals. You know, obviously, it becomes harder to police [objectionable material] in user-generated content. That's why tools like YouTube Select and some of the more brand-safe aggregators, sold directly by the end seller, there's more accountability there.

JL: And does that actually work? I mean, how many times do you get complaints about, uh, about how did our ad run there? Is it, what's the visibility to where ads actually run as the supply chains get more and more convoluted?

MF: I wouldn’t say that there’s a massive amount of complaints we get. Obviously, when you're dealing with an audience-targeted world, stuff does slip through the same way it does slip through in digital. A great example is if you are in the market for travel and you may see maybe inside of an audience and see an Airbnb ad. Um, it's not because Airbnb is sponsoring this particular objectionable piece of content. It's how digital advertising works. You’re in the audience that got bought. It slipped through. It’s few and far between. We very rarely have clients call us or the vendors that we work with very rarely catch these issues.

A lineup of top executives will share insights and best practices for making television advertising more effective at the Advanced Advertising Summit. The summit is being held Wednesday, June 21, at the Sofitel Los Angeles as part of L.A. TV Week, an event produced by Future plc, which publishes Broadcasting+Cable, Multichannel News and Next TV. 

Speakers from media buying giant GroupM and smart-TV data innovator Vizio will deliver keynote sessions. 

Opening the event will be Mike Fisher, executive director of investment innovation at GroupM. Fisher leads a new GroupM team responsible for working closely with clients and partners in areas such advanced TV, cross-channel integrations, new ad formats and models and measurement and research capabilities. 

In his role at GroupM, Fisher has helped push the agency’s clients to test and scale advanced advertising approaches and work with ground-breaking providers like iSpot and OpenAP. 

Fisher will let attendees know what buyers are looking for when choosing media partners.

Another keynote speaker is Charbel Makhoul, general manager, VP of product, data science and analytics at Vizio, one of the first TV set makers to harness and license automated content recognition data. 

At Vizio, Makhoul guides the ACR technology roadmap for Vizio’s Inscape data unit and is responsible for evolving and maintaining currency-grade TV viewing data. 

In his segment, Makhoul will talk about new ways smart TV data can be used to make TV advertising more efficient and effective and the critical role it is playing in the evolution of measurement. 

Awards Program Returns

Makhoul will also accept on behalf of Vizio an Advanced Advertising Innovation Award. The awards are being given to companies and products leading the way in encouraging the adoption of new technology and pioneering ways of improving the effectiveness and accountability of television advertising. 

In what is expected to be a fun and interactive segment, attendees will help use technology from PadSquad to customize creative executions for specific audience segments and devices. The segment, titled “Let’s Build A Remarkable Campaign: A Creative Improv,” is designed to get people out of the chairs while also illustrating how its possible to efficiently iterate content for targeted advanced advertising campaigns. 

The session will be led by Cathy Collette, regional VP for the West Coast at PadSquad.

The event will also feature panels that will discuss issues of interset to the advertising industry. 

“Hitting The Target” will look at how identity systems, clean rooms and contextual data are all being used to assure that the right message reaches the right consumer. 

“Measuring Up” looks at the growth of the number of companies offering TV measurement based on big-data solutions, and addresses the question of which data is really important in planning, buying, measuring and evaluating advanced advertising campaigns. 

There will be a panel on addressable advertising, a technology that is gaining scale and sophistication. Linear TV is becoming more addressable thanks to new alliances among distributors,  while streaming services and FAST channels offer their own flavors of targeting and addressability. 

Local TV Is in the Mix

Local television won’t be left out of the discussion. A panel will look at how local advertisers can reach their customers via TV and digital channels and the tools and technology needed to build and sell multiplatform ad campaigns. 

Confirmed panels come from companies including Comcast’s Effectv, Sinclair Broadcast Group’s Compulse and research company 605. 

“Anyone interested in the latest development in data and technology, and the best ways to put them to use, should be attending this year’s Advanced Advertising Summit in Los Angeles,” Jon Lafayette, business editor of  Broadcasting+Cable, said. “Attendees will also get a chance to rub shoulders with some of the most innovative and accomplished leaders in the industry and learn tricks of the trade that can help them advance their careers.” 

Blockchain could play a “critical” role in the ad-tech business, providing needed transparency and helping smaller companies counter the walled gardens of advertising behemoths like Google, Viant CEO Tim Vanderhook said during a session at NYC TV Week’s Advanced Advertising Summit Monday.

“Blockchain is going to play a critical role in advertising,” Vanderhook said, adding that one of the big concerns for ad-tech companies at present is whether publishers are getting paid properly. 

“When you think of the blockchain and putting the payment on the blockchain for the publisher, you can now have full transparency up the chain on who got paid what,” Vanderhook continued. “I think for advertisers, who we represent, they want trans to make sure we deliver the dollar to the publisher that was supposed to get there. So I think the blockchain is going to deliver transparency in spades, which is going to be an enormous thing.”

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He also saw the currency as a means to return some control to smaller companies dealing with huge behemoths like Google for their ad revenue.  

“The blockchain can also help to counter walled gardens, big walled gardens like Google who run centralized ad exchanges,” Vanderhook said. “You’re basically at their mercy to get your check 60 days later. And they can change the impressions, they can change the dollar amount, there’s no real control. I think there is something around the blockchain in creating a decentralized advertising service that the whole Open Web can tap into that no one controls.”

Vanderhook admitted it will probably be a while until something like that becomes reality, but “I just feel like there’s there there.”

Vanderhook has made his living anticipating the future, with varying results. A co-founder of FAST pioneer Xumo with his brother Chris in 2011, the two sold the company to Comcast in 2019, just 12 days before the pandemic hit. 

“I looked at my brother and said, ‘Oh my gosh, it was the first time in life we’ve ever been lucky,’ ” Vanderhook joked. “And about a month later we spoke to the CEO [and], he said, ‘Man, you won’t believe it, revenue is up 400%, usage is up 500%,’ and they were off and running. Still not lucky.’ ”  

But that same year the two brothers repurchased another startup they founded and earlier sold to Time Inc., ad-tech firm Viant. The Vanderhooks bought back Viant for about $50 million in total valuation. When they took the company public in 2021, Viant had a $1.5 billion valuation and raised $286 million. The stock has since fallen sharply — it is down about 92% from its closing price on February 12, 2021, the date of its IPO, but Vanderhook added the offering served its purpose, providing the capital needed to move the business forward. 

“We got the capital and have been investing in R&D and the business is off and running and doing great,“ he said. ”The stock price is still in the tank, but the business fundamentals are great.”

Xumo was one of the first FAST services, but now it appears to be one of the hottest segments in the industry. Vanderhook said he and his brother based Xumo on the Spotify model, basically offering something for free with ads and driving those customers to the paid, ad-free service.  

Now companies that have held out from offering ads — Netflix and Disney Plus — are planning to launch ad-supported versions. Vanderhook said it could have a huge impact on revenue for both companies. 

“In the end, free users create who you go after to create paid subscribers,” Vanderhook said. “And free is the cheapest way to pull somebody into a new service. Anyone who’s in growth marketing knows that if you roll free content, you’re going to get a lot more people to tune in. That’s a lot easier and more cost-efficient than getting people to sign up for a free trial of a brand new service.” 

As far as the revenue impact, Vanderhook noted that FuboTV generates about $7 in ad-supported revenue each month. For Roku, it’s $3.75 per month and Vizio generates about $2 in monthly ad revenue. 

“This is huge when you compare it to $15 a month for just a subscription,” Vanderhook said. “It has the ability to substantially lift their revenue.”

Vanderhook also is encouraged about the rise in interactivity on the internet, but added he feels the industry has only scratched the surface. The ability to manipulate video and place interactivity over content, for applications such as live gambling, is a step toward realizing the technology’s true potential, he added. 

“We’re still pushing videos, pre-produced and edited in a flat file and pushing it out to people, which is what linear TV created,” Vanderhook said. “It’s a great experience, but it could be so much more.”

On the interactive advertising side, Vanderhook said among the hurdles to overcome are “cookies,” the small pieces of data that are used to identify a user. With connected TVs, he says cookies are the reason that ads are duplicated so often. And luckily, Viant's specialty is delivering targeted ads without cookies. That cookie-less future is where Vanderhook believes the whole ad business is moving. 

“We think cookies are a really big problem,” he said. “When you get into CTV, we all have the same experience in streaming, everyone sees the same advertisement over and over again. Why is that? There’s no user ID for a DSP like us to stop buying the ad. When that ad request comes across, it looks like a new user every time, even though it's the same one. So, solving identity in these cookie-less environments like connected TV, that’s what we set out to do, that’s what we accomplished — our ID works 90% of the time across the hit stream.“ ▪️

Comcast Advertising president James Rooke called the notion that advertisers must choose between putting their money into linear or streaming networks but not both a “false narrative” at the Advanced Advertising Summit Monday, adding that only through collaboration will advanced ad tech get the boost it needs. 

“I think there is a narrative out there at the moment that says hey, you should be putting money in linear or streaming, and it’s an either or, I think that’s a false narrative,” Rooke said at the event, part of NYC TV Week. “The reason for that is because if you’re an advertiser, then ultimately you’re looking to reach your audience, get the maximum reach possible, the most efficient reach possible wherever those viewers are.”

Also: Comcast Finds Campaign Reach Peaks With 20%-30% of Spend on Streaming 

In the U.S. that means going after viewers with traditional TV, satellite, cable and telco video service, as well as cord-cutters who are getting video from streaming SVOD, FAST and AVOD providers.

“If you’re just buying CTV, then you're isolating a large portion of the population, and that seems problematic,” Rooke said. 

Rooke added that although it is clear that traditional linear TV is declining, it still represents the larger piece of the viewing audience and will for the foreseeable future.

“Our view is that traditional linear TV will remain a foundation for a cross-screen campaign,” Rooke added. “We think between 20% and 30% of budgets should be moved into streaming.”

Also: Group M's Gerber Says Measurement is Still Key to Ad Evolution 

In that scenario, linear TV starts to slag off with lighter viewing households. That’s where streaming comes in, he said. According to Rooke, dollars spent on streaming gets 2.5 times better performance and spending dollars on live streaming results in 2.5 times better performance in light TV households. 

“The point is, it’s not a choice of either/or,” Rooke said. “It is how you better plan and then manage optimization of delivery across the fragmented distribution points that you’ve got that’s going to get you to a better outcome.”

Rooke also championed collaboration between streaming and traditional TV outlets, pointing to Comcast’s recent partnership with Charter Communications for its Flex TV streaming service. 

