Speaker 1: Who everyone on all the erics and principle and Eric's
Speaker 1: strategy and insights, and welcome to our session overcoming fragmentation
Speaker 1: and TV advertising.
Speaker 2: And I think this topic and this discussion.
Speaker 1: Are very necessary for the situation in FACE today for
Speaker 1: two reasons. First, it's financial crunch time for all of
Speaker 1: the TV landscaping. And it's the same whether we're talking
Speaker 1: about broadcast, streaming, linear, on demand, live, doesn't matter. High performance,
Speaker 1: the high performance in the industry, particularly revenue margin and
Speaker 1: profitability and through all crucial goals and maximizing modernization and
Speaker 1: revenue performance, particularly to be an advertisement has never been
Speaker 1: more important with the financial health of the industry. The second,
Speaker 1: actually pulling us off, actually doing so has never been
Speaker 1: more challenging. And so you have audiences spread out across
Speaker 1: broadcasts and streaming, across liner and on demand and across
Speaker 1: roughly twenty and growing different smart TV platforms globally, and
Speaker 1: so fragmentation is really significant earl to conquer if you're
Speaker 1: trying to really maximize the performance of.
Speaker 2: TV advertising today. So how do you deal it and
Speaker 2: do it well?
Speaker 1: Well, we're luck because we have a terrific mix of
Speaker 1: perspectives from our panelists who are doing it today who
Speaker 1: can give us all practical not theoretical insights on dealing
Speaker 1: with fragmentation.
Speaker 2: And we're joined by Jeff Blasi It's Blasick, but yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm sorry. My apology.
Speaker 1: Jeff, who's s VP of Physics, Operations and Strategy, Show Seeker,
Speaker 1: Matthew van Helm who's SVP of Product ad Offs and
Speaker 1: Services and Business Development and Direct TV Advertising. Michelle Stone
Speaker 1: is VP of Advanced Advertising Product and Planning a Paramount,
Speaker 1: Rob Jason, who's EVP of Insights and Analytics at USIM,
Speaker 1: and Steve Reynolds, the president of the Magic Communications.
Speaker 2: Welcome everyone, thanks for being.
Speaker 1: Here today, and I'd like to kick things off by
Speaker 1: pulling back a viewpoint a bit. Let's start by framing
Speaker 1: the fragmentation issue.
Speaker 2: In a bigger picture way.
Speaker 1: Do you think the overcoming the channel is a fragmentation
Speaker 1: and advertising this fragment of landscape.
Speaker 2: Does it come down to solving technical issues?
Speaker 1: Is better ad tech needed that's you know, designed for
Speaker 1: the problems of today or is it business issues process
Speaker 1: implementation methodology or is it both both technical a business?
Speaker 3: You know?
Speaker 2: Based on this assessment, can some of you shed.
Speaker 1: Blight on how you would adapt from a strategy perspective
Speaker 1: based on your experience actually tag the fragmentation issue today,
Speaker 1: Jeff like.
Speaker 2: To take a first step of the Sure, I'm not
Speaker 2: glad to start that.
Speaker 4: You know, the question is is it technical or is
Speaker 4: it a business problem?
Speaker 5: Right, and so it's really a bit of both.
Speaker 4: Although the technology is really starting to emerge and starting
Speaker 4: to come together to be able to allow us to
Speaker 4: navigate through all the complexity of the of the ecosystem
Speaker 4: and so so really I think one of the things
Speaker 4: that we really focus on is how do we align
Speaker 4: you know, the technology along with the business practices so
Speaker 4: that we're you know, actually building out plans and planning
Speaker 4: ahead for all the variety of tactics and requirements that
Speaker 4: our customers have, and then make sure that those tools
Speaker 4: that we're using technologies are really just tools that they
Speaker 4: actually execute on those business plans, so that so we
Speaker 4: can actually get you know, the the requirements that that
Speaker 4: customer is looking for. You know, often I think we
Speaker 4: still look at any you know, the whole fragmentation problem
Speaker 4: by saying, well, you know, we know what we're doing,
Speaker 4: you know, so we do this standardized plan that we've
Speaker 4: done for over and over, and then we connect on
Speaker 4: or we add to those plans with different tactics. Well,
Speaker 4: when you get to measurement, we'll probably talk about that
Speaker 4: after a while. That becomes really a complicated problem to
Speaker 4: be able to align a variety of different tactics with
Speaker 4: the original plan and how do we measure against that
Speaker 4: so that it all comes together, Because it's all you know,
Speaker 4: everybody sort of creates a different idea or a different
Speaker 4: you know, methodology for reaching that customer and saying, hey,
Speaker 4: you know we delivered this to this person. Well that
Speaker 4: person may be consuming that media in a different way
Speaker 4: the next time. Are they the same or are they different?
