New York — Programmatic is only just hitting the local advertising market.
“From the local perspective, we’re really in the first or second inning,” said Jennifer Hungerbuhler, executive VP, managing director, local video and audio investment, Dentsu Aegis Network, Tuesday during a conversation at the Advanced Advertising Summit held by Broadcasting & Cable and Multichannel News in conjunction with the third annual NYC Television Week.
Hungerbuhler, who oversees all of Dentsu Aegis Network’s local video activation, said the company is focused on getting local linear television in the programmatic space and has learned a lot from the programmatic efforts on the agency side. “We found how we were able to use data as better consumers. The ultimate goal is we want to find people that want to buy their product or visit their stories or interact with them. We want to find where that audience is.”
While education of programmatic has been challenging, members of the “Getting Into The Programmatic Game to Sell Local Advertising” said it has come a long way.
“People are starting to get that it’s a combination of automation and data,” said Shereta Williams, president, Videa. “It’s a quicker way to make buys happen, better visibility.”
Williams and Hungerbuhler were joined on the panel by James Shears, general manager, addressable and programmatic, Dish; and Ben Tatta, president of Cablevision media sales, Cablevision Systems Corp.
Shears said Dish has evolved with the industry, beginning with interactive campaigns and then moving to the addressable, individual space with products like Sling TV and TV Everywhere. “We’re looking at programmatic to scale addressable product,” he said. “Everyone is trying their best to monetize data.”
Tatta noted Total Audience Application, the programmatic platform that Cablevision launched recently in the New York market, adding that there are many supply-side platforms, but the data supply is limited at a large-scale level.
Hungerbuhler concurred that programmatic at a local level is not scalable at the moment. “We don’t have that infrastructure, don’t have the supply, education, data connection,” she said.