Other pearls of wisdom from the Comcast executive included:

• Better measurement is needed, but Comcast isn’t choosing sides. Rooke said that while measurement may be “broken,” Comcast “is not in the business of picking a winner.” Instead, Rooke said Comcast would rather help stimulate competition and innovation. “We don't want to replace Nielsen, we believe in a multi-currency world that is solving for cross screen. … From a data standpoint, we are willing to have conversations with players to be able to license aggregated viewership data to them, in spirit helping them to solve for that problem.”
• The midterm elections are going to play a big role in Advanced Advertising’s success. Rooke estimated ad revenue from the mid-terms could be $10 billion higher than the 2020 presidential election or about 3.5 times bigger than the last midterm elections. “It’s the strongest category by far,” he said. “We’re gearing up for the window that’s coming up.” He said Comcast is aiming to try to get more of the dollars that overwhelmingly go to local broadcast TV stations.
• Rooke sees the biggest challenge for advanced advertising going forward is the “significant” amount of backend transfer work that needs to take place going forward. “There’s a lot of engine room work that needs to get done to be able to bring the industry to the promised land,” he said. NYC TV Week continues with the Next TV Summit and Hispanic Television Summit. ■ 

Advanced Advertising Summit panel “The Local View” looked at TV stations and cable operators reaping revenue on their digital and over-the-top platforms. Local advertising on linear TV is in a good spot, the panelists said, and OTT adds to the take. 

“What we like to focus on is the tremendous broad reach of broadcast,” said Christopher Martinez, Hearst Television OTT director of sales. “Linear and OTT working together has revitalized the need for local.”

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Jon Lafayette, business editor of B+C Multichannel News, moderated the panel. 

Jim Loughran, senior VP of convergent video partnerships at Viamedia, acknowledged the cord-cutting issue and said, “broadcast and cable have huge reach and it’s not going away.“ Adding OTT to the local mix, he added, “makes the reach excellent.”

Kristin Wnuk, director of local sales at Roku, mentioned the measurability of OTT. “CTV and OTT absolutely gives clients the opportunity to extend their reach,” she said. “It also gives clients the opportunity to measure differently.”

Carol Hinnant, Comscore chief revenue officer, said there are “too many siloes” in terms of measuring viewing on the various platforms. “That is definitely the challenge,” she said.

Loughran mentioned how some clients don’t understand the value of some of the advanced measurements available to them, including cross-platform attribution. “People are very comfortable with doing things the way they’ve been doing them for a long time,” he said, adding that it’s on the salespeople to tell the story well.

Hinnant agreed. “That’s the key word, educating,” she said, “The desire to have better metrics is there.”

Wnuk said most everyone in television is trying to bridge the gap between linear and digital. “We are at a time when not all ad impressions are created equally,” she added.

When Lafayette asked about hot ad categories, the panelists mentioned the chip shortage continuing to slow down auto sales, but said other categories have bumped up. Loughran mentioned COVID testing and vaccine centers, cannabis, sports gambling and solar energy ramping up spending. “You have things that didn’t exist before,” he said.

Political spending, the panelists noted, remains red hot around our divided nation. “Political’s very strong. It’s gonna be very strong until they change the rules,” said Loughran. 

Despite reports of its demise, local television looks to stay hot, the panelists agreed. “Is local dead?” Wnuk asked. “It’s absolutely not.” 

NYC TV Week continues on Tuesday with the Next TV Summit and on Wednesday with the Hispanic TV Summit. ■

The Advanced Advertising Summit panel “CTV’s Big Moment“ looked at the booming connected-TV space and how the likes of Disney Plus and Netflix will fare as they push into the ad-supported connected-TV world. Adam Gaynor, chief revenue officer and interim president of Gamut, said the category looks “incredibly strong,” with more and more viewing happening on the streaming side. 

Diana Horowitz, Imagine Communications VP of strategic sales and advertising technology, said the viewer boom is a catalyst for advertising. “As viewership continues to grow,” she said, “the advertising outlook is very strong.”

Danielle DeLauro, VAB executive VP, moderated the panel. Lori Cassorla, senior VP, group media director, investments at Mediahub Worldwide, said a lot of advertisers Mediahub works with are shifting to streaming, “but it’s definitely not a wholesale share shift,” with broadcast still commanding eyeballs. 

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DeLauro asked the panel about Netflix and Disney Plus entering the advertising space. Marni Rommel, VP of business development at Beachfront, said users will try the new platforms. “I think we’ll see a lot of testing and experimenting” in the near future, she said. “People follow the content they want to see.”

Anthony Susi, director at Xandr, said a minimal ad load will be likely for Netflix. “When you’re into Stranger Things, you don’t want to break,” he said. “It needs to be a careful go-to-market.”

Gaynor noted how frequent repetition of ads diminishes the viewer experience considerably. “We know what we do in the marketplace helps the end-all viewer,” he said. 

The panel mentioned how the streamers will be bigger players in sports. “Live sports is a huge, huge piece of the marketplace and content that people crave,” Cassorla said.

Programmatic was also discussed. Gaynor said programmatic “should be considered a process, and not a product.” He mentioned how programmatic “drastically limits our ability to scale in a marketplace,” whether it’s campaigning politicians or car dealers. 

The panelists said the FAST category looks to remain hot. “We’re getting a lot of demand from our customers,” said Horowitz. “There’s a hunger for the great content. Free ad-supported content, I expect to see a lot of growth.”

Free is the right price for many in this day and age. “People are only willing to pay for a certain amount of subscriptions,” Cassorla said. “The fragmentation is making us all build our own cable bundles.” ■

As streaming video tightens its grip on the way consumers view and engage with content, advertisers need to find ways to effectively measure audiences in the new paradigm, while at the same time remain flexible in how they sell ads beyond traditional pods and shows, Group M executive director, U.S. investment strategy Adam Gerber said at the Advanced Advertising Summit, leading off NYC TV Week. 

Measurement has been a major concern for advertisers, networks and buyers for years as streaming has further fragmented viewership. Gerber, who kicked off his speech by comparing the current ad environment to the Doomsday Glacier — the massive sheet of arctic ice that is expected to play havoc with world sea levels — said fragmentation is much different today, promoting the need for the industry to work together to find effective solutions.

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Gerber, in a fireside chat with B+C Multichannel News business editor Jon Lafayette, said that in the past, fragmentation meant more distribution choices — hundreds of cable channels versus four broadcasters — but could still be measured via passive panels. With impression-based advertising, measurement becomes dependent on publishers implementing tags or conducting server-to-server integration with measurement companies, which most publishers choose to avoid.  

Also: AVOD a Growing Part of Streaming: Nielsen 

“That’s the growing problem, as measurement is dependent on a publisher or a media company deploying either an SDK, server-to-server integration or a tag, as soon as one of the big ones decides not to participate in that, you don’t have a view of the marketplace,” Gerber said.

But the answer isn’t necessarily having a new measurement currency for the industry, Gerber said, adding that every advertiser will have a different way to evaluate the marketplace and do deals with publishers. Whether that is through attention metrics, audience based metrics or something else depends on the size of the advertiser. But he does believe that the industry needs a common way to size the overall market.

As streaming becomes more prevalent — Nielsen reported that streaming video share surpassed cable and broadcast for the first time ever during the month of July — Gerber said questions around ad capacity and valuation become more important. That gap could widen as Netflix and Disney Plus unveil the ad-supported versions of their respective services. Gerber said while streaming’s dominance may be a little questionable on the ad-supported side — he said about half of streaming subs are in non-ad-supported services — those that do air ads do so with less frequency. 

The typical linear network airs 16 minutes to 18 minutes of ads every hour, Gerber estimated. For streamers, that ad load drops to between three minutes and seven minutes each hour. That works out to a 60% decline in ad capacity, meaning that every streaming ad impression has to work harder. 

Also: What If They Launched an Ad-Supported Streaming Service and No One Came? 

The solution, he said, isn’t in returning to the old model — something that will never happen, he believes — but in finding new ways to squeeze money out of ad impressions.

“The challenge for streaming companies is to find the right balance,” Gerber said. “It might not be pods and shows. It might be much more tied to some of the things tied to the streaming space, things like voice navigation, things like commerce, things like sponsor-based models in delivery of programming. I think we have to have a creative renaissance in the streaming space to find new ways to engage consumers in ways that don’t tick them off. I think we’re just getting around to it.” ■

A lot more cooperation is needed for national, individually addressed TV ads to grow, even though there’s big demand for it. That was clear from a panel at the Advanced Advertising Summit, where it was said the addressable-ad spend was perhaps $4 billion to $5 billion a year and unlikely to hit $10 billion anytime soon. The 60 million potential addressable homes isn’t likely to be fully saturated at 90 million anytime soon, either.

“We’re just tapping into the surface of it even though we’ve been at it a while,” Tony Yi, executive VP of business development at Cadent, told B+C business editor Jon Lafayette at the summit panel. Yi said “people tend to overcomplicate addressable, especially linear [network] addressable.”

Muhammad Eldereiny, VP/group director, national video/audio investment strategy at RPA, the ad buyer on the panel, said he would steer 100% of advertisers to addressable ads, because they’re effective, but it’s too complicated to get into enough homes to keep clients happy. 

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“Right now it’s super fragmented” to run addressable campaigns onto different distributors that don’t have the same technology, Eldereiny said. “It takes a long time.” RPA clients are definitely interested, though. “They like it, they just don’t know how to get there and we don’t know how to help them get there. Yet.”

Kent Tseng, VP of product management — advanced advertising at TelevisaUnivision, said being complicated makes going addressable a harder sell than if it was simple to do. “No one wants to be dealing with, ‘oh, this is very hard operationally and creating just a lot of time and operational headaches for us to execute against it.’ The easier we can make it, the better for everybody.”

The panelists were positive overall that addressable ads will reach their potential over time. Or at least growing half its current size in a couple of years if things go right, Yi said.

Bruce Anderson, the CEO and global chief technology officer at Invidi, said there was hope for enough demand by advertisers to push for common solutions among different platforms. Invidi works with DirecTV, Dish Network and Verizon Communications but not with Comcast or Charter Communications, for example. Smart TV makers, and soon enough Roku, have their own platforms, fragmenting things further. 

With the caveat that it’s been wrongly predicted in the past, Anderson said, “I really do think we are at the precipice of actually making this be an easily transacted part of the total business model of advertising on TV. I’m looking forward to actually seeing this happen.” 

Distributors are the key to making a nationwide buy possible, and those distributors are reluctant to share the data that advertisers need without being sure it’s secure, said Jason Manningham, the co-founder and CEO of Blockgraph, a company aiming at that data protection and backed by Comcast, Charter and Paramount (a big addressable backer). “I think data is the next battleground,” he said.

When it works, addressable ads are not only sent to the right people, they are shown often enough to build recall but not so often they become annoying, said Matthew van Houten, senior VP, product, ad ops systems & services and business development at DirecTV Advertising. 