Speaker 4: So how do you deal with reach and frequency and
Speaker 4: all those things? So so, yeah, so the short answer is, yeah,
Speaker 4: it's a little bit of a technology problem, but I
Speaker 4: think it's more of a business problem and coming up
Speaker 4: with how are we actually executing on a tactical campaign
Speaker 4: for our customers that we can then measure At the.
Speaker 1: End, Rob from USIM perspective, you have obviously looking at insights.
Speaker 2: What are your thoughts on whether it's the mixer of
Speaker 2: tech or business.
Speaker 6: Well, I mean the answer is yes, it's it's it's
Speaker 6: it's clearly a bit of both. You know, what we
Speaker 6: have to keep in mind from the buyside representing clients
Speaker 6: is the reason that spend money in advertising is to
Speaker 6: sell more product profitably.
Speaker 5: What is the way to do that?
Speaker 6: And how do we then address the fragmentation, especially in
Speaker 6: CTV of audiences and the reduction in mass reach And
Speaker 6: is that to the benefit of selling more product profitably?
Speaker 6: And this is where you know, we sometimes got a
Speaker 6: little there's potential to become diverted from the goal through technology.
Speaker 6: If I am concentrating on reach of small segments, ever
Speaker 6: slimmer segments of the buying population through greater technology, I
Speaker 6: might possibly lose some of the benefits of TV advertising
Speaker 6: In the first place, we're still advertising on mainscreen TV.
Speaker 6: The aim of that is to build brands. The aim
Speaker 6: of that is to differentiate the client's brand, to build
Speaker 6: brand equities in the long term, get customers loyally to
Speaker 6: buy more product profitably. If I'm concentrated on the smallest,
Speaker 6: most technical segments, oftentimes delivered as we do from client
Speaker 6: first party data, that is fantastic for driving what we
Speaker 6: call performance TV that is measuring conversion but is that
Speaker 6: widening the top of the funnel. Is that creating awareness
Speaker 6: and brand equity amongst people who might not have considered
Speaker 6: our brand. Are we bringing that brand to the top
Speaker 6: of mind for somebody who's never bought before, that's a
Speaker 6: little more difficult. So, you know, it is a strategy
Speaker 6: issue in that we have to go beyond the lowest
Speaker 6: hanging fruit of easy to reach customer segments and broaden
Speaker 6: our view to try to build the brand, which is
Speaker 6: the purpose of TV advertising in the first place.
Speaker 7: Hello, okay, from the paramount perspective.
Speaker 8: So I I from the paramount perspective I think, or
Speaker 8: from from my perspective as well as the paramount I
Speaker 8: would assume is it's both right, it's technology, it's process,
Speaker 8: it's business, it's all of the above, and it's it's
Speaker 8: like who can who can get there first. It's almost
Speaker 8: like we're competing in technology in a lot of ways
Speaker 8: because there is no one size fits all for managing
Speaker 8: this fragmented landscape.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 8: So at Paramount we have deals that can run across broadcasts,
Speaker 8: cable addressable, digital addressable, across five six different partners, and
Speaker 8: that poses a different set of problems than someone else
Speaker 8: might have in a different set of technology needs, process
Speaker 8: needs than someone else might have. So I think I
Speaker 8: think we've found ourselves in a place where everybody is
Speaker 8: building their own technology to manage these challenges, and it's
Speaker 8: now become a competitive advantage if you can do it right.
Speaker 8: And you know a lot of times publishers, you know,
Speaker 8: we're fortunate that we can do it in a way
Speaker 8: that does feel convergent. We could activate against everything, We
Speaker 8: can optimize and measure against everything in a way that
Speaker 8: even some of our agency partners can't because they don't
Speaker 8: have that same view of each of those inventory pools
Speaker 8: in a system or in an operational way that they
Speaker 8: can activate against it. So they're kind of relying on
Speaker 8: us in some areas to manage that full approach across
Speaker 8: each of these. So it's both it's technology, but I
Speaker 8: think it's primarily technology, but it is in order for
Speaker 8: people to adopt and implement this type of the type
Speaker 8: of technology that's needed, you need everyone to understand the
Speaker 8: business challenges, the process challenges, and prioritize it in moving.
Speaker 2: Forward in a new way. Thanks the schell.
