The streaming wars are  entering a new generation, marked by Paramount’s potential revival through Skydance and the emergence of unconventional social media entrants like LinkedIn, X (formerly Twitter), and TikTok. 

Increased merger and acquisition (M&A) activity is also shaping the advertising space as legacy media players adapt to shifting consumer preferences toward streaming. This transformation underscores the growing complexity of the media landscape and the necessity for advertisers to diversify their campaigns and reach their audiences effectively.

The revival of Paramount through Skydance exemplifies how traditional media companies are reinventing themselves to stay relevant in the streaming age. Skydance, known for its high-quality content and production capabilities, can potentially breathe new life into Paramount’s streaming offerings, attracting new subscribers and retaining existing ones. This move highlights the importance of content quality and brand recognition in the highly competitive streaming market. Here are other ways to approach the new generation of entrants while still ensuring effective reach and campaigns.

Programmatic and CTV Integration

At Dstillery, we have seen firsthand how brands and marketers are refreshing their strategies to navigate this evolving environment. Integrating Connected TV (CTV) into hands-on programmatic buying platforms and leveraging clean room data matching are key strategies that marketers and brands use to better understand the impacts of CTV advertising compared to standard linear television.

With its ability to deliver highly targeted ads to specific audiences, CTV is rapidly gaining traction among advertisers across all parts of the funnel and becoming a factor when looking at budgets. By using programmatic buying platforms and clean rooms to combine fragmented reporting from walled gardens, advertisers can better target the right audience and optimize budgets. Yet, this tactic is still in its early growth stages

Adopting AI Targeting and Measurement Technology

Adopting AI targeting and measurement technology is crucial. These advanced tools help media buyers understand and then find customers on the most relevant types of content, genres, networks, or categories. AI-driven insights can reveal patterns and trends in consumer behavior that might not be immediately apparent through traditional methods. 

For instance, an AI system can analyze vast amounts of data such as aggregated historical reporting or ACR data related to their campaigns to better understand and optimize against their desired KPI and audience. 

One of the critical aspects of effective targeting in  streaming is understanding how ID-based targeting translates into CTV delivery to better identify your audience. While cookies allow for a 1:1 relationship between an ID and a single browser for targeting, these cookies do not exist on other devices, and so must often be probabilistically matched to a household via an IP address. This means that while one person in a household may belong to a given audience, ads will be shown to everyone in that household. It is essential to consider this when selecting your audiences or using content-based optimizing features to better fine-tune your targeting.

The Streaming Players

The continuing growth of ad-supported tiers on leading streaming platforms and potential entries of social players like LinkedIn, X, and TikTok further intensifies the competition. These platforms bring unique strengths and audiences, challenging traditional media companies to innovate and adapt. 

LinkedIn, for instance, could leverage its professional network to offer niche content tailored to career development and industry insights, while TikTok’s short-form video format appeals to younger audiences looking for quick, engaging content. X’s vast user base and real-time engagement capabilities could position it as a formidable player in live-streaming events.

Increased M&A activity among legacy media players reflects their efforts to consolidate resources and expand their streaming capabilities. These media giants aim to enhance their content libraries, technological infrastructure, and market reach by acquiring or merging with other companies. This trend will likely continue as companies strive to stay competitive.

What Is in Store for Advertisers

These developments mean advertisers must navigate a more fragmented media environment. Diversifying campaigns across multiple platforms and formats is essential to reaching the best audiences. Advertisers must stay abreast of the latest trends and technologies to engage viewers and measure the impact of their efforts.

Overall, the new generation of streaming wars presents challenges and opportunities for advertisers. By starting to take CTV into your programmatic buying platforms, leveraging clean room data matching, and adopting AI targeting and measurement technology, advertisers can better navigate the fragmented media landscape and reach their desired audiences. 

Understanding the nuances of both ID-based and content-based targeting, as well as staying informed about industry trends will be crucial for success in this dynamic environment. As the streaming wars evolve, advertisers must remain agile and innovative to stay ahead of the competition.

The post Conquering the Streaming Wars: An Advertisers’ Guide to Reaching Audiences in  Fragmented Media  appeared first on AdMonsters.

The Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity 2024 was a whirlwind of innovation and insight, from the buzzing panels to the casual yet powerful conversations outside The Palais. While Elon Musk’s headline-grabbing interview drew a lot of attention, the ad tech discussions in the quieter corners truly stole the show. Publishers showcased their latest strategies to diversify revenue, leverage AI, and champion transparency in a rapidly evolving industry.

Amid the seaside backdrop and occasional gusts of wind that even interrupted a Yieldmo rooftop panel, industry heavyweights shared their visions for the future. From AI-enhanced campaign execution to the power of community-building, the sessions were rich with actionable insights and collaborative spirit. Let’s dive into how leading publishers are navigating these trends and setting the stage for what’s next.

AI and Human Governance: A Dynamic Duo

During a lively Yieldmo rooftop panel on the Evolution of AI in Ad Tech, participants faced an unexpected challenge: the wind. Yet, the show went on with Craig Miller from Amazon Web Services, Valerie Davis of Assembly Global, Jesh Sukhwani from Lenovo, and Yieldmo Co-Founder Teddy Jawde leading a robust discussion on generative AI. Sukhwani emphasized the irreplaceable role of human governance in AI implementation, noting, “AI is there to improve productivity and provide a more seamless decision-making process. It is not there to overtake and think for humans.”

Future Today: Leveraging Contextual Buying 

Future Today is making waves with its latest integration with IRIS.TV, allowing the publisher to contextualize its vast content library into various segments, like travel, food, and fitness. This move has standardized the process of contextual buying, making it easier for advertisers to target specific audiences. Co-founder Vikrant Mathur highlighted the importance of this integration for revenue growth, especially with the ongoing cookie deprecation bringing contextual advertising back into focus.  

“IRIS.TV is trying to standardize the process of contextually buying itself,” Mathur explained. “If I have a movie and another publisher has the same movie, sometimes how we pass information to the buy-side is not the same. IRIS.TV allows us to pass and receive signals in a way that makes sense to everybody, which is crucial for standardization.”

In the last quarter or so, revenue from leveraging IRIS-enabled private marketplace deals has been in the six figures for Future Today, and it’s growing. 