He read some numbers from an addressable campaign DirecTV did in the last quarter for a pharma company trying to reach asthmatic viewers. The addressable ads generated a 27% lift in new-patient signups and a 66% lift in refill rates versus a control group, he said. Addressable campaigns have the highest renewal rate of any at DirecTV, he said.

“When it works it's a beautiful thing,” van Houten said. “More collaboration, that's what we need. We’re going to keep plugging away at that.” He added: “Let’s get to 90 million, let’s do it.” ■

A campaign for a local auto dealer submitted by Charter Communications’s Spectrum Reach unit won the inaugural Advanced Advertising Innovation Award for best campaign of the year.

Awards were also presented to Gamut for a campaign for footwear retailer Merrell for best use of data, Vevo’s campaign for Credit Karma Money for best multiplatform campaign and Fox’s effort for Pepsi Wild Cherry for best branded content.

The awards were presented November 18 at the Advanced Advertising Summit. 

The Spectrum Reach campaign for Florida’s Palm Coast Ford used TV and targeted media and achieved a strong return on ad spending while meeting the client’s key goals, including sales.

Working with the dealership, the audience for the campaign was defined as a former Ford buyer or a shopper in the market for a new truck. Using Spectrum’s first-party data and third-party data from Polk, Spectrum Reach identified the networks that appealed to that automotive shopper for the linear campaign. Online video and search ads helped provide holistic multiscreen media coverage.

The campaign ran from December 14, 2020, to February 28, 2021 in both the dealership’s primary market and an area 20 miles south where Palm Coast Ford had not previously run a campaign.

Traffic to the dealership’s site was up 52% and sales were up 13%, Spectrum Reach said. Homes that were exposed to the ad bought 185 cars, or about one  car for every 500 homes exposed to an ad. Spectrum households accounted for 61% of all sales during the three months, and people who saw an  ad were 121% more likely to buy a new vehicle from Palm Coast Ford than those who didn’t see one.

“The story of Palm Coast Ford is one of local expertise and understanding our customers’ unique goals,” Diana Fusco, division VP of Spectrum Reach, said in accepting the award. 

To support the relaunch of Pepsi Wild Cherry, Fox and Pepsi created a new game show, Cherries Wild, with six half-hour episodes hosted by Jason Biggs.The Wild Cherry brand was integrated into game play and set design and the game was extended across linear, digital, social and mobile media. A custom Cherries Wild interactive mobile gaming app was created, allowing viewers to play at home alongside show contestants in real time.

“At Fox, we don’t succeed unless our brands succeed, and Cherries Wild was a perfect example of a partnership that achieved both of these goals,” said Nancy Croston, senior VP of ad sales strategy and brand partnerships, Fox Entertainment.

In its winning campaign, Credit Karma wanted to promote its new checking account product. The brand turned to Vevo, the music video network, to achieve incremental reach on top of its linear TV campaign, while also driving awareness, favorability and purchase intent. 

According to iSpot, 36% of Vevo’s connected-TV campaign audience was unduplicated with traditional linear TV. That means about 4 million unique viewers who never saw the Credit Karma Money campaign on linear TV were exposed only through Vevo. The campaign drove a 20% increase in brand consideration, 11% in product awareness and 14% in brand favorability for those with a credit score under 580. For those with credit scores between 740 and 799, product awareness was up 18%, brand consideration was up 20%, ad recall rose 16% and brand favorability was up 14%, Vevo said.

“This award is further proof of Vevo’s value to brands that advertise across our network,” said Hillary McPadden, senior director of sales at Vevo.

In its campaign, Merrell wanted to boost brand awareness and influence purchases among outdoor and fitness enthusiast adults in the 18 to 39 age bracket. Cox Media-owned Gamut used proprietary first-party data, customer data and third-party data sources to target relevant and engaged audiences down to the ZIP code level. Geographic targeting is another layer of targeting that was applied to the dataset used for the campaign.

Gamut worked with Cox Custom Research and Market Cube on the post-campaign analysis. The OTT campaign drove a 132% lift in purchase intent among the brand’s target audience, with 39% saying they planned to buy within the next six months.

“Gamut’s expertise with data is what helps our clients really extract the greatest return on ad spend when they run with us,” Gamut president Soo Jin Oh said. ■

A campaign for a local auto dealer submitted by Charter Communications’s Spectrum Reach advertising unit won the inaugural Advanced Advertising Innovation Award for best campaign of the year.

The award will be presented Nov. 18 at the Advanced Advertising Summit produced by Broadcasting+Cable, Multichannel News and Next TV parent Future plc. 

The campaign used TV and targeted media and achieved a strong return on advertising spending while meeting the client’s key goals, including sales.

Also read: Fox Game Show Collaboration with Pepsi Wins Advanced Advertising Innovation Award

For Palm Coast Ford, an auto dealership that operates within the Charter footprint, Spectrum Reach reviewed qualitative data on the attributes and behavioral mindset of the consumer.

Working with the dealership, the audience for the campaign was defined as a former Ford buyer or a shopper in the market for a new truck. Using Spectrum’s first-party data and third-party data from Polk, Spectrum Reach was able to identify the networks that appealed to that automotive shopper for the linear campaign. The same target was used to drive the streaming campaign.

Also read: Vevo Campaign for Credit Karma Wins Advanced Advertising Innovation Award

Online Video and Search was used to provide holistic multiscreen media coverage.

The campaign ran in both the primary market area for the dealership and a conquest geography 20 miles to the south of the dealership. The dealership had not previously run a conquest media campaign in this geography.

A new creative campaign tagline, “Go the Extra Mile,” was created by Spectrum Reach for the conquest geography.

Also read: Gamut OTT Campaign for Merrell Wins Advanced Advertising Innovation Award

The campaign ran from Dec. 14, 2020, through Feb. 28, 2021. To create an attribution study, Spectrum Reach had access to the clients’ Dealer Management System, facilitated by Experian, enabling it to track sales by geography over time. It compared the three months before the campaign launched to the three months following the campaign airing and was able to isolate consumers exposed to the new campaign.

As a result of the multiscreen campaign, traffic to the dealership’s site was up 52%. Leads showed an 8% lift and sales were up 13%. Homes that were exposed to the ad bought 185 cars, or about 1 car for every 500 homes exposed to an ad. Spectrum households accounted for 61% of all sales during the three months, and people who saw the ad were 121% more likely to buy a new vehicle from Palm Coast Ford than those that didn’t see an ad.

A campaign to promote Credit Karma’s new checking account submitted by Vevo won the inaugural Advanced Advertising Innovation Award for best use of multiple platforms.

The award will be presented Nov. 18 at the Advanced Advertising Summit produced by Broadcasting+Cable parent Future plc. The winners for best use of branded content and best overall campaign will be announced over the next two weeks.

Also Read: Gamut OTT Campaign for Merrell Wins Advanced Advertising Innovation Award

Credit Karma wanted to promote its new checking account product. Brands turn to Vevo, the music video network, to achieve incremental reach on top of its linear TV campaign, while also driving awareness, favorability and purchase intent.

Ads ran on Vevo, which was able to reach younger viewers--including members of GenZ-- and cordcutters via ads running on desktop, mobile and connected TV (both linear and app).

The campaign has been running since mid-June 2021.

For attribution and post campaign analysis, Vevo and Credit Karma worked with iSpot to measure incremental reach on CTV and Disqo to gauge brand lift. Those metrics were important to show that Credit Karma was finding new customers for its checking account product.

According to iSpot, 36% of Vevo’s connected TV campaign audience was unduplicated with traditional linear TV. That means about 4 million unique viewers who never saw the Credit Karma Money campaign on linear TV were exposed only through Vevo.

That unduplicated audience on Vevo CTV was reached despite Credit Karma spending millions of dollars advertising on premium TV programming including the NBA Finals, Stanley Cup Final and the Tokyo Olympics,.

According to Disqo, the campaign on Vevo lifted brand metrics. Brand consideration was up 11%, product awareness was up 10%, brand favorability was up 9% and ad recall rose 8%.

Looking at current versus prospective customers, brand consideration was lifted 9% and favorability rose 8% more among people who were not current customers of the brands.

Judging by credit score, the campaign drive a 20% increase in brand consideration, 11% in product awareness and 14% in brand favorability for those with a credit score under 580. For those with credit scores between 740 and 799, product awareness was up 18%, brand consideration was up 20%, ad recall rose 16% and brand favorability was up 14%.

The campaign was particularly successful among consumers that consider themselves “very financially unstable,” with a 16% increase in financial product awareness, a 10% gain in brand consideration, 13% in new financial product awareness, 14% in ad recall and 11% brand favorability.

The gains across customer groups is important because Credit Karma products are designed to help with personalized time and tools to help consumers make financial progress.

Brad Stockton, senior VP U.S. national video innovation at at agency dentsu, calls DELTA, the advanced programmatic buying system the agency unveiled earlier this year, his baby.

Stockton will be a keynote speaker on Nov. 16 at the Advanced Advertising Summit from Broadcasting+Cable’s parent company Future plc.

One of the industry’s better acronyms, DELTA stands for Data Enabled Linear TV Activation. Stockton says the platform enables clients to optimize and buy against their against strategic audiences.

“Delta is a platform that's going to give you the ability to take your strategic audiences. Find out what are they watching, which networks, which dayparts and time periods. And then, let's buy against those strategic audiences and, and hold the media more accountable, for both the reach and action,” he said.

Brands have been slow to shift from the traditional approach of buying based on age and sex demographics, but Stockton said the results can be persuasive.

“Quite frankly, once you test it, one you’ve have a taste of it, you’re coming back because it’s delicious and it works.”

At this point DELTA handles linear national TV networks. Those traditional viewing is down, Stockton says they still have a lot of viewers. “All these network have great audiences and strategic audiences that are tuning in every day,” he said. On top of that, there are “long-tail” networks in particular where advertisers using Delta can find consumers they should be targeting.

“Delta is a great opportunity for us to really, push, push the industry and work with our publishers on finding your right audiences in national linear TV and connecting the dots across all of them,'' Stockton said.

But linear networks are only part of the video picture and Stockton eventually sees DELTA handling cross-cross buying including connected TV, which is a hot area right now. Then it would become DELTA Plus.

“So Delta in year one is truly national linear TV and Delta Plus, we're starting to roll out slow and steady. But we are definitely looking to make that cross screen,” he said.

During the Advanced Advertising Summit keynote, Stockton will also discuss how, as an executive will the word “innovation” in his title, Stockton said he spends a good part of his time explaining new technology and approaches to colleagues and clients.

He’s a big believer in encouraging clients to start by testing promising innovations.

“Every campaign isn’t going to drive a 150% increase in ROI. You have to accept that from the beginning,” Stockton said. “However we know that if we don’t test things, we’re never going to be able to learn.”