Speaker 1: Hold on to that thought because it leads into my
Speaker 1: next question. I was thinking, Okay, if we pull back
Speaker 1: a perspective from the fragmentation issue itself at its most essential,
Speaker 1: we're still looking at a single broad landscape of consumers
Speaker 1: that we want to reach, albeit with plenty of different
Speaker 1: nuances and complications along.
Speaker 2: The way to do so.
Speaker 1: And in advertising reality today, how effectively can Nistry engage
Speaker 1: in and converge activations to reach across this veried landscape?
Speaker 1: You know, what are best practices today and what still
Speaker 1: needs to be done? Actually, at rob start and then
Speaker 1: I'll pitch it to man Steve here.
Speaker 6: So our best practice, we tend to start with our
Speaker 6: own customers data, our brand data, starting with who is
Speaker 6: currently buying the brand. Using CRM data has become ever
Speaker 6: more important for our clients to effectively figure out who
Speaker 6: new prospects might be in the CTV world. So we
Speaker 6: use seeds of current clients, we segment CRM data. We
Speaker 6: then start to use that with our partners to start
Speaker 6: to build new audiences of how we want to then
Speaker 6: target potential converts.
Speaker 2: You know, we marry that with.
Speaker 6: The ability to target people buying potential switches, people buying
Speaker 6: other brands, and then balance those audiences and look at
Speaker 6: the potential reach within different partners that we're buying from.
Speaker 6: So I think you know first we start with customer data.
Speaker 2: Great, thanks job, Matt.
Speaker 1: DirecTV advertising has a lot of experience, years of experience,
Speaker 1: but also experience dealing with multiple types of audiences across
Speaker 1: all these different complications.
Speaker 2: What are your thoughts?
Speaker 9: Yeah, audience fragmentation is real, it is accelerating. There is
Speaker 9: steady progress in converged solutions. We you know directivy, we've
Speaker 9: had converged solutions in markets since twenty nineteen. You have
Speaker 9: the ability to buy satellite television streaming. You can buy
Speaker 9: it through live or VOD. It's extended to the fast environment.
Speaker 9: To Michelle's point, it takes a significant technology investment. Once
Speaker 9: that technology messine is made. We've built parody into our products.
Speaker 9: We treat everything as an impression, whether it is on
Speaker 9: a ten foot device, on a couch, on a mobile phone.
Speaker 9: We're able to deliver for that campaign doing the targeting
Speaker 9: that you just mentioned, whether it's viewership data, whether it's
Speaker 9: CRM data, whether it's first party data, You're able to
Speaker 9: execute and deliver a campaign across screens. You're able to
Speaker 9: aggregate reporting and deliver attribution and understand the KPIs. You know,
Speaker 9: as a distributor, having that data and having the technology
Speaker 9: maybe gives us somewhat of an advantage, but from our seat,
Speaker 9: you know, converged solutions have worked unbelievably well, be able
Speaker 9: to compliment and find that audience where they are, deliver
Speaker 9: that relevant ad right time, right place, and then be
Speaker 9: able to measure on it. So you know in every
Speaker 9: inventory type, every platform, with the right technology investment, you
Speaker 9: can absolutely get there and you can frequency cap across
Speaker 9: both streaming and TV. This is the world we live
Speaker 9: in today, So hoping everybody gets on board.
Speaker 5: I think that's a good point too.
Speaker 8: It's the data availability of it and who has access
Speaker 8: to those different data points, right, So big publisher DirecTV
Speaker 8: has access to the data who the consumers are in
Speaker 8: a privacy compliant way of course, and they can string
Speaker 8: that together when you're looking at you know, publishers have
Speaker 8: access to their exposure data. They know who those people are.
Speaker 8: But the linear data is a third party source. The
Speaker 8: addressable data is a third party source.
Speaker 5: So making sure you have the right.
Speaker 8: Connection points in the middle of all of that and
Speaker 8: the right partnerships in place to be able to string
Speaker 8: it all together. And I think that's part of the
Speaker 8: technology problem we're trying to solve, is the data availability
Speaker 8: and the connections.
Speaker 4: Within well, and both of you talked about the necessity
Speaker 4: that you find to have to build your own tech
Speaker 4: to and I think all companies are kind of finding that,
Speaker 4: and some are more well invested in being able to
Speaker 4: do that and have the technology and the skill and
Speaker 4: the proper developers to make those things happen. But that's
Speaker 4: where we sort of fragment it even further, right, because
Speaker 4: it's not widely available for everybody, and so we need
Speaker 4: to figure out how do we take the kinds of
Speaker 4: developments that you guys are doing for your internal use,
Speaker 4: make it more of a standardization so that across all
Speaker 4: of the you know, we've got fantastic systems that actually
Speaker 4: can pull data and extract it and put them all together.