The Daily Mail: Dominating in the World of Video 

DMG Media’s Hannah Buitekant shared the company’s ambitious global video strategy, positioning video as the future of revenue diversification. As the leading video publisher on TikTok, with over 13 million followers and one billion monthly views, the Daily Mail combines creativity and tech to expand its video operations. Buitekant advised that authentic content tailored to each platform is crucial for success, emphasizing agility in content development across YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram Reels. According to Buitekant, managing director of digital at DMG Media, innovation within publishing is in the company’s DNA. 

“The video content needs to feel authentic to the platform it appears on, so take that into account when developing new offerings,” Buitekant said. “What works on YouTube may not work on TikTok or Reels, so publishers need to remain agile and amenable to quickly pivot and change formats when rolling out new content platforms.”  

Bloomberg Media: Innovating with Content

Bloomberg Media’s presence at Cannes was marked by discussions about women’s leadership and the power of AI in the C-Suite. Ashish Verma, Global Head of Bloomberg Media Studios, discussed the company’s focus on “content innovation,” combining data science and strategy to connect authentically with their audience. Verma pointed out that live journalism events and bespoke brand content are integral to their diversified media strategy.

“Bloomberg Media has been a heavily diversified media company for many years; one of our points of pride is content innovation, which means that our content is ours and on owned channels, but also social platforms and video distribution streaming services,” Verma explained. “We’ve had a robust live journalism events business for several years, and it plays a part in our diverse offering. In 2025, we will focus on continuing to expand the product offerings from Bloomberg Media Studios, which produces bespoke brand content and experience in a way that understands and connects with our audience — from print to audio and video.”

When asked about AI, Verma noted, “With the growth of AI, we are finding that business-to-business executives are seeing greater value in meeting to discuss key trends and do deals face-to-face and hearing from our journalists face-to-face. Cannes itself was in AI overdrive. Up and down the Croisette, every tech institution was talking about its tools (which were fantastic to play with).”

Mediavine: Don’t Sleep On The Power of a Strong Email Strategy

With the hype surrounding AI and a bunch of new strategies, tools, and technologies on the market, let’s not forget an area thats data rich and has  never steered us wrong: email. When we asked Eric Hochberger, co-founder and CEO of Mediavine, about how publishers can boost revenue these were his sentiments:

“As we reach the halfway point in 2024, it’s a critical time to have conversations with publishers on how they can better diversify their revenue and traffic sources for next year. One approach publishers should consider is a robust email strategy for audience connection and first-party data.

It’s key to reinforce the prioritization of human-made content industry-wide by implementing a framework for vetting mass-produced, undisclosed generative AI content. The most effective way to protect against a generative AI content takeover is by making sure bad actors aren’t incentivized to produce it. Not only because it’s essential for a free web but because it performs better for marketers. Looking ahead at 2025, this will have the biggest impact and wield the greatestcreative influence, boosting revenue for publishers and demonetizing low-quality generative AI content.” 

OpenWeb: Building Community for Revenue Diversification 

Max Weiss, OpenWeb’s Chief Strategy Officer, highlighted the importance of community in today’s media landscape. With AI search tools impacting traffic and cookie deprecation on the horizon, publishers are focusing on building loyal user bases. Weiss noted that a strong community amplifies every new revenue stream, and OpenWeb’s mission is to foster a thriving ecosystem for publishers and content creators. 

“The business model of today’s media industry is under threat. At Cannes, the conversation was about diversifying revenue streams to keep growing while AI-fueled search results impact traffic and cookie deprecation looms. So many publishers are renewing their focus on building a community of registered users — they know that every new revenue stream, every innovation, is amplified by a strong base of loyal users.”

On foreseeing the future of AI development, Weiss said, “While AI can help publishers drive efficiency and streamline processes, it also has the potential to eat into publishers’ traffic. Publishers must focus on lifetime value, loyalty, and community to grow in this new era. At OpenWeb, our mission has always been to create a thriving, healthy ecosystem for the open internet with publishers and content creators at the center.” 

Embracing Transparency: Publisher Panels Insights

Bridging the Gap: Control vs. Transparency in the Streaming and CTV Landscape 

At an OpenX panel, Rose McGovern, Head of Programmatic & Digital Ad Sales at DirecTV, stressed the importance of passing contextual signals to ensure audience targeting while complying with privacy regulations. The discussion also touched on innovative ad formats and the shift from cookies to persistent identifiers.

She elaborated on the importance of passing contextual signals, such as genre, rating, and network, rather than series-level data. This specificity ensures publishers can reach the right audience while remaining compliant with privacy regulations. Moving away from cookies towards more persistent identifiers like universal IDs was discussed to protect customers and enhance targeting accuracy.

Looking ahead, Rose expressed a desire for more innovative ad formats and the need to move beyond the traditional 15- and 30-second spots. She pointed out, “If we can’t run cool ad formats programmatically, then we are really lame. We must innovate and scale these formats to keep up with the evolving CTV landscape.”

Insights into the Evolving Open Internet Market

During a panel hosted by Ogury, Gabriel DeWitt, Head of Monetization at Yahoo, and Heather Carver, Chief Revenue Officer at Freestar, highlighted the complexities of ad monetization and the need for greener infrastructures. They emphasized collaboration in addressing issues like MFA sites and the importance of incrementality in ad formats.

As DeWitt pointed out, “Running ads for a publisher is very complicated and has become more complicated over time, so increasing numbers of publishers need help with their ads.”

Carver highlighted that SSPs must be more carbon-effective, and buyers should choose more efficient paths. Monetization challenges often lead publishers to create complex, wasteful bid request systems. She talked about the positive impact of collaboration in combating issues like MFA (Made-for-Advertising) sites, stating, “We should celebrate the content owners who are actually trying to create good consumer relationships and not just try to drain the money from buyers.”

Paul Bannister, Chief Strategy Officer at Raptive, noted that constrained caps require better tools to bring incremental demand, and better signals should judge the effectiveness of partners. When asked if there was something he’d like to see changed, Bannister responded, “Instead of open RTB, I think about close RTB. There are too many bad actors extracting value. I’d love to work out a way to restrict access to make it a more premium supply.”