Having that learning agenda is crucial to the industry making progress.

“I’m not saying move 90% of your budget into a new tactic. But maybe there’s that 1-5-10% range,” he said. “We need to carve that aside for that learning agenda and plan to test the new projects that are out there because that could be the new way of buying in the next two to three years.”

Stockton will also address addressable advertising at the Advanced Advertising Summit.

Broadcasting+Cable and Future plc are looking for great data-driven, multichannel and technology-focused advertising campaigns for the Advanced Advertising Innovation Awards.

More advertisers are using data and technology to home in on consumers and create campaigns that are more effective and efficient. We’ll be shining a spotlight on outstanding examples at the Advanced Advertising Summit, occurring on Tuesday, Nov. 16, as part of Virtual Fall TV 2021.

Entries are welcomed in four categories:

The Advanced Advertising Innovation Award: Best Use of Data in Advertising. Let us know how data was used in a campaign to target the best audiences while minimizing waste, and ensuring creative messages resonate with consumers.

The Advanced Advertising Innovation Award: Best Use of Multiple Platforms. We’re looking for examples of campaigns in which TV builds awareness while digital media are used to broaden reach or increase message recall, intent to purchase and ultimately drive purchases.

The Advanced Advertising Innovation Award: Best Use of Branded Content. How telling great stories to receptive consumers delivered a brand message and generated business results.

The Advanced Advertising Innovation Award: Best Campaign of the Year. How a campaign used TV and targeted media and achieved a strong return on advertising spending while meeting the client’s key goals, including sales.

In nominating, please share as much information about the campaign’s goals, the data used for targeting, the media that were employed and the results that were achieved.

The deadline for entries is Thursday, Oct. 7.

The awards will be given out at the Advanced Advertising Summit (Nov. 16) during Virtual Fall TV 2021, which also includes the TV Tech Summit (Nov. 15), Next TV Summit (Nov. 17) and Hispanic TV Summit (Nov. 18). For more, see FallTVEvents.com.

If you have questions, please contact Jon Lafayette, Advanced Advertising Innovation Awards coordinator.

In the Wild West atmosphere of the new digital video frontier, GroupM’s Matt Sweeney is a new sheriff in town.

While digital is essential for reaching viewers as traditional ratings shrink, GroupM has launched initiatives to help their clients find brand safe environments, use data ethically and prepare for a future where reaching multicultural audiences will become increasingly important.

Sweeney will be the keynote speaker at the Advanced Advertising Summit on April 27. Here is a preview of what he’ll be talking about.

Traditional TV ratings are down. Can digital alternatives make up for the eyeball marketers aren’t getting from mass reach media like broadcast and cable television?

The simple answer to that is yes, absolutely. Look, you've seen the ratings and you know where consumer attention is. It's an on-demand world and digital and streaming are almost out-delivering it on adults 18 to 49. More people will be watching digital and streaming than traditional TV. I think that that chasm will be crossed sometime this summer.

But the short answer to that is yes. And it's been that way for a couple years. This is not that new for GroupM. We've been leveraging digital delivery and streaming as a larger percentage of our upfronts over the last two years to three years and that will continue to progress and may accelerate a bit given what we're seeing with consumer consumption.

Given the engagement and the interaction and the targeting that you get when you spend your money on digital-based video, are you getting more bang for the buck for  the people you reach?

Really good question. The ability to measure and attribute that delivery vis-à-vis traditional video delivery on TV is a challenge. Those technologies and partners have matured but they're still not at a point where you can isolate the ROI of digital delivery versus traditional delivery. Brands would argue they've been building their brands on traditional TV for 20, 30, 40 years. And now that someone's watching an ad on an iPad or a computer screen, or on a TV through an app, what is the contribution of that to brand value over the course of the last 10 to 15 years?

Also read: #SpringTV, A Look Into the Future of Television 

But we are getting to a point where instead of trying to replace GRPs that are degraded in traditional linear, we're now looking at reach extension as a better metric for value. There are some people that watch linear and digital and streaming, right? So you can get those people in both of those environments. There are a lot of broadband-only households where you can't reach those people in traditional linear. Those people are more valuable because they  are in one environment and not in both. So we’re figuring out how to engage with those folks, leveraging data and working with traditional media partners, but also some of the digital media partners, to reach-extend. That's a lot of work, but that's where we're spending a lot of our time. That's sort of an advanced TV workstream that we've created across planning and strategy and investment within GroupM.

Tell me more about that workstream.

So we have this whole playbook and how to do that depending on which audience you want to reach and whether or not you can activate them in traditional and digital streaming or just in digital streaming and not in traditional. We've got a whole playbook, it's some 30 some odd pages long. 

People have been talking about advanced advertising for a long time. Are there any techniques or technologies that have moved solidly from the experimental “let's test it” phase to something that people are really using at scale that's contributing meaningfully to their businesses?

Oh, yeah, these guys have been talking about this for a long time. I think there's been a hype cycle around advanced TV, and whether that's the data connected to it, the platforms, the measurement, the media partners and their supply, it's been hyped for a while. I do believe that many of those platforms and those technologies have matured to a point where we can feel comfortable with the risk-reward for putting a significant -- which means more than a low single single digit -- percentage of upfront budgets into some of those environments.

And we're going to continue to test and learn and we've been educating our clients that, look, there will be some risk in these platforms and in this activation, but the reward outweighs the risk given where consumer engagement is. In some ways we don't have a choice and we've been doing a lot of this testing over the last couple of years. So we know who to partner with and who not to partner with.

In addition to measuring risk, GroupM has been talking about responsible investment. What does that mean and how does it affect what you buy?

It's important. We've got this foundational approach to investment around responsible investment. And it's an absolute strategy and something that was developed at GroupM where we've been a leader in responsible investment. 

That started with brand safety and viewability. We were the first buyer talking about the importance of viewability in digital media environments and about fraud and the importance of a clean supply chain, and not just the cleanliness of that supply chain, but also the efficacy of it, so that we weren't paying unreasonable adtech taxes.

We were the co-founder of GARM [Global Alliance for Responsible Media] back three years ago. We launched the New Majority Ready coalition trying to prepare our clients in advance for what we knew the census would show, that audiences were evolving and multicultural audiences were going to be important for growth. We created a minority-owned digital marketplace last June where we went through the due diligence of identifying 300 minority-owned media companies and put them into a marketplace and help them figure out programmatic and how we could activate across platforms so that we could help them grow their business. 

We talk about data ethics as well. That is foundational across all our investment, whether that's for the upfronts  or buying local advertising or traditional radio. So those things are still important and increasingly important within GroupM investment.

Are social issues important in media buying?

Social awareness, social justice. You're seeing corporations and brands vote with their money and I think we're going to see more and more of that. And we've created a process in the framework to help our planning and buying teams, not just in terms of understanding how we engage with multicultural audiences in environments but that represent multicultural voices as well. 

You can reach minority audiences and the NFL but I think it's more important to reach those audiences in environments where the content being produced is being produced by minority audiences as well. So we're doing a lot of that work. I think GroupM will once again lead in this space.

How is automation and programmatic affecting the agency business?

I think that I think the future of the media business, the future of TV, is data driven and platform-based. That affects everything in the ecosystem, including how we staff and train and how we hire. 

We're going to look more like Xaxis's programmatic offering in the next three to five years than we have traditionally and across all linear investment for sure. 

Does programmatic affect what you buy and where you buy it and who you buy from?  

That goes back to that responsible investment framework. Brand safety is job No. 1. That's like table stakes. So you're accessing this inventory programmatically. We want to know you know who the seller is and we want to deal directly with them. We want to understand the audiences and the data connected to that supply. We want to make sure that that data was sourced ethically. And what we mean by that is just because you can target someone with data, even if they are opted-in, they clicked and agreed to have their data shared, whether it's geo location data or some others’ data, it doesn't necessarily mean you should use it. So we've got a tool that's available to our planning and buying teams to make sure that we're doing that due diligence and understanding why  not all data that's available should be used.

Used so yeah, all of these things are part of that foundational element of what GroupM is all about. It's about responsible investment. We've got a framework with five pillars around multicultural audiences, around supporting fact-based journalism and local news, which we think is important, and the brand safety and viewability and  data Integrity are part of that framework.

We know who we're buying from when we're buying a linear schedule. We understand that. When that becomes audience-informed, we then need to know and understand what data sets were used to develop these audiences and more importantly, we're going to buy directly from the media owner. We're not going through aggregators and playing that game. We don't. We don't need to. Not at our scale.

The acquisition of Tubi by Fox in 2020 added to the portfolio Fox ad sales president Marianne Gambelli had to sell to advertisers looking for reach in premium content.

Gambelli, who previously held senior positions at media buyer Horizon and in sales at NBC, will be keynote speaker at the Advanced Advertising Summit, part of Future’s Spring TV week, on April 27 and 28.

In this preview of her appearance, Gambelli talks about how Tubi changed the way Fox sells advertising in its entertainment programming.

In a world where subscription video on demand is the shiny new object, everything in Fox’s portfolio remains ad supported. What does that mean to your clients?

It's funny, when we formed New Fox two years ago, that was our business model. We were going to be fully ad-supported. And then we bought Tubi and that vision seems even smarter now, two years later, post COVID, as we saw people switching to AVOD services. 

We wanted to be fully AVOD supported and I think it gives our clients a breadth of assets and surety of premium content that they may not be getting other places where you have all these platforms and you're probably going to put your mediocre content [on traditional platforms] but you're going to spend to support your SVOD platform. So as a consumer, you're going to go look for an original show and it's going to be behind a paywall on Hulu or Peacock or whatever. I think that's going to be frustrating to consumers. 

If you look at who we are, we're live, we're big and we're fully ad-supported, and that's our focus. That's where our content’s going. And again, if I'm a marketer I'd be nervous about the SVOD explosion because you're limiting how to reach consumers. It gets harder and harder. 

It’s got to be especially hard to reach mass audiences as more SVOD services emerge?

Right. They have to subscribe and then they have to view. Viewers have subscriptions but how often are you in that platform? And how much are you consuming?

Again, it’s immediate scale. That’s what linear broadcast does the best. So you might get scale over time on these platforms, but it might take months to aggregate what you can do in one shot on broadcast. 

You mentioned Tubi. How has Tubi changed Fox's portfolio and its approach to selling ads? 

Tubi was a perfect complement to Fox because it reaches an audience that Fox just doesn't reach. It's younger. It's more diverse. It's the ones that probably don't have a cable subscription that just go to Tubi for their viewing entertainment. So it was a perfect reach extension to who we were already serving. And it gave us a platform for our content, so you see a lot of our entertainment content has migrated there. I think you'll see some of our sports content start to migrate there too. You look at the timing, right? A year ago was a great idea. Now it’s brilliant. Look at the [streaming] explosion and we would not have been able to capture that with the current assets that we have.