Speaker 4: And then the delivery systems are really amazing now, you
Speaker 4: know where we can years ago it's like, well, how
Speaker 4: do I actually get this AD to run in this
Speaker 4: connected TV or this one spot right? And how do
Speaker 4: I make it look like it's all the same. And
Speaker 4: so I think we have to have that conversation that
Speaker 4: actually creates the blend of technology on the buy side
Speaker 4: and the sell side and the delivery side, so that
Speaker 4: everybody has sort of a common dictionary and a common
Speaker 4: set of language that we're working with.
Speaker 3: I think what Jeff's pointing towards there really is the
Speaker 3: key problem that the industry has to talk about from
Speaker 3: from my perspective. And you know, we're imagine works in
Speaker 3: markets all around the world, right, so we're working in
Speaker 3: some markets that are a lot more advanced than the
Speaker 3: US market where this kind of CTV reaggregation is already working.
Speaker 2: The problem that the.
Speaker 5: US market has it ties into.
Speaker 3: Something Michelle said earlier, which is where all of the
Speaker 3: people who are selling inventory are trying to differentiate that
Speaker 3: inventory and the workflow by which they sell and execute
Speaker 3: and report on that has actually become a differentiating factor.
Speaker 3: It's almost like the people who control the inventory don't
Speaker 3: want to.
Speaker 5: Do things the same way because they see that as
Speaker 5: part of their value proposition.
Speaker 3: From a technology perspective, all of this stuff already works.
Speaker 5: I mean, we have the ability to deliver.
Speaker 3: Across linear, on demand streaming, addressable addressable in six different flavors.
Speaker 3: That technology works. What doesn't work yet is the business
Speaker 3: model by which the byside interacts with the cell side,
Speaker 3: and then the cell side ultimately executes and delivers on that.
Speaker 3: Like I said, in other markets, and I'll point to
Speaker 3: the UK market is probably being the one that's the
Speaker 3: most advanced. There has been an agreement around things like
Speaker 3: common currency. In the UK market, you can buy linear
Speaker 3: television on an audience basis. You can buy impressions on
Speaker 3: linear television, you can buy impressions on streaming, you can
Speaker 3: buy impressions.
Speaker 2: And on demand.
Speaker 5: They figured it out.
Speaker 3: There's probably some stuff to learn from those more advanced markets.
Speaker 3: How well that scales into the US market is the
Speaker 3: question that I don't think we've answered yet.
Speaker 2: Good points.
Speaker 1: And when we talk about looking at a converged audience
Speaker 1: or essentially aggregating an audience into a whole, are there
Speaker 1: specific challenges when it comes to aggregating audiences today, particularly
Speaker 1: when it comes to the nitta gritty delivering to all
Speaker 1: of them, everybody across that aggregated audience. What solutions are
Speaker 1: proving effective in the current market. Can you give us
Speaker 1: some perspective from the view point of view.
Speaker 9: Yeah, I mean, listen, you've got a big rise of
Speaker 9: safe havens and data bunkers and opportunities to do deterministic
Speaker 9: matching against subscriber bases based on various you know, targeting criteria.
Speaker 9: When I think about, you know, the campaigns that we run,
Speaker 9: you know, addressably thousands of campaigns a year for ourselves
Speaker 9: and for other programmers that have enabled you know, you
Speaker 9: see you know, basically a third to third to third.
Speaker 9: You see a lot of first party data coming in.
Speaker 9: You see companies wanting to acquire third party data that
Speaker 9: they have access to and apply that. And then you
Speaker 9: have times where they'll look for you know, viewership data
Speaker 9: from a platform where we've got viewership data available, so
Speaker 9: understanding you know, the age old concern is making sure
Speaker 9: the brand knows where that where their audience is and
Speaker 9: who their audience is well defined, being able to look
Speaker 9: at what those various targeting capabilities are. In our case,
Speaker 9: we've built the technology that that those that targeting can
Speaker 9: get pushed either into linear or digital. You want to
Speaker 9: make sure that you've got your delivery through your linear
Speaker 9: and you know digital ad server, and then you're gonna
Speaker 9: roll that back up and you're gonna aggree and you're
Speaker 9: gonna understand how those audiences performed. You know, education is
Speaker 9: a big part of that. Right, You're only going to
Speaker 9: be you're going to see that ROI if you've got
Speaker 9: the right level of targeting. And what we found is,
Speaker 9: you know, you need to be available to do all
Speaker 9: of the above, first party, second party data, third party.
Speaker 5: Data, match data. You've got to be open.
