The panel “Growing Local OTT” looked at how local media is supplementing linear commercials with targeted digital advertising. Panelists said the local platforms give national brands a more intimate relationship with consumers. Adam Gaynor, chief revenue officer of Cox Media Group’s Gamut Smart Media, said, “Local advertising is what allows brands to have conversations with communities.”

Asked about the pitfalls of advertising via connected TV, Dave Marquard, head of product at Premion, put fraud at the top of the list, calling it “a significant issue in CTV.”

Gamut Smart Media is “a direct sales business,” offered Gaynor, with key relationships among publishers. That means he does not have to worry about third-party platforms where fraud might pop up. Gaynor mentioned a “brand-safe environment, a fraud-less environment.”

Also: More Coverage from L.A. TV Week

The panel was part of the Advanced Advertising Summit during L.A. TV Week. Daniel Punt, senior managing director at FTI Consulting, moderated. 

Marquard spoke of the importance of transparency in OTT transactions, down to the channel and the device. “I demand transparency in what I’m buying,” he said. 

The panelists said the OTT community is growing so large that it can no longer be ignored by advertisers. “We understand that you’re only going to connect with a portion of our local audience,” said Tom Fleming, senior VP of sales at Fox Television Stations. Previously, he added, the OTT audience might be overlooked. Today, “we’re embracing it.”

Joe Marino, head of client success organization at MadHive, said local is not a very sexy category, but it’s getting there. As connected TV gets larger, “it’s pushing local five years into the future faster,” he said. “I do think CTV has expedited the local markets’ adoption of digital.”

Midterm political spending should expedite things as well. “There’s going to be a lot of inventory missing in the linear world in a few months,” said Gaynor. “CTV offers an opportunity for political money coming in.”

The onrush of political spend also encourages the non-political vendors to reserve their air time, panelists said, before they are squeezed out. 

When considering OTT platforms, panelists said scale and measurement are prime factors. “You should demand [measurement capability] from whoever you’re buying from,” said Marquard. 

Jack Mollins, senior VP of North American ad sales at Atmosphere, said “efficiency plus scale” is the winning combo. 

It’s on ad firms to educate local business owners, well versed in buying linear spots, on the merits of OTT, according to Mollins. “They’ve been buying local TV forever,” he said. “Educating them on this is another opportunity for you.”

The panelists were asked how a recession might affect the local OTT business. “I think no one will be immune to a recession,” said Fleming. 

A recession would likely contract the number of outfits fighting for local spend. “There are so many players in the space,” Marino said. “If we hit a recession, we’ll see who comes out of it.” 

The panelists agreed that connected TV will continue to grow. “Consumers are choosing this,” said Fleming. “It’s here to stay.” ■

When TV advertising finds a new normal after the pandemic, targeted ads are more likely to be a bigger part of the ad mix, experts said on April 20.

Experts also predicted some “share shifting” of ad dollars away from broadcast TV toward ad-supported streaming services, social apps (such as TikTok) and other emerging video categories. And they said the pullback by some advertisers, including ones in travel-related businesses, has led to increased opportunities to advertise on platforms that are seeing a surge in viewing, including connected TV and over-the-top outlets, at reduced rates. That is an opportunity for image type advertising including by TV brands looking to raise awareness among consumers.

They spoke during the first day of the four-day Advanced Advertising Virtual Summit, produced by Jon Lafayette, business editor for Broadcasting+Cable.

Mike Piner, senior VP of video and data driven investments at agency Mediahub, said a “silver lining” in current video consumption is that “media that we considered emerging media is now becoming more mainstream.” Aleck Schleider, senior VP of client and data strategy
at advertising technology firm Amobee, had pointed to internet-connected TV viewing as being up, and Piner added to that increased viewing on ad-supported video on demand networks. He also said video viewing on social apps, including Houseparty and TikTok, will be more important ad vehicles in future.

Ethan Heftman, senior VP of precision and performance advertising sales at A+E Networks, said advertisers at first were doing triage, figuring out what the right message is and when it should run. The last couple of weeks, though, has seen “an increased level of conversation about advanced targeting, about the value of a television impression for someone’s business right now.” He said that trend should continue in the future.

Another panel was a progress report on advanced advertising topics including data-driven linear, audience buying and addressable ads.

Adam Helfgott, CEO at programmatic provider Madhive, said in this environment clients have been receptive to “going full force” now with data-driven approaches, “much higher than we’ve ever seen.”

Tegna senior VP and chief technology officer Kurt Rao said 30% of advertisers are looking for targeted ads now. “Given uncertain times, they are trying to reach the best audience they can,” he said. 

Addressable ads can be used to selectively deliver messages to states as they re-emerge from coronavirus safety measures keeping many businesses closed, executives said during the Advanced Advertising Virtual Summit’s conclusion on April 23.

Television ad spending is expected to take some big hits during this pandemic response as key categories including travel pull back. Already ad inventory is up and prices for airtime are down, executives said during this four-day virtual summit, produced by Broadcasting+Cable business editor Jon Lafayette. For some marketers, looking to establish new brands such as newly launched streaming video services, it can be an opportunity to take market share and hang onto it later, as has happened after dramatically negative events such as the 2008-09 recession and 9/11, executives said.

When businesses reopen and ad spending picks up again, budgets will likely be reduced and there will be increased scrutiny on getting a return on that investment. “That dollar will matter more than ever,” Kevin Arrix, senior VP at Dish Media Sales, said at the virtual summit on April 23. He and Tim Sims, senior VP of inventory partnerships at programmatic vendor The Trade Desk, said ad buyers should be looking to put more of their spend into household-addressable ads that can demonstrate results against measurable performance indicators.