The ROI of Openness: Enhancing Publisher Performance Through Transparency

Mike Racic, President of Prebid and Saiful Ahmed, SVP Ad Tech, Global Investment at OMG Global discussed fostering transparency and trust within the programmatic supply chain. They introduced new initiatives to combat ad fraud and enhance Supply Path Optimization (SPO), underscoring the need for standardized and transparent practices.

Racic highlighted the importance of transparent technology solutions. He emphasized Prebid’s commitment to solving publishers’ problems by connecting them to the marketplace transparently. He also announced that Prebid is working with Human to launch an initiative to combat ad fraud, which will be unveiled at their summit in October. “Everything we do is transparent,” he stated, underscoring Prebid’s approach to building trust through clear and open practices.

Ahmed introduced OMG’s Accountability Transparency Framework (ATF), which sets legally binding agreements to push transparency and protect the programmatic trading ecosystem.

He noted, “We give our clients full disclosure into media tech and data costs and domain-level reporting.”

Chen, Co-founder and CRO of RISE, discussed the role of data in SPO and why it’s important  for publishers to understand how SSPs and DSPs classify their inventory. He highlighted the need for transparency in inventory segmentation and value assessment.

All panelists concluded that we can’t dismiss MFA sites as bad without proper standardization and compliance. With transparency supported by clear industry-wide standards, we can address this ongoing issue.

Shaping the Future of Ad Tech

The Cannes Lions 2024 was a testament to the power of innovation and collaboration in the ad tech industry. From leveraging AI to building strong communities and embracing transparency, publishers are navigating a complex landscape with creativity and strategic foresight. As the industry evolves, these insights and strategies will be crucial in shaping the future of ad tech and media.

The post Power Moves: Publishers Unveil Cutting-Edge Revenue Strategies and AI Innovations at Cannes Lions 2024 appeared first on AdMonsters.

A seismic shift, prompted by the pandemic and solidified by the growing trend of co-viewing, has dramatically reshaped how content is consumed and monetized. And it doesn’t look like this transformation is letting up anytime soon.

Gone are the days of isolated viewing on tiny screens. Consumers are returning to their living rooms and indulging in the big-screen experience as a full-blown family affair. Plus, thanks to the writer’s strike ending, we’re now swimming in a sea of great new content.

At IAB ALM, playwright, screenwriter, and film director, Aaron Sorkin highlighted the fluidity that streaming services bring to the ecosystem. We’re no longer stuck in a 22-week schedule, which provides writers with more freedom and binge-watchers with more options.

The industry is experiencing a transition towards a more sophisticated, standardized method of content delivery. The chaotic, unregulated early days of streaming (aka the Wild, Wild West) are making way for a more structured, viewer-focused approach. This maturation, though challenging, has resulted in an industry actively working towards addressing issues and enhancing the overall viewer experience.

Vikrant Mathur, co-founder of Future Today, said it perfectly: “As the industry matures, we anticipate a rise in standards, frameworks, tools, and technology evolving to improve user experience, combining digital’s promise with the luxury of premium, lean-back viewing.” 

Exploring Future Today’s Influence: Shaping Streaming’s Future

Since its inception in 2006, Future Today carved out a unique niche in shaping the streaming world. They’ve been all about optimizing user experience, from creating slick, user-friendly app interfaces to establishing best practices and setting industry standards for launching apps successfully across platforms.

“One segment of our business focuses on our owned and operated media brands, and the other is a B2B technology platform where we help third parties, media companies, and content owners launch apps and channels,” revealed Mathur. 

Future Today even collaborated with Roku and other OEMs in joint pitches to bridge the technological gaps faced by content owners. Their unique business model, though often imitated, has remained unduplicated and unparalleled in efficacy.

Future Today’s Co-Viewing Vision

Future Today excels in recognizing and leveraging the value of its audience, serving as a model for how brands should innovate in targeting kids, families, and co-viewing. Beyond conventional platforms like Hulu, HBO Max, or Disney Plus, Future Today advocates for a broader perspective in targeting these audiences. 

It’s a myth that family programming only reaches kids. The entire family is a part of the co-viewing experience. Co-viewing is about the whole household, not just the kids. Streaming buyers should consider the family as a holistic unit, shaping parental perceptions through co-viewed content rather than narrowly targeting adults through conventional segments. Think about how you can sway parents’ opinions in this co-viewed setting.

Parents watching streaming content with their kids are more engaged because their children often have questions about the products or services they see during an ad break. Jennifer D’Alessandro, Head of Ad Sales and Marketing at Future Today, shares a unique perspective: children are essentially “CEOs of the household.” Their opinions heavily influence family decisions, from dinner choices to car purchases. 

“Anything that a family decides together is fair game. Brands need to move beyond the notion of ‘I don’t buy kids’ and embrace the powerful influence of this audience segment,” she explained. 

Family programming is an untapped audience, rich with opportunities for marketers, and Future Today is leading the charge in harnessing this potential. By understanding the dynamics of family viewing habits and leveraging these insights, the industry can unlock new avenues for engaging content and effective marketing.

The post Family Matters: Unlocking the Co-Viewing Goldmine appeared first on AdMonsters.

As new platforms emerge and the lines between CTV, linear and digital continue to blur, advertisers have no shortage of ways to reach consumers – but are they doing so effectively? With a crowded space and elusive viewers bouncing between screens, marketers need to cut through the noise and focus on what really matters in 2024.

Prioritize Premium Video

It’s all about quality content and brand safety in today’s landscape.

The definition of TV and what qualifies as ‘premium’ video is often in the eye of the beholder. For many consumers, premium video is all about the quality of the viewing experience. In a recent survey, 54% of consumers define TV as channels like NBC, ESPN, and HGTV, while 52% define it as streaming services like Netflix, Hulu, and Max. Further, 51% define TV as news and sports programming, while 49% define TV as the episodic series they watch on a TV screen. Essentially, there is no one way consumers define “TV” these days other than premium content they can access whenever they want.  

While the modern-day definition of ‘premium’ video has taken on many different meanings, it’s clear that well-produced, long-form episodic “TV” content still carries weight. Before investing in premium video, advertisers should be able to distinguish what inventory is most relevant to their specific audience and ensure that what they’re buying is fully transparent and brand-safe. 