Speaker 9: We've got twenty two data vendors that we use, right,
Speaker 9: you know, so you have to be available where that
Speaker 9: client wants to be based on their prefer partnerships. And
Speaker 9: then from a targeting perspective, right, you have a lot
Speaker 9: of different planning systems that exist out there, and so
Speaker 9: you know, being a consultedative seller, I think you just
Speaker 9: mentioned it right.
Speaker 5: It's commoditization of the same media.
Speaker 9: You can buy an MTV avail from from paramount, or
Speaker 9: from a distributor, or from you. Right, there's lots of
Speaker 9: locations to buy that. You can trade it on the
Speaker 9: open market. It's bidable. But again, how do you differentiate yourself?
Speaker 9: I think it's part of that workflow you just mentioned.
Speaker 9: It's part of your consultative approach. It's the back end reporting.
Speaker 9: It's how do I make this client smarter? How do
Speaker 9: I make their next plan better? How can they deliver
Speaker 9: more effectively? Where is their audience where they didn't think
Speaker 9: their audience was. They thought their audience was at six
Speaker 9: o'clock on a general entertainment network, but they're actually you
Speaker 9: can get that same audience for a fraction of the
Speaker 9: price on a Thursday morning on HGTV.
Speaker 2: I'm making it up right.
Speaker 9: So all of those things contribute to delivering against those rois.
Speaker 9: That's really what we focus on as the KPIs and
Speaker 9: the rest is just levers we pull to hit those objectives.
Speaker 1: Yeah, thanks, Matt Steve. You would imagine have a lot
Speaker 1: of experience doing this. So what's your respective So I.
Speaker 3: Think this year, I think in twenty twenty five, or
Speaker 3: I should say next year. One of the things we're
Speaker 3: going to see is the people that sell the inventory
Speaker 3: getting a lot smarter about how.
Speaker 5: To guide buyers towards buying the right thing.
Speaker 3: You know, in some of the markets we work in,
Speaker 3: programmatic went too far too fast, and programmatic is actually
Speaker 3: not a great way to preserve the value of inventory
Speaker 3: if you are a seller.
Speaker 2: There's a lot of buyers.
Speaker 3: Who love programmatic because it gives them the ability to
Speaker 3: kind of cherry pick inventory and arbitrage across multiple suppliers,
Speaker 3: but it's not necessarily the right way to optimize the
Speaker 3: value of the inventory.
Speaker 5: So I think what we're going to see, you.
Speaker 3: Know, next year, is a real focus around creating differentiated
Speaker 3: value within the inventory, and a big piece of that
Speaker 3: is going to be the sellers helping guide buyers towards
Speaker 3: the right way to buy. Rob and I were talking
Speaker 3: earlier about you know, some of the quality of what
Speaker 3: you see on the CTV advertising is really low. I
Speaker 3: guess it's my demographic, but I see a lot of
Speaker 3: pharmaceutical ads.
Speaker 5: I don't know what that says about me.
Speaker 3: And what they think about my profile, but I'll tell
Speaker 3: you what, it doesn't make me want to buy those products.
Speaker 3: It's not a well curated experience. It's not something that's
Speaker 3: really appealing to me as a buyer. That's got to
Speaker 3: get solved. The root of that problem is programmatic buying.
Speaker 3: We need to move back towards a model where high
Speaker 3: value inventory is being sold on a direct base as
Speaker 3: part of a curate ad campaign. That's how you build
Speaker 3: value back into the inventory side for these sellers.
Speaker 1: Thanks Steve, and I want to touch on something that
Speaker 1: you mentioned earlier, measurement and currency. So although the UK
Speaker 1: has made a lot of progress, let's look at the
Speaker 1: US or North America at least.
Speaker 2: What are some of the specific issues.
Speaker 1: That arise when you're trying to deliver to all of
Speaker 1: these different platforms, especially when you have different levels of
Speaker 1: reporting right from all of them. And we're a long
Speaker 1: way from solving the well hopefully not, but we're a
Speaker 1: ways from solving the measurement issue and having common currency
Speaker 1: and so on. So let's think about not one needs
Speaker 1: to be done there, Let's think about what works today,
Speaker 1: right working around with the state of things today and
Speaker 1: navigating around these issues around measurement and reporting and delivering
Speaker 1: effectively to this mix of platforms. Jeff from the show
Speaker 1: seeker perspective, what are your thoughts and making the work today?
Speaker 2: Sure?
Speaker 4: I think it, you know, kind of us back to
Speaker 4: having a real strategic business plan that actually says this
Speaker 4: is the objectives that I'm trying to reach for my customer.