How are you taking advantage of having Tubi in the portfolio?

It's a combination. If you’re looking for different attributes besides gender and age, you're looking for other commonalities, we're able to do that across the platform and that's where you really get the extended reach. But again, you're reaching people that you would not reach on linear. That's even more powerful. 

And it has a different ad experience, a lot less ads, more lean-in. So I think the engagement is a different model as well and we're learning from that as well. And we're doing some experimentation there and across Fox to learn from both.

Tell me about the innovations and experiments that benefit advertisers.

First it’s content, right? We all talk about Innovation and we talk about audiences but content still sits at the top of the pinnacle. It’s premium content and how do we connect that. So if you have a fan that's connected to The Masked Singer, how do we find that fan across our platforms on Tubi, Hulu et cetera?

And then how do we understand that engagement? So we've been experimenting with our “Absolute As” [an ad format that gives an advertiser ownership of pre-roll A-position spots on streamed shows] and limited commercials to see what the engagement is like and then how does that play on Fox, how does that play on Tubi and what are the differences there.

But also, It's part of the One Fox [integrated advertising] platform. So there's been lots of ways to integrate and change the way we go to market but also the way our viewer experiences the platforms. 

How are brands planning and buying differently in this new environment of streaming and data and such?

Planning and buying were done so simplistically years ago and you think of how complicated it is now, given the choice of platforms and the data and the technology and how you can activate and access these marketplaces.

It feels like it's much more customized. You used to look at a media plan for one category and a media plan for another and they probably looked the same. I think now with data insights and the ability to optimize and buy inventory in so many different marketplaces, you look at clients and their approach is very very different. I don't think there's a one-size-fits-all and all the plans don't look the same and they're iterating as they're learning and as data's coming in. Everything is in real time now, but not everything can be bought in real time. So I think you're laying in your bases and you're deciding on your premium content and your building blocks. And then from there. you can experiment.

Marianne Gambelli will be the opening keynote speaker at the Advanced Advertising Summit on Wednesday April 28 at 12:30 p.m. ET. For more information, click here to find out more.

Future’s Spring TV 2021 returns April 26-30 as a virtual event featuring a trio of  summits that takes on the latest developments in three crucial industry segments: the Advanced Advertising Summit, the over-the-top-focused Next TV Summit and a new entry tackling the emerging Free, Ad-Supported Streaming Television category, the FAST TV Summit. The event is sponsored and programmed by Broadcasting + Cable/Multichannel News, Next TV and TV Tech. 

Spring TV will bring together innovators and thought leaders to share insights on the latest trends and developments. This virtual series is designed to help industry professionals gain new perspectives, delivering clear and actionable insights intended to advance careers and companies. 

Here’s a listing of what’s on tap for Spring TV 2021 as of deadline. Not all speakers are listed and panelists are subject to change. For a more up-to-the-minute agenda or to register for free, go to springtvevents.com. 

FAST Summit: Attracting Audiences for Free Streaming Content

The growth in the Free, Ad-Supported Streaming TV (FAST) space has been phenomenal and is showing no signs of slowing down, as more services enter the ring and audiences accumulate. The FAST Summit provides a timely opportunity to assess the intensifying competition and current landscape, explore where platforms are achieving success in attracting audiences and look to the trends on the immediate horizon.

Monday, April 26
Morning Sessions: Marketing FAST

10:30 a.m - 10:35 a.m. (ET)
Welcoming Remarks

10:35 a.m.-11 a.m. (ET)
Opening Keynote:
The State of FAST in 2021
This leading executive from a streaming service provider shares an insider’s perspective on the current state of this fast-growing, free, ad-supported segment of the connected tv industry, and identifies some of the special characteristics and advantages of FAST. The executive also offers suggestions for programmers and media buyers to leverage relationships with FAST providers.

11 a.m.-11:30 a.m. (ET)
What Advertisers Want
FAST offers advertisers and media buyers affordable opportunities to hyper-target consumers. Hear from a panel of media buyers and ad-sales executives as they discuss the unique advantages that advertising on FAST can offer now.

11:30 a.m.-11:45 a.m. (ET)
What FAST Audiences Want
This data presentation offers recent findings on audience segments and how they consume free streamed content, and makes comparisons to current viewership of SVOD and traditional television programming.

11:45 a.m.-Noon (ET)
Attracting FAST Audience Segments
A panel of promotions and marketing executives from networks, programmers and FAST providers discusses the special challenges of attracting diverse audience segments to FAST services, driving awareness of programming and content viewership among these segments.

Noon-12:30 p.m. (ET)
Partnering with Manufacturers
FAST brings along a set of special challenges. For example, some services work with some smart devices while others require a different smart device to function. Explore the unique relationship between manufacturers and services providers in this fascinating fireside chat with a leading smart-device manufacturer and a top FAST provider.

12:30 p.m.-1 p.m. (ET)
Securing Carriage on FAST
This panel of programming distributors and content executives at FAST service providers discuss the distinct facets of their mutual relationship in delivering free, ad-supported streaming content directly to the consumer. Discover how FAST viewer consumption is redefining the content distribution business model.

1 p.m.-1:05 p.m. (ET)
Acknowledgements & Lunch Break
Afternoon Sessions: Marketing FAST to Hispanics

1:30 p.m.-1:35 p.m. (ET)
Welcoming Remarks

1:35 p.m.- 2 p.m. (ET)
FAST for Hispanics

2 p.m.-2:30 p.m. (ET)
How Advertisers Are Targeting Hispanics with DAR
FAST offers advertisers and media buyers seeking to target Hispanic consumers with affordable and highly effective media alternatives. This panel of media buyers and ad-sales executives will discuss the advantages that media placed on FAST can offer for reaching Hispanics in today’s competitive market.
Moderator: Court Stroud, founder/managing director,
The Cledor Group
Panelists: Karina Dobarro, EVP/managing partner,
Horizon Media; Chris Pizzuro, SVP, Global Sales & Marketing, Canoe Ventures

2:30 p.m.-2:45 p.m. (ET)
What Hispanic Audiences Want from FAST
Be among the first to get these recent findings about Hispanic audience segments and their consumption of free streamed content. This presentation will share data for FAST and compare current Hispanic viewer consumption to subscription and traditional linear television programming.

2:45 p.m.-3:15 p.m. (ET)
Attracting Hispanic Audience Segments to FAST
Increasingly, Hispanics are attracted to watching free ad-supported streamed video content. This panel of promotions and marketing executives from networks, programmers and FAST providers explores how they are each attracting various audience segments among Hispanic viewers and driving awareness for select streaming brands and programming.
Panelist: Adriana Waterston, SVP, Insights & Strategy, Horowitz Research

3:15 p.m.- 3:30 p.m. (ET)
Hispanics as Smart Tech Consumers
Hispanics are tech-savvy especially, when it comes to smart devices. This is where the manufacturer of smart devices plays a significant role in the growth of the FAST business in this market. Explore the unique relationship between manufacturers and streaming services who are targeting Hispanic consumers.

3:30 p.m. - 4 p.m. (ET)
Securing Carriage for FAST Hispanic Content
This panel of Hispanic programmers, distributors and FAST content service providers share differing perspectives on how the dynamics of their mutual business relationship is changing as the demand for FAST delivered content grows among Hispanic consumers.

4 p.m.-4:05 p.m. (ET)
Closing Remarks

Advanced Advertising Summit: Create the Next Generation of Advertising Experiences

The combination of COVID-19 and the recession it caused accelerated the shift to a more digital economy and pushed marketers to be more effective, efficient, targeted and accountable — all attributes promised by advanced advertising. If you are a marketer, in media, work with technology or invest in ad tech, you can’t miss this event.

Tuesday, April 27
12:30 p.m.-12:35 p.m. (ET)
Welcoming Remarks

12:40 p.m.-1:05 p.m. (ET)
Keynote Speaker: John Nitti, Chief Media Officer, Verizon
A top marketer in the competitive telecom category talks about how he uses technology from his own company and from media partners to engage customers and boost sales. As a former top media buyer, Nitti has unique and valuable insights to share.

1:15 p.m.-1:50 p.m. (ET)
Making A Better Supply Chain
With more money and data being managed on automated systems, how can the industry maintain brand safety and avoid fraud while getting a better return on ad spending?

2:40 p.m.-3:05 p.m. (EDT)
Keynote Speaker: Matt Sweeney, Chief Investment Officer, GroupM
A top ad buyer at one of the world’s largest agencies talks about ensuring that clients get the impressions they’re guaranteed in a changing media environment. Sweeney will address what needs to happen to speed the shift of budgets from linear to more targetable video formats, the growth of CTV and the spread of automation.

3:05 p.m.-3:10 p.m. (EDT)
Closing Remarks

Wednesday, April 28
12:30 p.m-12:35 p.m. (ET)
Welcoming Remarks

12:40 p.m.-1:05 p.m. (ET)
Keynote: Marianne Gambelli, President, Fox Advertising Sales
Gambelli is integrating Fox’s broadcast, digital and streaming inventory into a single platform. She will talk about how that move will enable Fox to offer clients more relevant inventory, next-generation advertising products and the ability to reach bigger target audiences as the upfront market approaches.

1:15 p.m.-1:50 p.m. (ET)
How Local Media Profits from Advanced Advertising
Station groups and MVPDs are finding new ways to target their linear advertising and offer complimentary digital inventory in order to drive sales for both national and local clients. Top executives will share best practices for attracting incremental revenues and more effective campaigns.
Speaker: Daniel Church, Head of Advanced TV Product, Beachfront Media

2 p.m.-2:30 p.m. (ET)
Addressing Addressable Advertising
With expanding scale across providers and platforms, additional data sources and emerging identity solutions for a post-cookie environment, addressable advertising is in the spotlight. This panel will look at the technology that’s available, what clients are seeking and what targeted campaigns can deliver.

2:40 p.m.-3:05 p.m. (ET)

Keynote: TBA
A top platform ad sales exec talks about how they are using data to help advertising reach target audiences at scale.

3:05 p.m.- 3:10 p.m. (ET)
Closing Remarks

Next TV Summit: The Business of Streaming Video

 The Next TV Summit is the professional video industry’s authoritative benchmark for assessing the progress and debating the future of television’s digitally driven streaming transformation. Hear current thinking from some of the industry’s leading executives as they discuss the most pressing economic, operational and technological issues facing the “business” of video.