Arrix of Dish Media, which includes Dish Network and Sling TV, said after traumatic events companies might want to “retreat into safety” and buy on old Nielsen metrics of ratings points ot the time to do that,” he said, but instead to “lean into all the different tools and technologies that are available” to target messages to specific audiences.

Sims noted “we will likely see a rolling restart” to the economy, with some states reopening faster than others, and said addressable campaigns can start with those early states and add others later. He used the example of a national quick service restaurant chain that might see 20% of its stores opened in June, 20% in July and the other 60% in August.

Arrix said moving into advanced advertising can seem daunting at first, with differing measurement, technologies and data sets.

Sean Muller, founder and CEO of iSpot.TV, illustrated the ad impact of coronavirus with research showing that travel ad spending was down 99.4% in recent weeks compared with the same period a year ago, and that auto spending was down 53.4%. In contrast, insurance carriers were spending only about 14.8% less, and pizza restaurants’ spending was about even, even though live sports were a big part of their buys and that programming has all but vanished.

Dan Ackerman, chief revenue officer at Samba TV, also shared research indicating time spent watching Netflix and Amazon streaming services has risen 41% year over year in the recent period and time spent watching Hulu was up 48%. Viewers are eager for live sports to return, he said, “but that is being fulfilled with the depth of the libraries in the streaming services.”

As for what data advertisers are looking for to enhance their marketing, Claudio Marcus, VP of strategy at Comcast Advertising, said it was the consumer data and viewing data, with personally identifying information anonymized, and that addressability had two benefits: to target ads to individual households and then to measure whether or not those households had been reached. 

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.

Read More: Complete Coverage of #NYCTVWK

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.”

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.

Get complete coverage of NYC Television & Video Week.

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.”

NYC Television & Video Week will take place at the TimesCenter, Waldorf Astoria and Grand Hyatt on Oct. 17-20. The fourth annual event adds “Video” to its name to reflect the addition of a television industry-related video component that will include sessions on virtual reality and other of-the-moment topics.

Featuring the 26th annual Broadcasting & Cable Hall of Fame and the new VR 20/20 virtual reality summit, as well as best-of-industry conferences such as Advanced Advertising, Next TV Summit and the Hispanic Television Summit, NYC Television & Video Week offers education, information, and unparalleled networking for leaders in broadcast, cable, OTT, advertising, and technology companies serving the industry. NYC Television & Video Week is presented by Broadcasting & Cable, Multichannel News and Next TV.

"This show continues to evolve to become a can’t-miss destination for over 2,400 leaders throughout all facets of the television industry,” Louis Hillelson, VP and group publisher, NewBay Media, said. “The addition of the Virtual Reality 20/20 conference to our stable of proven solutions-oriented summits will help lead the discussion on ways that this high-profile new technology can have a meaningful impact in the television business."

Here is the preliminary lineup for the 2016 NYC Television & Video Week:

Virtual Reality 20/20

Monday, Oct. 17, The TimesCenter

Virtual reality is almost ready for primetime with a suite of consumer products ready to hit the shelves. This conference will investigate the meaning of this potential game-changing technology for the television industry and will examine its impact on programming, distribution and marketing.

26th Annual Broadcasting & Cable Hall of Fame

Tuesday, Oct. 18, Waldorf Astoria

The Broadcasting & Cable Hall of Fame is the leading industry event honoring the pioneers, innovators and stars of the electronic arts. This black-tie affair brings out the best in the industry for a night of celebration and honoring the new inductees.

Advanced Advertising

Wednesday, Oct. 19, Grand Hyatt

Advanced Advertising returns to NYC Television & Video Week with an in-depth look at the latest digital advertising technologies and how to use them to succeed. Covered topics include programmatic TV, metrics, and addressability.

Next TV Summit

Wednesday, Oct. 19, Grand Hyatt

The popular Next TV Summit returns to NYC Television & Video week with a focus on online video, production, content, technology, and OTT. This will be the only East Coast Next TV Summit held this year. NEW FOR 2016: The Next TV Innovator of the Year Award will be presented at the Next TV Summit. The award will honor one individual for their stand out launch, initiative or innovative new approach to the television and video landscape in the last year. The honoree will be invited to participate in a session at the conference, providing their unique insight.

Hispanic Television Summit

Thursday, Oct. 20, Grand Hyatt

The 14th Annual Hispanic Television Summit is the most successful, annual event of its kind, attracting nearly 500 professional registrants each year from the U.S., Latin America, and Spain. This year’s summit will focus on expanding the business environment of Hispanic TV & Video, which is attracting more viewers, advertisers, programs, channels, and investments than ever before. But, expansion brings new challenges. Learn how the pros are providing better entertainment while meeting new challenges with an eye on future viewers and profits.

Registration for all NYC Television & Video Week events is open with early bird rates and alumni discounts. Visit nyctvweek.com and sign up for email alerts and event updates.

For information on 2016 NYC Television & Video Week partnerships and sponsorship opportunities, contact Charlie Weiss at 212-378-0478 or cweiss@nbmedia.com.

For more information about 2016 NYC Television & Video Week, visit nyctvweek.com and follow on Twitter at @NYCTVWK

Broadcasting & Cable, Multichannel News, and Next TV are published by NewBay Media.

Get more of MCN's Advanced Advertising coverage.

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.

Get more of MCN's Advanced Advertising coverage.

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. 

Get more of MCN's Advanced Advertising coverage.