Speaker 4: And when we do that, the currency sort of flattens
Speaker 4: out a little bit. I mean, obviously we're working towards
Speaker 4: an opportunity to find a common currency currency, but it's
Speaker 4: just going to take some time, and the way that
Speaker 4: we deliver on legacy content and now future and extra
Speaker 4: types of TV content is going to be different. And
Speaker 4: so what I think we have to do is have
Speaker 4: reporting that reflects the objectives that that customer is actually
Speaker 4: trying to reach, and then make sure that our aggregation
Speaker 4: of all the data from the multiple sources that we're doing,
Speaker 4: because that's where the complexity lies, right, is that in
Speaker 4: traditional television we're saying, hey, you know, I've got one
Speaker 4: source and it's all coming back in very easy to measure.
Speaker 5: Well, now we have.
Speaker 4: Multiple sources returning that that data path from you know,
Speaker 4: from all the different services, types of advertising, everything else
Speaker 4: that are coming back together. And so we really do
Speaker 4: have have the Steve talked about, We have the technology
Speaker 4: to do that. It's about saying, hey, did we actually
Speaker 4: accomplish what we set out to do and we need
Speaker 4: to do that with the data. And actually, as we
Speaker 4: do that more and more, then the currency starts to
Speaker 4: I think funnel into a It sort of funnels itself
Speaker 4: into more of a common currency, as opposed to saying, hey,
Speaker 4: I just want to convert this other thing into this
Speaker 4: new thing and make it look like it's the same
Speaker 4: thing that that that's where I think we fall apart.
Speaker 4: And if we can actually match back to the plan,
Speaker 4: then we we've actually accomplished them.
Speaker 6: Right the comment I mean from from a from a
Speaker 6: buy side, I common currency, great, your common reach is
Speaker 6: more important from a buyside, which seems like it's a
Speaker 6: long way away. Right, Even if you might be able
Speaker 6: to do it in a in a direct TV environment,
Speaker 6: that's a small part of a total environment that the
Speaker 6: buyside might be looking at. And that presents the problem.
Speaker 6: You know, let's hope that it gets solved that some way.
Speaker 6: I figuring out how to how to at least get
Speaker 6: cross cross platform reach. In the meantime, we tend to
Speaker 6: look at, uh, you know, business outcomes and measuring how
Speaker 6: do we tie business outcomes to exposure And we don't
Speaker 6: expect that to be a you know, we can look
Speaker 6: at that in the past using marketing or media mixed modeling.
Speaker 6: But in the future we're expecting our partners, you know, too,
Speaker 6: to tie back an exposure in a video platform back
Speaker 6: to some form of engagement, some form of customer engagement
Speaker 6: with the brand. And and and that is the way
Speaker 6: that we start to think about a convergence and a
Speaker 6: comparison to allow us to think about equitable distribution of
Speaker 6: funds across different video platforms, and so we have to
Speaker 6: bypass some of that cross platform reach that just seems
Speaker 6: out of breach.
Speaker 1: Thanks Rob Michelle from what you're seeing here amount what
Speaker 1: works today and navigate around currency measurement reporting issues.
Speaker 8: Well, I think I think it's important to really recognize
Speaker 8: that the past ten years, maybe even the past five
Speaker 8: years more so, have had such a drastic change in
Speaker 8: how people consume content, the amount of platforms and areas
Speaker 8: that you can watch TV or video or whatever it is,
Speaker 8: and that, coupled with all of the advancements in technology
Speaker 8: and data availability, I think is the reason that we're
Speaker 8: in this scenario where we're evaluating what is the right currency?
Speaker 5: Are there multiple.
Speaker 8: And how do we evolve from the way things have
Speaker 8: been done in the past, because the way things were
Speaker 8: done ten years ago just can't continue to be the
Speaker 8: way things are done now, which I think has kind
Speaker 8: of led itself to the optionality in a currency measurement
Speaker 8: worlds because there is no right way to do anything
Speaker 8: right now, right like there is not one single source
Speaker 8: of truth. There is so much fragmentation and advancements in
Speaker 8: data and technology that allow us to think about things
Speaker 8: differently and allow us to evaluate currently which measurement partner
Speaker 8: provides the greatest value, whether it's from planning holistically or
Speaker 8: counting numbers or measuring convergent reach. So it's an interesting
Speaker 8: time to be able to like evaluate maybe there isn't
Speaker 8: just one currency right Maybe right now there is not
Speaker 8: one way to think about things, and maybe there's different
Speaker 8: providers for each partner, for each client that gives them
Speaker 8: a certain advantage in evaluating data in the way that
Speaker 8: they want to evaluate it. Right So to the points
Speaker 8: around audiences, being able to take an audience, understand how
Speaker 8: that audience used content across everything, plan against that, measure
Speaker 8: against it, and that's the attribution against it. There's different
Speaker 8: currency or measurement providers or sometimes both for each of
Speaker 8: those workflows. Ideally you use one for that whole cycle,
Speaker 8: and there's just different opportunities and advantages that I think
Speaker 8: we're evaluating right now. One day when we come back
Speaker 8: to one or two, maybe, but for now, I think
Speaker 8: there is a big change in the marketplace that.