Additional oversight is essential given the increasing incidents of ad fraud and widening fragmentation in the current landscape. Partnering with trusted publishers, avoiding objectionable content, and investing in audience-first targeting models can help advertisers ensure better brand safety. Brands can also layer in data to make each impression more valuable in reaching their core audiences.   

Strike the Right Balance Between Contextual and Audience–Targeted Solutions

As the deprecation of third-party cookies begins, marketers need a strategy that empowers them in a first-party data world. In 2024, it’s all about finding the right balance between contextual and audience-targeted solutions.    

Marketers can maximize audience-targeted solutions by leaning into precision targeting to connect with specific audiences and understand their behaviors. While the transition away from third-party cookies may seem like a major challenge, it presents an opportunity for brands and advertisers to get creative in driving ROI while simultaneously prioritizing compliance and consumer privacy. This year, advertisers must learn how to leverage different identifiers and lean on players with first-party deterministic identities based on real, known audiences to succeed.  

Brands can also leverage contextual opportunities like content metadata to gain deeper insights at a granular level, especially on CTV and streaming. This gives intel into how programming is tagged by the network, genre, series title, or rating, which can help brands position themselves within specific content environments and adhere to brand safety guidelines more effectively. For example, while 67% of US consumers report watching live TV every day, advertisers can use contextual signals to dig deeper and ensure that their brand is aligned with the right content for their message. Investing in rich datasets and leveraging content metadata helps marketers improve targeting, packaging, and transparency reporting over time.  

When it comes to contextual and audience-targeted solutions, there should be no either/or. This year, marketers should focus on finding the right balance between contextual and audience-targeted solutions to maximize their efforts and prepare for life after third-party cookies.  

Leverage Programmatic Technology To Bridge the Gap Between CTV and Linear

As CTV and linear continue to blend, converged TV opportunities are critical in reaching audiences. Advertisers should think about both linear and streaming to ensure they reach viewers wherever they are.  

According to Nielsen data, 81% of adults in the US between the ages of 18 and 65 watch both linear TV and ad-supported streaming TV, while 9% ONLY watch ad-supported streaming. Therefore, brands need to find ways to reach their total audience across many different viewing platforms and find a way to use technology to make this easier across a myriad of different partners. This is where programmatic comes into play. Advertisers can leverage programmatic to target audiences and access video inventory from many publishers all in one place, promoting a more converged approach for today’s buyers.   

As the landscape continues to converge, programmatic holds the key to enabling holistic buying and making linear TV and digital look and feel the same across the board.   

 Lean Into Ad Innovation and Addressability

With audiences splintered across platforms, traditional strategies won’t cut it when breaking through the noise and combatting unprecedented fragmentation. By leveraging opportunities like ad innovation and addressability, advertisers can better engage with audiences and maximize their reach across CTV and linear.   

 In a crowded field, non-disruptive, interactive, and user-initiated ad formats can help drive authentic awareness and engagement for brands. We also know relevancy is important to today’s consumers, with 89% of consumers receptive to ads when they are telling them something relevant that they didn’t already know and 74% appreciative when an ad reminds them about something they need to purchase. Home screen UI opportunities, shoppable formats, and pause ads can be personalized to appeal to viewer ad preferences across digital and linear, creating an immersive, engaging experience for the audience. 

Advertisers can also actively counter viewership fragmentation through addressable advertising, which enables audience reach across traditional and CTV platforms while managing reach and frequency. Using deterministic data, addressability enables 1:1 level targeting (whether at the household, person, or device level, depending on the screen), which can be used as a unifying tool to reach audiences holistically.  

Preparing for the Road Ahead  

Advertisers have a lot to grapple with in today’s complex media ecosystem, and this year’s major tentpole moments guarantee another wild ride in 2024. Marketers can make the most of their efforts by prioritizing brand-safe, premium video inventory, striking the right balance between contextual and audience-targeted solutions, leveraging programmatic to unify linear and CTV, and leaning into ad innovation and addressability. By tuning out the distractions and focusing on worthwhile strategies that translate into ROI, marketers can secure a competitive edge and set themselves up for success in 2024.  

The post Cracking the Code: Strategies to Thrive in a Shifting Media Landscape appeared first on AdMonsters.

Today there are over 11,000 TV production businesses in the US (nearly 5% more than in 2022), and TV production is growing nearly 4% each year. On top of that, it’s never been easier for a content creator to spin up a FAST channel.

But building an audience? That’s a whole other matter. One of the biggest challenges facing content producers is making audiences aware of just how much content is available to them for free and from their existing smart TV. 

To learn more about FAST and where it fits into the TV landscape, we talked with Ron Gutman, CEO of Wurl, a 25-year veteran of the TV industry. Wurl and Samsung launched the world’s first native FAST channel in 2018, and today Gutman is hoping that over the next five years, cable, satellite, and broadcast providers will have completed their migrations to FAST.

AdMonsters: What made you decide to launch a new market — FAST?

Ron Gutman: We saw that other major streaming industry players were succeeding with the AVOD/SVOD model, and we realized that the next logical step would be the transition from linear television to streaming. 

Technology is often the catalyst for shifts in entertainment consumption, and the consumer clearly wants to consume TV digitally. That meant coming up with technology that allows linear TV providers to launch FAST channels very easily.

In the beginning, there was no monetization, so we needed to reduce the cost of launching television channels on streaming, which was one of our first goals.

AdMonsters: FAST is now five years old … would you call it a mature market now? 

RG: Not quite, but we’re getting there. There are three distinct stages to FAST’s growth. The first is moving content to digital so it can be watched on a variety of devices. That stage is complete. 

The second stage is monetization so content creators can profit from their content. The digital ad tech sector was able to monetize a lot of the streaming content, which was a big motivation for publishers to migrate. Without advertising to compensate for the reduction in cable viewership, there wouldn’t be a digital option for this content.

The third stage is viewership, and even though more than half of American TV viewers watch FAST today, this stage isn’t complete yet. If we want FAST to become more like cable, we need to increase viewership substantially.

AdMonsters: More than half of TV viewers consume content on FAST platforms today.  That sounds like viewership has arrived.