Thursday, April 29

1 p.m.-1:05 p.m, (ET)
Welcoming Remarks

1:05 p.m.-1:25 p.m. (ET)
Opening Keynote Presentation: Jill Rosengard Hill, EVP, Global Media & Entertainment, Magid

1:30 p.m.-1:55 p.m. (ET)
Opening Keynote Conversation
TBA

2 p.m.-2:35 p.m. (ET)
OTT vs. CTV: The Battle for TV’s New Operating System
As traditional broadcast and MVPD television delivery mechanisms give way to an avalanche of direct-to-consumer streaming options, the competition to control the gateway between content, advertising and the viewer is becoming intense. We discuss what’s ahead in the world of devices like pucks, sticks and especially smart TVs themselves.

2:40 p.m.-3:05 p..m (ET)
Keynote Conversation
Interviewer: Tim Hanlon, Founder/CEO, The Vertere Group Panelist: Josh Reader, President, Distribution, AMC Networks

3:10 p.m.-3:45 p.m, (ET)
57 (Thousand) Channels & Nothing On?
With a blizzard of streaming content choices available to even the most basic of U.S. media households, consumers risk being overwhelmed by even the simplest of viewing decisions; we discuss how programmers and consumers can each benefit by coming improvements in content guidance, navigation, recommendation, and search.
Panelists: Ben Maughan, SVP/GM, Consumer & Stream Platform, Xperi; Rose Adkins Hulse, CEO, ScreenHits TV; Eli Chamberlin, Head of Product & Design, Reelgood; Trent Wheeler SVP, Product, Video, Gracenote/Nielsen

3:50 p.m.- 4:25 p.m. (ET)
Skinny Bundles & the Legacy of ‘Linear’
Despite repeated proclamations to the contrary, the “death” of the linear television channel appears premature in the streaming age. The surprising durability of classic channel grids, familiar programmer brands and even a new breed of linear FAST/streaming TV-like channels pose a bevy of opportunities and challenges, which we’ll discuss.
Panelists: Karl Meyer Head of Sales, Media and Entertainment, Samsung Ads; Kristina Shepard, National Brand Team Lead, Roku; Raghu Kodige, Chief Product Officer & Co-Founder, LG Ads

4:25 p.m. - 4:30 p.m. (ET)
Closing Remarks

Friday, April 30

1 p.m.- 1:05 p.m. (ET)
Welcoming Remarks

1:05 p.m.- 1:25 p.m. (ET)
Opening Keynote Presentation: Brian Fiori, SVP, Audience Insights, Nielsen

1:30 p.m. - 1:55 p.m. (ET)
Opening Keynote Conversation: TBA

2 p.m.-2:35 p.m. (ET)
SVOD’s ‘Mid-Majors’
While industry pundits obsess over a supposed zero-sum game of streaming TV dominance between leviathans like Netflix, Disney Plus and HBO Max, we explore a myriad of other premium and specialty content services angling for consumer attention and subscription share-of-wallet.
Panelists: Alden Mitchell Budill, Head of Global Partnerships & Content Strategy, Crunchyroll; Devin Emery, Chief Product Officer & EVP of Content Strategy, CuriosityStream; Erick Opeka, President, Cinedigm Networks; Tara Maitra, Chief Commercial Officer, BBC Studios, Americas

2:40 p.m.- 3:05 p.m. (ET)
Keynote Conversation
Interviewer: Tim Hanlon, Founder/CEO, The Vertere Group
Panelist: Michael Bishara, SVP & GM, OTT & Digital Syndication,
Discovery Networks

3:10 p.m.- 3:45 p.m. (ET)
Broadcast TV in the Age of Streaming
Traditional broadcast television sits precariously between heritage linear OTA and MVPD distribution models and a burgeoning streaming TV ecosystem; we discuss how networks, affiliated stations and groups, and consumer-driven tech intermediaries are helping modernize “broadcast” for the realities of modern-day streaming.
Panelists: Jim Long, Founder & CEO, Local BTV/Didja; Jonathan Barzilay, Chief Operating Officer, PBS; Kevin Dunaway, VP, Affiliate Relations, VUit/Syncbak; Adam Wiener, EVP & GM, CBS Local Digital Media

3:50 p.m.-4:25 p.m. (ET)
Who, What, When & How: Streaming TV Audience Measurement & Analytics
The “mainstreaming” of on-demand TV threatens to upend a fragile ecosystem of audience measurement, already challenged by traditional paradigm changes like cord-cutting, DVR recording and device-based viewing. How can programmers, advertisers and streaming TV operating systems accurately judge “success” in the years ahead?
Panelists: Marty Roberts, CEO, Wicket Labs; Alejandro Rojas, Director of Applied Analytics, Parrot Analytics; Traci Will, VP of Analytics, Gamut; Michael Bologna, President & CRO, HyphaMetrics

4:25 p.m.- 4:30 p.m. (ET)
Closing Remarks

The advertising-sales arms of top cable operators Comcast, Charter Communications and Cox Communications have produced a playbook designed to help distributors, programmers, media buyers and advertisers take advantage of their addressable advertising capabilities.

The playbook is the latest step in the cable operators’ On Addressability initiative, started in 2019 as a way to increase the effectiveness and value of television advertising.

Featured in the playbook, available to anyone in the industry via the website OnAddressability.com, are a step-by-step technical guide to help programmers and distributors launch addressable advertising, a buyer’s guide to addressable TV and a seller’s guide to addressable TV advertising. There are also definitions of terms used in addressable advertising and an overview of standards that the group hopes the industry will adopt in order achieve scale and simplicity of use.

“Since the launch of On Addressability, we’ve been talking with major programmers and distributors to help marketers incorporate addressability into their TV strategies to drive better results,” Comcast Advertising president Marcien Jenckes said. “Despite this progress, however, there are still challenges for both buyers and sellers alike. That was the impetus for the playbook. The timing could not be better. In the current environment, advertisers are ready to pivot, and we need to be ready, too. The technology is there. Now we just need to bring advertisers a more scalable and consistent offering — and do it quickly.”

Jenckes, Charter executive VP David Kline (president of Spectrum Reach) and Cox Media senior VP Louis Gump discussed the initiative at the Advanced Advertising Summit on Sept. 15, part of Future’s Fall TV Events 2020. 

The companies have a combined reach of more than 30 million homes for addressable ads, Kline said, with AMC Networks and Discovery doing the first tests and the program being fully implemented in Q4. “I think we’re going to probably, before we’re done with this, add more [distributors] to it, so we can scale the way the industry needs,” he said.

Gump said Cox customers wanted more capabilities in terms of measuring ad-sales results, prompting Cox to join forces with the other companies. He said, though, “we can’t do it alone. If we are truly going to serve our customers, it has to be a joint effort. And so I would think of this as something that is not just the MSOs, but it’s also agencies, it’s brands and  various enablers around the ecosystem” looking to build businesses and serve consumers better. 

Traditional TV-advertising growth was slow before the pandemic hit, closing business and forcing those that were open to rethink how they were spending their advertising dollars. 

The industry has touted addressable advertising — the ability to send different targeted messages to different audiences rather than broadcast the same commercial to all viewers — as a way to be more effective and better compete with digital media.

With different distributors using different technology and protocols in different parts of the country, advertisers and media buyers found it complicated to do addressable ad campaigns at scale, leading to calls for industry-wide standards and more cooperation and interoperability among cable operators and other distributors.

The On Addressability campaign is designed to tell marketers that the industry now has the capability to run campaigns at scale, and that it has become easier to plan, buy and evaluate addressable TV campaigns.

To view this panel and other Advanced Advertising Summit sessions on demand,
go to falltvevents.com.

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has driven television and streaming content viewership to new highs, and at the same time is presenting ad buyers and sellers with data that could accelerate the shift from age and demographic-centered measurement to more individualized metrics, according to panelists at the Future-produced Advanced Advertising Virtual Summit Tuesday.

In a keynote discussion with event moderator and B+C senior content producer Jon Lafayette, Hearts & Science CEO Erin Matts said that audiences are shifting not only because they are at home, but also because of the availability of certain content.

Hearts & Science is a unit of Omnicom Media Group, which places about $1 of every $4 spent on sports programming for its clients, Matts said. As live sports has been virtually non-existent during the pandemic, agencies like Hearts & Minds need to seek out where those typical sports audiences are watching now.

Related: Experts See Opportunity for Targeting, AVOD Buys

And viewership is growing. According to Canoe VP of Global Sales Chris Pizzurro, on demand viewing is up 20%, primarily in the kids, drama and movie segments and that TV viewing as a whole is up during the pandemic.

“Consumers are definitely finding comfort in television as a whole,” Pizzurro said, adding that they also seem to be watching commercials as ad impressions seem to be even with last year. “We haven’t seen the dramatic declines other platforms have.”

The same holds true for streaming services, Matts added. While Hearts & Minds, like most agencies were geared up for the so-called streaming wars as new entrants in direct-to-consumer content distribution came on the scene, no one anticipated the huge spike in viewership as more and more Americans were confined to their homes.

Matts said that one of the priorities was to find where consumers were going if they weren’t watching sports. And she said while many are watching new programming on the streaming services, many have gravitated toward “comfort” programming, like old episodes of Friends and Seinfeld and even podcasts and other audio programming.

There is tremendous opportunity, she added in “understanding those audiences, understanding where time goes for them and how they are spending that time and being able to elegantly insert brands in a meaningful way that delivers the right kind of message that is appropriate for this moment in time.”

While some clients are buying ads in the scatter markets to find those wayward viewers, Matts said the pandemic and changing viewing habits could force the industry to take a harder look at how they traditionally sell ads.

“I think this is such an interesting opportunity to almost reframe how we think about the upfronts,” Matt said. “This has been a time honored tradition that we’ve had in this industry for a very long time, it's been extremely successful. But we’ve got clients who are on different timelines, we’ve got clients who have different needs and I think it gives us an opportunity to take a step back. Any sort of refresh to how we think about the industry is a welcome change, and one that honestly all of my clients have been welcoming themselves.”

More Summit Coverage: Experts See Opportunities for Targeting, AVOD; 'Last Dance' Shows Disney's Agility; Strategies For Smart Spending After Crisis

It also appears to be changing how advertisers are looking at their audiences, she said.

“Clients are much more willing to take some risks at this point,” Matts said. “It also brings this idea of audience and people-based approaches much more into focus and allows advertisers to really explore some things they haven’t been able to do before.”

Matts added that when the world and business emerge from the pandemic sometime in the future, the opportunity to focus on people rather than demographics will be more important than ever.

“Operating around audiences instead of the broad approach of demographics helps us to understand people at an individual level, helps us with empathy, helps us understand and better optimize messages and media,” Matts said. “It was important before all of this, but it is even more important right this very moment because we really need to understand what is motivating people and what is motivating them to buy or not buy at this moment, but will help us weather the storm beyond this.”