Speaker 1: We need to take advantage of Thanks Michelle, and I
Speaker 1: think when you bring up mindset, that leads me to
Speaker 1: my next question. Sorry to spill the water here, which
Speaker 1: I want to ask of Steve, because I think you've
Speaker 1: got some overarching perspective that's really I will hear when
Speaker 1: when we look at some of the challenges of advertising
Speaker 1: to fragmented audiences, is it related to legacy industry thinking
Speaker 1: and mindset, you know, old versus new, conservatism versus aggression
Speaker 1: and so on when it comes to looking at new
Speaker 1: possibilities versus just going with what worked before.
Speaker 2: What are your thoughts?
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, I was just listening to what Michelle
Speaker 3: was saying, and I think that's a really interesting perspective
Speaker 3: that ties into what you're asking here. There is conservative
Speaker 3: conservatism on both sides of the equation, right on the
Speaker 3: byside and seal side. People don't want to change the
Speaker 3: way that they've been doing things in general, because they've
Speaker 3: got business.
Speaker 5: Models that are built on top of the way things
Speaker 5: that happen.
Speaker 3: But it's going to have to change, and maybe you
Speaker 3: know that. The part of the answer towards that is
Speaker 3: it does have to change in an evolutionary fashion.
Speaker 5: We're going to have to change over.
Speaker 3: The course of the next couple of years, maybe even
Speaker 3: the next decade, to move.
Speaker 5: Towards these newer models.
Speaker 3: But I can't help but wonder where it ultimately changes too.
Speaker 3: Is that there is not a single currency, There is
Speaker 3: not a single ubiquitous workflow, There is not a single
Speaker 3: way for buyers to buy, which means that what we
Speaker 3: need to be able to do, and Jeff and I
Speaker 3: work together a lot on this kind of stuff, is
Speaker 3: make sure that the underlying data platforms have the openness
Speaker 3: that is going to be required in order for the
Speaker 3: people who sell inventory and the people who buy inventory
Speaker 3: to be.
Speaker 5: Able to get access into those systems.
Speaker 3: Transform the data the way that they need it in
Speaker 3: order to create meaningful reporting on things like attribution and
Speaker 3: proof of performance. To me, that's what the future of
Speaker 3: this whole ecosystem is going to look like. It's going
Speaker 3: to be a much more open data platform where the
Speaker 3: buyers may have different ways of evaluating the performance of
Speaker 3: the ads they're buying. We'll all be able to work
Speaker 3: together to provide that and ultimately build the value in
Speaker 3: the inventory.
Speaker 1: Excellent, and I think we have time for one last question,
Speaker 1: which I think multiple, multiple of you will have comments on.
Speaker 2: Let me flip things a little bit.
Speaker 1: We focused on the challenges of delivering to a lot
Speaker 1: of different platforms as a whole. But let's turn that
Speaker 1: around and let's look at the possibilities presented by all
Speaker 1: of these variables. Are there ways to really take advantage
Speaker 1: of that, you know, and innovate and to take maximum
Speaker 1: advantage of some of the unique capabilities that exist in
Speaker 1: these different universes. How does the industry take advantage of that?
Speaker 1: What works now to really maximize performance by leveraging some
Speaker 1: of these unique possibilities. And Matt, I know you mentioned
Speaker 1: earlier that DIRECTIVI is doing a lot of work to
Speaker 1: try and do this.
Speaker 2: Create.
Speaker 1: Unique campaigns, unique advantages, explore the possibilities.
Speaker 2: You want to start on this question? Sure?