RG: It is a lot, but these households aren’t really availing themselves of what’s available. According to our own insights, most households watch just one or two FAST channels each month, when there are literally thousands available. The variety is unprecedented, but the public isn’t fully aware of what’s available to them for free.

Compare that to the heyday of cable, when people spent a hundred hours or more each month consuming content across 17 channels on average. That’s a huge difference, which is why I think it will be a few more years before that third stage is complete.

AdMonsters: When do you think the public will realize the breadth of content that’s available to them?

RG: I think that within five years viewers will migrate and the transition to FAST will be nearly, if not 100%, complete. The first five years of migration were about recreating the cable experience in the digital world. Over the next five years, we’ll see more digital technologies entering the CTV space and the full migration of viewership will be completed.

AdMonsters: Why should advertisers add FAST to their mix?

RG: Because it’s digital, and that means marketers can run true performance campaigns. They can measure how much they spent on advertising, who was reached, and how many of those viewers visited their website, or made it purchase. When consumers show intent, we can retarget them to drive better results. We never had that capability with traditional TV.

AdMonsters: Can you give me a precise example of a performance campaign that’s run on FAST?

RG: We said earlier that there are thousands upon thousands of FAST channels. If you own one of those channels, a key goal is to get more consumers to discover and view your content. There are millions of households watching FAST content, how do you find which will watch your channel?

This is actually a problem that’s well suited for machine learning. Because we have insights into viewing habits, we can predict what someone is likely to watch even before they realize they want to watch it. These predictions allow us to make really smart recommendations to the right viewer for tune-in campaigns. And we can quantify the payoff: your ad was seen by X number of viewers who then consumed your content either via a CTV app or via a FAST channel.

We can also retarget consumers on a mobile phone while they’re watching TV. Let’s say a consumer watches a lot of sports, but hasn’t tuned into the NFL FAST channel, perhaps because he didn’t realize such a channel exists and that he has access to it. We can retarget that user with an ad, and if he responds, the chances are he will check out the NFL channel. Our insights show that retargeting in the mobile channel while consumers are watching TV most often delivers the strongest conversion rate.

AdMonsters: Isn’t automated content recognition or ACR data supposed to help users discover content that they may like?

RG: Yes, and it does a good job of it. The problem is that it’s platform-specific, and it doesn’t cover all of the streaming apps. If you have a channel, you can’t really tie your content discovery campaign to actual conversions if the viewer watches your content in an app that doesn’t support ACR data. 

AdMonsters: You mentioned that machine learning can predict what a viewer wants to watch before he or she even knows it. Have you discovered anything surprising in that data?

RG: Yes, I assumed that affinity drives people’s viewing behavior. If viewers watch many nature shows, I assumed that recommendations for similar or adjacent content would lead to conversions. But, the data show that affinity isn’t as correlated to conversion as assumed. A person’s mood is an important driver. And that leads to an interesting question: how do we measure a viewer’s mood so that we can recommend content they’re likely to watch?

It turns out that real-time viewing behavior can be a window into a viewer’s mood. If they’re switching channels, it’s clear they’re just browsing and a recommendation may lead to a conversion. If they’re watching content that has an uplifting message, they’ll probably watch other content that is also uplifting.

Recency also has a big impact on conversion. If someone just finished watching the news, they’re not likely to want to continue watching the news. People tend to consume content in sequences and patterns. Machine learning is able to identify those patterns and serve up relevant content at scale.

AdMonsters: So M-L will play a key role in completing the viewership stage?

RG. Absolutely. ML-based recommendations will teach viewers that there’s a world of content at their fingertips. They just need to tune in.

 ### 

Ron Gutman is Chief Executive Officer (CEO) at Wurl – the leader in data-driven solutions for Connected TV (CTV). Ron has played an instrumental role in Wurl’s growth, helping navigate the company through streaming’s evolution to usher in the next era of TV. Ron joined Wurl nearly six years ago as Vice President, Broadcast Engineering and was appointed Chief Technology Officer (CTO) in 2018. Before joining Wurl, he was the founder and CTO of Imagine Communications and, prior to that, the Director of Customer Solutions for BigBand Networks.

The post How to Build Viewership for FAST Channels: A Q&A with Ron Gutman, CEO of WURL appeared first on AdMonsters.

The event was Sponsored by New York Interconnect, the VAB, Premion, iSpot.tv, Locality, Kochava, Kargo, wurl, ARF Dash TV Universe Study, and Imagine Communications. 

In case you missed it, dive into the short summaries of our favorite sessions below.

WEDNESDAY, SEPT 27th 

Keynote Session With Jamie Lumley, Third Bridge Group Limited

When asked by moderator Lynn Leahey, editorial director at Cynopsis, about the challenges and opportunities in the industry, Jamie Lumley, an analyst at Third Bridge Group Limited emphasized that both revolve around the ongoing shift from traditional media to streaming, with cord-cutting and the rise of streaming companies.

The current cost of living has led consumers to be more lenient when it comes to choosing ad-tier models. Netflix’s password-sharing crackdown led to them seeing a subscriber increase of 100,000, and it looks like Amazon Video is now following in their footsteps.

“The big question facing the ecosystem today is as streaming continues to elevate, does the new media space have the same overall pie that traditional has? We don’t have the answer just yet, so as we continue to discuss finding this balance, finding the right way to build up these businesses is one of the key areas here,” Lumley explained.

What about local news and major sports, you’re wondering? According to Lumley, this has been a big area for the industry. “Different players are thinking about what sports rights they can afford. News will increasingly be a part of the streaming experience, and whether that can drive audiences to streaming is a big question.”

Finding a Cross-Platform Measurement Fit 

In the words of Andrea Zapata, EVP and head of ad sales research, measurement and insights at Warner Bros. Discovery, the way God intended for us to watch TV was on our big TV screens, but now we consume it on various devices. Moderator Sean Cunningham, President and CEO of the VAB, led an engaging discussion where both executives outlined their measurement solutions. 

“From the start at Warner Bros. Discovery, we were very clear that there are two different ways that you can activate against linear television,” Zapata explained. “One is using more data-driven tactics, and the other is how you measure it or, ultimately, how you transact against it.”