Addressable advertising is gaining scale, said Spectrum Reach Group VP of Advanced Advertising Sales Kim Norris in a separate panel discussion.

“In 2018 we executed dozens of addressable campaigns. In 2019 it was hundreds. I think that scale is growing,” Norris said, adding that standards and common platforms and approaches are needed to take advantage of that scale.

She added that buyers and sellers are working together to reach that goal.

“There is more collaboration now than I have ever seen,” Norris said. “All of that collaboration between programmers, MVPDs, ad tech companies, data companies have really pushed forward the advances. I think the scale is there for this to now be a viable business -- I think we see it in the activity. And now we need these organizations to coalesce so that we can actually create the standards so that there are use cases and approaches for the advertisers and agency holding companies to really follow. ”

FuboTV VP ad sales Chris Flatley said that while stay-at-home orders have helped drive content viewership “through the roof,” he doesn’t believe the disruption caused by the pandemic will change how advertisers are buying.

“When you look at advertisers, they’re either buying addressable or they’re not buying addressable,” Flatley said. “I don’t think COVID-19 is really going to impact that. What’s really happening is, ‘Are they buying at all right now?’ If they are, they’re buying the way they’ve always been, whether that’s addressable or run of network.”

As an example, he pointed to an addressable client that sells products that sanitizes surfaces, which would appear to be even more widely popular during the pandemic.

“They keep buying addressable,” Flatley said of the client. “I think when you look at how the advertiser thinks, they still know who their buyer is and who the decision maker is. I think the current environment doesn’t change whether someone is buying addressable or not. Whether they’re buying or not is what we’re waiting on as we climb back up the hill.”

But as more and more networks become addressable nationally, there is a need to figure out how addressable fits into their other advertising tactics.

Clypd chief strategy officer Jason Burke said that addressable is really just another tactic for advertisers, and most don’t want to put all their marketing eggs in one basket. One tactic is to use addressable alongside linear ads, using it to tell a story, a second chapter in the message, via addressable ads.

“The media owners are looking to use addressability to do a handful of things,” Burke said. “One is to drive yield across their whole portfolio, potentially using addressability to deliver against audiences that are underperforming in other environments and really deliver to the consumer a great experience, and then its relevant advertising, or advertising that is targeted to them as an individual person, versus the broad demographic in which they reside.”

Measurement giant Nielsen unveiled plans to beta test its linear TV addressable platform in January, and Nielsen Advanced Video Advertising Group general manager Kelly Abcarian said that while some changes had to be made because of COVID-19, the project is going forward.

“Much like everyone else, we’ve had to spend some time to adapt our beta program to the changing times that we see ourselves in,” Abcarian said. “...Though our beta program may not look like what we originally envisioned, we are moving forward with the beta.”

She added that originally, the first phase of the test involved getting into its partners’ facilities on premises and installing two TV sets.

“Obviously given the safety concerns and societal restrictions, we are no longer able to work on the premises,” Abcarian said. “We had to get creative, and what we’ve done is introduce a new virtual experience. That’s going to enable mimicking what they would have done on premises, but doing it via a virtual environment.

“...They’ll get access to be able to look at the true ad replacements that are happening, so that they can feel confident before this capability goes out in front of real viewers,” Abcarian continued. “And they can also use our UI so they can create inventory rules much like they do in linear television today whether that’s brand separation or other types of rules and see those rules in action. And make sure that they have the confidence that they know how they are going to unlock this linear inventory as we move ahead toward commercialization.”

David Cohen made a number of early advanced advertising deals when he was head of Magna Global, one of the largest media buyers.

At Future plc’s Advanced Advertising Summit on March 24 in New York, Cohen will moderate a panel that will look at the industry’s progress and ask what still needs to be done to progress the evolution of television.

“There have never been more options for consumers or opportunities for marketers in the video space,” said Cohen, now a consultant. “With the continued erosion of linear viewership and the explosion of streaming platforms, the war for consumer attention has never been more fierce. The battleground has turned to data — used to create high value custom audiences which are then matched, sized and delivered across screens and platforms.”

Cohen expects some areas of the advanced video marketplace to show exciting growth, such as over-the-top and connected TV, data-driven linear, household addressable and full episode players. Buyers are looking for new sources of supply this upfront season and there is no doubt that many of these will be digitally delivered.

The key question for Cohen is: “Will this be the year that we materially move away from driving linear television efficiency against a standard demographic audience?”

Cohen’s panel will include top executives from Xandr, Imagine Communication and Magna.

He expects to discuss the areas of the advanced television ecosystem that offer the greatest opportunity and the most promising use cases that marketers can leverage, as well as the most common misconceptions about advanced television.

Attendees will get a look at market innovation over the next 6-12 months and examples of marketers that are making good use of the tools that data and technology have made available.

David Cohen has been a leading thinker in the advertising industry,” said Jon Lafayette, Business Editor at Broadcasting+Cable, a Future publication. “I look forward to him interviewing our panelists to give our attendees a clear picture of the state of advanced advertising and the opportunities ahead for informed marketers.”

"Things are good at Hulu," Peter Naylor, senior VP of advertising sales at the programmer, said Monday, citing an expanding base of subscribers watching the service longer than they did a year ago.

"We're going to the market with a growing audience," Naylor told B&C senior content producer Jon Lafayette in a keynote chat at the NewBay Advanced Advertising event in New York when asked about the service's prospects headed into the upfront auctions of commercial hours. Versus a year ago, he said, subscribers who get Hulu's ad-supported offerings are up 40% and their engagement with the service is up 49%, though he did not give out the specific numbers. “We’re having more people watching for more time than ever,” he said. The median viewer age is 31, he said, and Hulu's IP-based platform lends itself to targeting viewers by household or by separate profiles within the home.   

At last year's upfront presentation, Lafayette noted, Hulu introduced its Hulu with Live TV (virtual MVPD) offering with a mix of channels for $39.99 per month. Naylor said subscribers getting that service also get the subscription video-on-demand service for which Hulu charges $7.99 when sold separately, with ad support. Hulu has found that "over half of the consumption in the quote-unquote live product is actually on demand," he said. While events, sports, news and series occasions like the finale of The Bachelor are watched live, viewers are happy to watch scripted fare at unscheduled times. "What that tells me is the fugure of TV is a blend of live and on demand,” he said.

Hulu's 2018 upfront will take place at the recently branded Hulu Theater at Madison Square Garden and will feature announcements of new shows and celebrity appearances and more of an emphasis on Hulu's advanced advertising capabilities.

He cited a recent promotion with Fandango that enabled Hulu customers watching a commercial for the Tomb Raider raider movie in theaters to buy a ticket via remote. Asked if it sold a lot of tickets, Naylor said "a lot might be a generous description," but said the effort was part of educating audiences to expect to be able to interact directly with advertising -- as marketers used to wish for using the classic example of buying the sweater Jennifer Aniston was wearing in Friends. 

Naylor also said The Handmaid's Tale, the breakthrough original drama that returns for a second season in late April, will have dedicated sponsors this time after picking up Emmy and Golden Globe awards for its first season. Hulu licenses most of its shows and can't sell ads directly against them, Naylor said, but can do so for its originals.

New York -- Content providers should continue to strive to keep the ad buying experience simple, especially as advanced technologies and targeting emerge, a panel of experts said at the Multichannel News/B&C Advanced Advertising event here Wednesday (Oct. 18), part of NYC Television Week.

Read More: Complete Coverage of #NYCTVWK

Comcast Spotlight vice president of data strategy Justin Evans said during the "Video Everywhere" session that many ad buyers are under enough pressure with small markets, smaller staffs and heavy competition to have to deal with an onerous buying process.

“They don’t have the bandwidth to make five or six types of premium buys,” Evans said, adding that the onus is on providers to bring buyers scale through a combination of linear networks, OTT and mobile.

Premion president Jim Wilson said that confusion is one of the reasons why his company, a unit of broadcast station group Tegna, was formed.

“It’s undeniable that consumer trends are changing, the way we watch premium video is really changing,” Wilson said. “At Tegna we saw this opportunity and, realizing that's the way video is being watched, set out specifically focusing on OTT. There is certainly a lot of confusion in the market, and for our advertisers, we’ve been focusing on building a one-stop shop.”

Read More: Complete Coverage of the Advanced Advertising Event

For SpotX vice president of programmatic TV Randy Cooke, the emphasis should be on making the process less complicated for clients.

“Simplification is what this industry needs most of all,” Cooke said. “Are you buying content based on the composition of the audience, or are you buying audience across different devices?”

Cooke added that those two concepts are entirely different models – one gets the most value from 30-second ad spots, the other from impressions.

“You have to have to understand the enterprise value of audience as much as the enterprise value of content,” Cooke said. “The best opportunity for us to come out on the other side is, we have to be comfortable in the mathematical relationship between the ad marketplace and the content marketplace.

Google head of broadcast partnerships Julie Sterling said providers have to be careful not to lose sight of brands and the audience role in the process.

“Brands are always going to want to buy content, because they want their brand associated with that content,” Sterling said. “The other piece is that audience is going to have a bigger play. At Google, we’re an open platform. We want to make sure that the CFO and the advertiser get what they want and measure effectiveness.”

4C Insights CEO Lance Neuhauser said that providers need to remember the past as they're looking to the future.

“There is a need to start from the future and work our way back,” Neuhauser said. “The recognition that consumers no longer need to watch ads is very real. They can fast-forward, change channels, unsubscribe. If you’re not creating multiscreen experiences that are leveraging all the interaction from consumers and only looking at TV as TV, you will miss the mark.”

TV advertising needs to get more sophisticated, Marcien Jenkes, president of advertising at Comcast, said at NYC Television Week Wednesday (Oct. 18).

Television advertising is seen as relatively unsophisticated when compared with digital, Jenckes said, speaking at the B&C/Multichannel News Advanced Advertising event in New York.

Read More: Complete Coverage of the Advanced Advertising Event

”The only way this industry is going to survive and thrive is if you take this unsophisticated bucket and make it sophisticated," he said. "Make it targetable, make it data-enabled and make it accountable. If you can do that, unified across your full audience, there’s no better way for marketers to drive their business.”

Jenckes said that for a long time, TV took its advantages as an ad medium for granted. It didn’t bring data to the table or move ahead with better targeting. In the meantime, digital advertising earned its place at the table.

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At Comcast, advertising is a big revenue generator, behind video and high-speed internet, he said. The company moved to make its advertising business more sophisticated by buying a number of firms, including FreeWheel, Strata, Visible World and Sticky Ads, and incorporated them into its ad business.

“They all don’t exist separately,” Jenckes said. "They’re part of the advanced advertising group, which wants to serve the industry. We want to serve our own interest, but we want to make television the most effective form of advertising.”