Speaker 9: Sure, yeah, I mean listen, you you want to be
Speaker 9: able to have a smart dademic inventory that you can
Speaker 9: serve in these campaigns and be able to do all
Speaker 9: things that we just talked about. I think the measurement
Speaker 9: piece is not the long pole in the tent. You've
Speaker 9: got comScore, you've got Nielsen, you've got all measurement with
Speaker 9: video amp and eyespot, Right, that's not necessarily where we
Speaker 9: find friction. What we want to be able to do
Speaker 9: is take these various video platforms, whether it's a fast,
Speaker 9: free front porch or again whether it's satellite and live
Speaker 9: or VOD or whether it's pure play streaming, and we
Speaker 9: ought to be able to aggregate those audiences like we've
Speaker 9: just talked about, want to be able to deliver those campaigns,
Speaker 9: and then we want to really focus on those business outcomes,
Speaker 9: so making sure that whether it's geographically delivered or whether
Speaker 9: it's delivered based on socioeconomic variables. Did they go to
Speaker 9: the store, did they search on the web? Did they
Speaker 9: make a purchase? At the product skeu level, This is
Speaker 9: the information from the ad exposure that we're providing back
Speaker 9: to the buy side so they can again move the
Speaker 9: units that they need to make. So what we've done
Speaker 9: and we found a lot of success, is that we've
Speaker 9: really made TV and digital one thing impressions and we've
Speaker 9: made it all performance based and that's been a big
Speaker 9: boon to our business. Right, we can serve certainly branding
Speaker 9: campaigns and we do that at scale, but the opportunity
Speaker 9: to use the data and technology that are available for
Speaker 9: us today, which is available across all those platforms is
Speaker 9: a very very powerful tool for us, and that's what
Speaker 9: gets people renewing. I've got you know, addressable is evergreen.
Speaker 9: You know, there are a lot of these campaigns are
Speaker 9: never off air, right because from a performance perspective, continuing
Speaker 9: to mind those clients, they're continuing to see the value there,
Speaker 9: and so you can continue to optimize, tweak and optimize,
Speaker 9: tweak and optimize. It's been great, it's been very successful.
Speaker 2: Thanks Pat. Jeff.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think you know, as we as we kind
Speaker 4: of look as we're moving towards the future, the reality
Speaker 4: is that the tools need to be strong and robust.
Speaker 4: They need to be advanced enough to do the types
Speaker 4: of business practice that we want to have, and they
Speaker 4: need to be easy and simil to use. You know,
Speaker 4: this is the big challenge that we have, and we
Speaker 4: know that the ecosystem keeps getting more and more complex. Well,
Speaker 4: as we do that, we just create more and more fragmentation.
Speaker 4: And so what I think we really have to be
Speaker 4: focused on is how do we get the tools to
Speaker 4: be smart enough to be able to execute on the
Speaker 4: design of the campaign that the buyer that really wants
Speaker 4: to what they really want out of their ad LOK.
Speaker 8: Michelle, Yeah, I think that's a really great point because
Speaker 8: I think there's actually been so much innovation over the
Speaker 8: last ten years. Then now it's time to put it
Speaker 8: into practice. Right Like every publisher, every agency, every tech company,
Speaker 8: I've had these innovation teams, right, Like I am on
Speaker 8: the advanced advertising team at Paramount and we have been
Speaker 8: innovating for eight years since I've been there, And same
Speaker 8: thing at the agencies, right they have like an innovation
Speaker 8: advanced advertising team. Now it's time to actually take all
Speaker 8: those things that have been built, all the new ways
Speaker 8: of doing things, and making sure that everybody from the
Speaker 8: innovation team down to an entry level analyst understands the
Speaker 8: new ways of thinking about and doing things and using
Speaker 8: that technology and tools for the future of advertising and
Speaker 8: getting uncomfortable, right, Like we talked about is it technology,
Speaker 8: is it process? It's getting really uncomfortable to move forward.
Speaker 2: For the future. Thanks to show, Steve, you've got the
Speaker 2: last word here.
Speaker 3: Well, I guess you know what Michelle does say and
Speaker 3: kind of ties into where we were earlier. Twenty twenty
Speaker 3: five is the year when we've all really got to
Speaker 3: focus on taking the things that do work well, and
Speaker 3: I mean from a technical perspective, and making that work
Speaker 3: for the business right, making it effective for the people
Speaker 3: to buy the advertising, making it profitable for the people
Speaker 3: who sell the advertising, and ultimately delivering to the brands
Speaker 3: that are trying to attract consumers. So if that could
Speaker 3: be the theme of twenty twenty five, I think we'd
Speaker 3: all be a lot happier when we get together next
Speaker 3: year wherever.
Speaker 1: Tracy gonna do this, Thanks Steve we I'm afraid that's
Speaker 1: all the time we have for today, so I'd like
Speaker 1: to close by giving thanks to Steve, Rob, Jeff, Matt,
Speaker 1: and Michelle for their time today.
Speaker 2: Thank you for your perspective.
Speaker 5: Cep od