The research has shown this trend where content is being captured everywhere. “My sons are on the iPad more than the big TV,’ Jason Swartz, VP, advanced advertising, New Business, and National Sales at New York Interconnect. “We need better transparency for streaming,” Swartz continued, “so we are pushing way ahead of others to get reporting at the network level to understand how to place programmatic streaming programs in a specific space to find the audience.”

CTV’s Resilience: Reflecting on 2023, Charting 2024’s Path for Advertisers 

While 2023 has been a year of resiliency and growth for streaming, the ecosystem must focus on taking the consumer-centric approach. Now is the time, more than ever, to pay more attention to your consumers’ needs and values and ensure that they align with your marketing priorities. 

Yakira Young, content manager at AdMonsters, sat down with John Vilade, Head of Sales at Premion. When asked about the convergence shift and implications for sellers and advertisers, Vilade replied, “Sellers need good experience in selling both linear and streaming. If not, you’ll be left behind.”

He predicted 2024 to be a better year in advertising as we know it, considering the political election and Olympics taking place in the same year. His exact words were, “Streaming will win elections in 2024.”

According to Vilade, Premion has already started having conversations with government officials in DC, and there will be a bigger investment in streaming with this upcoming election. All in all, streaming is an interactive platform with an interactive audience. Buyers and sellers need to take advantage of this. 

Steaming’s New Wave

By now, we’ve recognized that many CTV services and platforms are moving to an aggregated world. We saw this with Disney, Hulu and, ESPN, and Warner, and then HBOMax became Max and brought in the Discovery content. At this point, we also can search movie titles straight from our CTV platform.

There’s no doubt that streaming continues to grow in popularity. With this in mind, Verna Coleman, VP of brand partnerships and B2B Marketing at Canela Media, highlighted that for her and her team, reaching their audience “is all about the growth of the audience as the consumer population continues to rise.” 

To adapt to changing audience behaviors, Bloomberg recently launched Bloomberg originals. “We did this in February with the intent of pulling some of that existing viewership that we have and extending their engagement and bringing in a little bit of a broader younger audience as well, “Travis Winkler, GM of video & audio at Bloomberg Media, explained. Originals focus on docuseries, docu-style content, and talk shows.

Chicken Soup for the Soul leans on a few things at its fingertips when sharing its core audience of about 40 million with the brands they work with. “We have the robot kiosk, which is a huge DOOH opportunity. Millions of people walk past it daily,” Maura Gray, SVP of marketing at Chicken Soup for the Soul, explains. “It leads to a huge marketability considering about 50% are signing up with their emails.”

Unlock the Power of Local TV: Combining the Value of Broadcast and Streaming

Local TV is often overlooked, but this reminds us that it is still at the forefront of our industry. Ann Hailer, President of Broadcast at Locality, and Keith Kazerman, President of Streaming at Locality, highlighted that most consumers live close to their homes, and retail planning is based on location intelligence and foot traffic. 

“The concert of national marketing versus that local partnership or that local decision has to come with marketing that is tailored to that local marketplace,” Hailer explained. 

The panelists weighed in on the challenges in unifying streaming platforms at the local level and the value of local news in building trust and brand reputation. They discussed the role of programmatic and acknowledged its benefits but also emphasized the importance of a consultative approach and human intelligence in understanding local nuances. 

Moderator Albert Thompson, Managing Director of Digital at Walton Isaacson, mentioned programmatic and how he thinks programmatic needs to fix and address many things. 

“Everything we do is automated, and that solves many of the complexities concerning programmatic at Locality,” Kazerman said. 

How to Reach Sustainability Goals

Barber Lange Principal and CEO of Kibo121 and Dr. Laura Marks, Professor at Simon Fraser University talked about sustainability in the media industry, focusing on the significant carbon footprint and energy consumption associated with content creation, manipulation, and distribution. 

The pair emphasized the need for measures to reduce the environmental impact, highlighting the rising energy use of information communication technology (ICT) and the consequences of streaming. 

“The bigger the production, the more carbon footprint you have, our goal is to do more with less over time,” Lange stated. “Virtual productions are one way content creators can get around some of the energy issues, use your existing footage.”

“Film in lower resolution so that when you compress it, you won’t have to work so hard, the carbon footprint of streaming is due to devices,” Marks mentioned.

THURSDAY, SEPT 28th 

Where Art Thou, Gen Z?

The impact of Gen Z’s entertainment consumption is a trending topic. Viewing habits have drastically changed, and while demystifying Gen Z won’t happen, we can work to understand them better. 

“Brands and marketers must allow themselves to be criticized, but also stand out as a brand,” Drew Corry, SVP, group director of Strategic Investment and Marketplace Strategy at MAGNA. “From a content perspective, think about how you can get scripted to work in the context of social media.” 

Let Hali Anastopoulo tell it, Gen Z knows authenticity like they know their ABCs. As co-founder and Chief Creative Officer at Get Me Out Productions, she comprehends the significance of your values being reflected in your content. “It’s really important to be authentic with the content you’re making, the messaging, the marketing, and the campaigns you run,” she said. 

Taryn Crouthers, President of ATTN: suggests thinking about how Gen Z is consuming content. “When casting for this audience, you don’t need a big A-list celebrity but those with a strong niche following. 

Key takeaway? Trust and authenticity go a long way when reaching and engaging with Gen Z audiences. 

Pay Attention!

The Q&A went both ways when Angelina Eng, VP of Measurement, Addressability, and Data Center at IAB, and Brian Lin, SVP of Product Management at TelevisaUnivision, took the stage together. It made for exciting dialog, listening to them share their insights regarding attention-based measurement. 

Eng broke down the three ways she thinks about attention and measurement, those are: 

1. Physiological and neurological – Eye tracking, brainwaves, heart rate, blood pressure, anything that can be connected in a media lab, device, or camera. 
2. Data proxy – Signals coming specifically from a device or passed by publishers. It could be around behavior, engagement, and through a CTV system, laptop, or a mobile device.
3. Cognitive and emotional data – focus groups, brain awareness studies, brand health studies, et cetera.

“Attention measurement is still in its infancy, and defining attention has been challenging, which is why we are looking at the three above approaches,” Eng said. 