To do that, Comcast is working with companies that can do real-time attribution studies, such as tvty and 605.

“Every day we’ll get more sophisticated,” Jenckes said. “Everyday we make a little more progress down the road.”

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New York -- “I think that 2017 is going to be the year of first-party measurement,” Joan FitzGerald, vice president of product management and business development at TiVo, said during an audience-measurement panel Wednesday (Oct. 19) at the Advanced Advertising conference, commenting that that might be a controversial statement.

It might have been in the sense that the biggest player in third-party TV viewing measurement, Nielsen, was represented on the panel in the form of Andrew Feigenson, managing director, digital. But on the same panel Randy Cooke, VP of programmatic at SpotX, had declared he believed “the future of ad decisioning resides in first-party data.” Cooke, though, also endorsed the importance of a “trusted industry support standard” to evaluate whether or not an ad buy you just made was priced correctly.

FitzGerald’s point was that advertisers have been building their own databases – including visitors to their own websites – and attaching it to third-party data sources from the likes of Nielsen or set-top data from Comscore (which acquired Rentrak) instead of relying more heavily on what comes from third parties. “This experimentation is going to become more mainstream” going forward, she said.

The panel, part of NYC Television and Video Week, also featured Colleen Fahey Rush, executive VP and chief research officer at Viacom, who said the "trust and transparency" role of third-party measurement in TV was underscored by recent news of video views exaggerated by “people grading their own homework.” She wouldn’t name the company when asked to elaborate by moderator Dade Hayes, the editor of Broadcasting & Cable, but the allusion seemed to be about Facebook’s admission that it had accidentally overstated the number of viewers for videos on the site (a situation Facebook said had been fixed and did not result in overbilling to clients).

Rush went on to say the Viacom Vantage data-driven ad product, announced in 2015, had been resonating with ad buyers and growing. Viacom Vantage, she said, “is really all about harnessing all kinds of different kinds of data sets so that we can really work with the advertiser and agency to define the segment together and deliver impressions and reach and their guaranteed target.”

Feigenson agreed that first-party data use was on the rise but used, as an example, Travelocity. That online travel provider has a huge amount of data from its own transactions, but that doesn’t represent the entire travel industry.

Movie studios, he also said, used to have relatively easy choices to make when they wanted to promote an upcoming theatrical release: buy mass audience reach using gross ratings points. Audiences are more fragmented now, though, and buying network TV won’t reach the millions of viewers tuned to Netflix or other streaming sources. “There are so many options right now that I think for a marketer it’s absolutely baffling,” he said.

“The baseline has to be reach and frequency to start with,” Feigenson, and then layer on other more targeted approaches. Nielsen, of course, is hard at work on generating "Total Audience Measurement" that will include online viewing sources.

Feigenson related a story about a recent meeting with customers in an advisory board and how one of the people at the session needed some extra time to absorb the new data features coming out and remarked, essentially, that what Nielsen was doing was awesome but it was moving too fast.

Hearing "Nielsen and too fast in the same sentence," Feigenson said, was memorable.

A Comscore executive had been scheduled to appear on the panel but was unable to attend, leaving Feigenson as the sole representative of third-party measurement firms on the panel. 

At a time when technology and demand are upending TV as we know it, the tenets of video advertising – from audience targeting to content creation – also have to be revamped to resonate with consumers, an industry leader said Wednesday.

“Our brands should be entertaining audiences,” said Donna Speciale, president of Turner Ad Sales. “The ads we feature should be compelling, relevant and ultimately drive the product off the shelves, off the lots."

Speaking at the Advanced Advertising Summit, part of NewBay Media’s annual NYC Television and Video Week, Speciale said that process started at Turner several years ago, when leaders determined to “reimagine the consumer experience” across the company. 

For Turner’s ad sales division, that included upping its emphasis on four “main stops” crucial in “reimagining what great advertising can be” – audience targeting, redefining ad environments, content creation and content optimization, she said.

As a result, Turner today uses data to sell inventory against guarantees that go beyond audience age and gender; sells inventory holistically across Turner properties rather than by show; and fills traditional ad time with branded content – and then cuts that branded content into “bite size pieces of entertainment” that's distributed on social media platforms.

“The experience is everything when it comes to reimagining advertising,” Speciale said.

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Such steps also are crucial to improving both the impact of ads, and advertisers’ relationship with viewers, both of which are on the rocks because for years “all of us have simply stuffed too much advertising” into TV,” she said.

As television continues to evolve, it is critical that media companies work together to share best practices that will forward the industry – particularly as early successes emerge, she said.

“Over the last few years our industry has faced many challenges,” Speciale said. “We are all living through them and we cannot hide from them. We are not going to be able to advance the ad community if we don’t break down the silos.”

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The explosion of available data is directly correlated with the content boom and multiplatform viewing, but the quest for better metrics is better proceeding at a measured pace, lest regulators stick their nose into the TV measurement business.

Those were the core themes voiced by the five participants in the vibrant panel session “Data-Driven: How Big Data Is Boosting the Value of TV Advertising” during Tuesday's Advanced Advertising Summit.   

“Content everywhere is changing how consumers consume,” said Aleck Schleider, VP of data and analytics for Videology. “They get things on different devices, in different formats. They are skipping advertising. And this in and of itself is forcing us to have a greater level of understanding. When people are searching for a deeper level of understanding, they are looking for different sources of data.”

In fact, “we are swimming in data,” said Pankaj Shroff, founder and CEO of Psychability, “so from the perspective of a technology provider, the question is, once an ecosystem has access to data, how do you make that data actionable?”

Kim Norris, COO of Viamedia, said one action that has evolved notably due to data is targeting.

“What’s been particularly interesting has been the introduction of vertical data sets,” she said. “You can look at things like voter registration data tied to viewing data to understand the behaviors of people who are falling into different categories politically. The appending of automotive data, pharma data, enables you to target.”

Lance Neuhauser, CEO of 4C Insights, said there is undue attention paid to standardization. Buyers and sellers in the market are inevitably going to reach different conclusions and make different strategic decisions based on the exact same piece of available data.

“They’re going to transact off it,” he said. “That doesn’t mean you have to have standard measurement in order to make that decision.”

Read more at broadcastingcable.com.

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Cablevision Media Sales (CMS), the ad-sales arm of Cablevision Systems, has introduced a "political insights tool" to help candidates' campaigns and issue-based advertisers use de-identified set-top box tuning data to target their messages more effectively. Cablevision said the tool is already being used in the cable provider's New York-area market, providing such insights as:

• Caucasian Democrats are more likely to watch Fox Business News and Fox News than the average household; 
• Republican households in Long Island are more likely to tune to sports networks as opposed to Republican households in New York City which are more likely to tune to news and business networks.

CMS senior vice president of Advanced Advertising and Data Analytics Jennifer Koester, who announced the new product during a panel session at the Multichannel News and Broadcasting & Cable Advanced Advertising summit, said in a statement: “With data playing such an integral role in today’s political campaigns, we continue to evolve our capabilities to deliver insights that transform how advertisers reach audiences. The CMS Political Insights Tool unleashes new possibilities for media planners that want to power the most effective campaigns for driving voter action.” She said Cablevision has done well with political ads in past election cycles and is hopeful about this one, too.

Cathie Herrick, president and founder of Buying Time, LLC, has been trying out the new tool. “Cablevision’s long-time pioneering efforts in the data-driven advertising space uniquely position the company to capitalize on this fast-paced political climate as it delivers crucial advanced audience insights and targeting capabilities,” she said in the CMS statement. “With the CMS Political Insights tool, we can empower clients to run more efficient campaigns with greater precision and improved effectiveness. This tool provides the ability to make well-researched decisions in the quick turnaround atmosphere in which political/issue advocacy campaigns operate within executing same day buys.” 

The CMS Political Insights Tool can be accessed via an app that refreshes monthly, Cablevision said. 

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The third annual NYC Television Week, presented by Broadcasting & Cable, MultichannelNews, Next TV and Ratings Intelligence, is back Oct. 20-22 with top executives discussing the hottest topics in the industry.

Here are some of the highlights of the upcoming five events: Advanced Advertising, the Broadcasting & Cable Hall of Fame, The Content Show, the Next TV Summit and the 13th annual Hispanic Television Summit.

• Advanced Advertising kicks off the events on Tuesday, Oct. 20, at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel. Headline keynote speakers are NBCUniversal chairman of ad sales and client partnerships Linda Yaccarino and Group M global chairman Irwin Gottlieb. Panel sessions include deep dives into programmatic advertising, new measurement metrics and addressable advertising.

• 25th Anniversary Broadcasting & CableHall of Fame is the evening of Oct. 20 at the Waldorf Astoria. This year’s gala will be co-hosted by TV legend Regis Philbin, ABC World News Tonight anchor David Muir and NBC Today co-host Hoda Kotb. Inductees include The Walt Disney Co. chairman and CEO Robert Iger, Liberty Global CEO Mike Fries, Major League Soccer Commissioner Don Garber, Dr. Phil McGraw and Today co-host Kathy Lee Gifford. The late National Football League Hall of Famer and broadcast legend Frank Gifford also will be honored for lifetime achievement.

• The Content Show is Oct. 21-22 at the Park Central Hotel, with an opening keynote from Deutsch Inc. chairman emeritus Donny Deutsch in conversation with B&C editor Dade Hayes. Wendy Williams Show host Wendy Williams and Debmar-Mercury co-presidents Mort Marcus and Ira Bernstein will participate in a keynote Q&A taking a closerlook at the syndication giant. Thursday’s keynote Q&A will feature a discussion with DiscoveryCommunications’s Henry Schleiff, group president for Investigation Discovery, Military Channel and Destination America, led by B&C consulting editor Melissa Grego.

• Next TV Summit at the Park Central on Oct. 21 boasts keynotes from Jonathan Murtaugh, Facebook and Instagram U.S. head of industry for film and television and head of the L.A. office, as well as a talk with Sling TV CEO Roger Lynch. In the afternoon keynote session, United Talent Agency managing director Jay Sures offers a Hollywood insider’s take on over-the-top video and the overall direction of the television market.

• The Hispanic Television Summit is scheduled for Oct.22 at the Park Central, with an opening keynote session with Group M Multicultural president Gonzalo Del Fa and B&C and Multichannel News editorial director Mark Robichaux. Telemundo president Luis Silberwasserwill be interviewed by Noticiero Telemundo co-anchor María Celeste Arrarás about the challenge of creating new content. Hispanic television host, singer and actress Lucero will be presented the award for Achievement in Hispanic Television, while Verizon vice president of cultural engagement Javier Farfan will accept the Leadership in HispanicTelevision award for his company.

For more about New York City Television Week, please visit nyctelevisionweek.com and follow the hashtag on Twitter, #NYCTVWK.