“I think it’s extremely interesting from a product standpoint. We must continue going against the grain of looking for opportunities to reach the marketer’s goal. We have to continue to experiment and grill those data providers by asking the hard questions,” Lin explained. 

Artificial Intelligence: It’s Personal

On a panel moderated by Kristin Wnuk, SVP of Sales at Madhive, each panelist agreed that there are opportunities for brands and advertisers to use AI. The moral of the story is it’s less about what tools we can make in AI and more about how it is permeating everything we do as consumers and professionals. 

Rich Frankel, Global Creative Director at Spotify Advertising, pointed out that AI will evolve at the speed of light. All we can do is be ready. “Understand what you’re letting AI look at to learn and how you’re managing the data it has access to,” Frankel suggests. 

“There’s a lot to be done and to be optimized. The people who will be the most successful are those who approach AI with curiosity. Curiosity is the beginning of creativity,” Nicky Lorenzo, SVP, Executive Creative Director of 305Worldwide, added. 

“2024 will be the year of targeting in terms of AI and influence,” Will Heins, Partner at Brandtech, closed us out with this. 

Finding – And Retaining – The Employees You Need Now

Karen Gray, EVP of HR and Head of DEI at A+E Networks, Artis Johnson, HRBSN Partner at TV One, and Christine Guilfoyle, President SEEHER, sat down to talk about the importance of empathy, honest conversations, and fostering a culture that values employees needs and perspectives. 

“Seen, heard, and valued are truly at the heart of what DEI&B strategies are about,” Guilfoyle said. The fully virtual mentorship dynamic had to reshape itself. I think the return to the office is amazing for Gen Z employees because of the mentor sponsorship aspect of it. I’m not sure they know what they’ve missed out on.”

“Employees are the reason we are here. They are the ones pushing out the work,” Johnson added. How can we exhibit a connection to a consumer or community if there is no community internally within the organization? In a hybrid environment, when employees challenge their higher-ups, it gives the executives no choice but to change how they manage. This is how growth happens at the top down.”

“Retaining employees saves money. If there’s a revolving door, there is no retention,” Gray said.

What A Brand Wants

Shortly after a quick beer and wine break, Betsy Paynter, director of US Media at Heineken, Greg Miller, VP/account director of Eicoff, and Jeremy Herbert, VP of marketing at We Buy Any Car hashed out the need for brands to adapt and optimize their strategies for CTV with the evolving role of data at the forefront. 

“There’s a bit of a difference between performance marketing and brand marketing, but at the end of the day, everyone is very excited about how CTV will evolve in delivering data, Moderator Rachel Herskowitz, VP of Brand Partnerships at iHeartRadio, said. 

“Measurement regiment is better now than ever,” Miller pointed out. “You can certainly learn a lot, and there are tools out there today where you can put linear and CTV on the same plane.”

“I think the next stage is to get more joined up in our first-party data and the first-party data of media providers and the platforms. We can make beautiful things happen together,” said Herbert.

At Heineken, Paynter showcased the sensitivity about what they can and cannot buy into. “Context is super important, and I think having a more transparent view of what programming is doing well is super helpful,” she stated. 

Feel the Churn: Strategies for Boosting Subscriber Engagement 

When each panelist was asked the one thing they think needed to be fixed in order to increase subscriber engagement here is what they had to say:

Jon Giegengack Founder and Principal of Hub Entertainment Research: “Do a better job of showing people things that will interest them and surprise them in lieu of throwing everything at the wall and expecting that you’re going to win by volume.”

Eric Sorensen DIrector of Streaming VIdeo Tracker at Parks Associates: “We talked alout about personalization and I think there is certainly an opportunity to make it a better experience. I think we will see some consolidation that makes that process easier.”

Monica Williams SVP of Digital Products and Operations at NBC Unicersal: “Discovery experience is part of the total content experience, so I hope to see a deeper collaboration between publishers and platform partners in terms of support.”

The post Big Takeaways From Cynopsis’ 5th Annual Big TV Conference 2023 appeared first on AdMonsters.

After months of considerable back-and-forth, where nearly 15 million subscribers were denied access to the U.S. Open, college football, and other programming, Disney and Charter Communications have finally reached an agreement. Fortunately, for those subscribers on the sidelines, it was just in time for Monday Night Football. 

While carriage disputes are common in pay-TV land, many critics are speculating that this particular falling out signals cord-cutting’s rise as the potential nail in the coffin for the cable TV industry.

We spoke with Julie Clark, SVP of Media & Entertainment, TransUnion, to dissect the future of cable television in a world dominated by streaming, and marked by both challenges and opportunities. As the lines between traditional linear models and streaming continue to blur, we explore the impact on publishers, evolving revenue models, and the changing landscape of consumer access to content. 

The cable television landscape is in flux, but it is within this flux that the seeds of the future will be sown.

Yakira Young: The agreement between Disney and Charter Communication has been brewing for quite some time now. What implications do you see for the future of the streaming TV industry based on this agreement?

Julie Clark: In the future, streaming will continue to be a priority, but it still serves as a reminder of the deep dependency on linear, which can’t be ignored and can still be an engine for content. 

Legacy subscription models (subscriber fees) remain a major motivator for content hubs like Disney. However, they need those to bolster the bottom line while streaming continues to mature. The streaming TV industry is ripe for more consolidation as many streaming platforms are unhappy. Those players who will win in the streaming inflation wars are those who do not have to deal with the loss of past revenue or the fights of today.

YY: This agreement further blurs the distinction between traditional linear models and streaming. How will this blurred distinction impact publishers?

JC: Disney and Charter Communications both felt the pain in this agreement and further emphasized the power of having great content and a scaled distribution business. With agreements like Disney and Charter Communications, the distinction between traditional linear models and streaming is becoming more blurred. Impacting the entire ecosystem, not just publishers.  

Consumers gravitate towards platforms that focus on new content, and marketers will always want to reach a scaled audience connected to that premium content.  

YY: How do revenue models and distribution agreements play a role in the developing landscape of streaming TV? What changes can publishers expect to see in this regard?

JC: Streaming has had the benefit of massive budgets to develop content. They were already feeling the burn of needing to offset with new ad-supported revenue models. Legacy publishers are finding a way to have distribution agreements as a means to diversify revenue streams and support growth versus weighing them down. We will see more of the merging of these revenue models and distribution agreements – not less.  

YY: How does this new agreement impact consumers and their access to content? Are there any pricing or access changes on the horizon?

JC: Streaming platforms understand that economic pressures make it impossible for consumers to subscribe to multiple platforms, so we’re already seeing all major streaming platforms increase prices. Additionally, streaming platforms understand offering various levels of tiers to content that consumers can choose which best suits their budgets and needs is a logical next step. 

However, with access to streaming content being gated, it’s already leading to new consumer behaviors of churn from services of either pausing or ending subscriptions and rotating to other platforms that better suit their budgetary needs and provide access to new content. 

YY: With the continued growth of streaming, how do you foresee the future of cable television?

JC: As the market contends with increased offerings and fragmentation, the shift moves towards profitability. The future will be simplifying consumer access, scaled ad environments, and a lot of growing pains in between. Revenue per user (RPU) will accelerate while the marketplace begins to understand consumer willingness to pay across various platforms. 

The post Exploring the Impact of Disney and Charter Communications’ New Deal on the Future of Streaming appeared first on AdMonsters.

Many of the processes in current and long-standing ad ops workflows are heavily manual, like audience targeting, campaign set-up, optimization, and data analysis, to name a few.

This doesn’t feel like it’s setting ad ops teams up for success. They are typically working on parallel campaigns across different ad servers and platforms, resulting in heavily fragmented data, making it difficult to track and analyze campaign metrics when done manually.

Manual ad ops lead publishers to face challenges such as error rates, large numbers of make goods, longer revenue recognition processes, and lack of ability to optimize workflows for efficiency. Not to mention, these processes create a hefty amount of manual work that is repetitive in nature and prime for automation.

“Manual processes in operations create inefficiencies and consume time that could be better spent on revenue-generating activities. Their reliance on constant human input is prone to human error generating even greater inefficiencies in fixing mistakes.” Gordon Tatomirovic, Projects and Partnerships Lead – Digital Operations, Nine.

But publishers aren’t the only ones trying to navigate through these challenges.

The Inefficiency of Legacy Workflows

We are seeing a trend of ad monetization driven by manual ad ops processes bleeding into various industries. Many ad ops processes utilized by new media players, including retail media networks, CTV, and streaming companies, are adaptations of legacy processes and workflows used by long-standing publishing and media brands.

The speed at which retail media networks, CTV, and streaming media have grown in recent years has created a need to continuously run their processes as quickly as their respective industries and the ad monetization revenue models they utilize are evolving. The rapid growth in the industry, coupled with the demand for targeted audience reach, has left little to no time for these increasingly popular platforms to evaluate their processes and optimize for speed and growth. These new players are quickly encountering challenges that took publishers and legacy media brands years to face and address because of their rapid growth and digital nature.

The legacy methodologies that worked in the past no longer serve today’s modern digital media players. With the cost of new eyeballs and audience targeting getting steeper each day, these platforms need to create more sophisticated offerings that enable growth at scale for both their business and their clients.

The path to achieving optimal efficiency and output is through automation and AI integration to streamline existing processes and workflows.

The Rise of AI and Machine Learning

Technology has become a vital tool across all industries to enable efficiency. Let’s look at automation in the same light.

Brands that leverage ad monetization strategies intend for automation to become a tool in the existing MarTech stack that enables companies to take the menial, repetitive tasks off ad ops plate and free them up to focus on account and client management and business growth strategies. Implementing automation and AI into existing processes and workflows should be seen as an opportunity to grow and expand skills.

Teams and individuals who are inputting data into spreadsheets, manually checking and cross-checking targeting, or pulling data from multiple sources to create manual reporting could use that time to instead focus on more advanced strategies and other elements of the process that are harder to automate. The ability to make connections between brands and end customers will always be human-driven, and elements of these emotion-based processes, like design and messaging or building relationships with clients, must be driven by humans.

Automation is also a key factor in enabling career growth and development. The need for people to do remedial tasks takes time away from higher-level thinking and strategy, which ultimately will be what drives great results. By providing teams with the tools they need to automate certain functions, businesses are also enabling these teams to upskill and grow as professionals.

“Through our partner, Theorem, we have been able to use their screenbot technology to eliminate thousands of man-hours worth of work a year, and our team can better use this time in servicing our clients. Further, Theorem has been able to automate many of our reporting requirements, saving countless hours.” Gordon Tatomirovic, Projects and Partnerships Lead – Digital Operations, Nine.

AI isn’t about taking jobs away from people. It is about freeing up their time to contribute more to the overall growth of their business and having more time to focus on their professional development and career pathing.

Implementing Automation Strategies

We’ve talked about the need for automation. Now it’s time to dig in and talk about the how.

How can media companies and business units implement automation into their workflows?

As a result of the manual elements of most workflows, many publishers face challenges when it comes to error rates, large numbers of make goods, longer revenue recognition processes, and lack of ability to optimize workflows for efficiency.

The first step in establishing how to best automate is for companies to pinpoint where current processes are slowing them down and preventing them to scale. When automating, it is first important to remember where the processes have come from. Having a deep understanding of existing processes within media organizations and identifying elements that could be automated to increase speed and efficiency while eliminating error rates is key.

The next step in the automation process is understanding the business’s current and future goals and objectives. Companies must consider the existing and future states of the business when analyzing where and when to implement automation across existing processes and how that will evolve as the business grows at scale. Starting with back-end automation implementation will help resolve current challenges that will enable better visualization of elements within additional workflows and processes that are prime for automation.

The bottom line is that automation isn’t just a “nice to have” anymore – it’s become necessary for business success. The speed at which industries move today forces companies to reevaluate their processes and find areas to increase efficiencies to drive sustainable revenue and reduce human errors. Overall, automation isn’t a bad thing. If anything, it frees up time for employees to pursue their passions and play a bigger role in the business’s overall success.

Companies must understand now is the time to automate. And if they don’t, they are going to be left behind.

The post How Can Ad Ops and New Media Players Eliminate Inefficiencies? appeared first on AdMonsters.

In preparation for our upcoming webinar, OTT & CTV Privacy Controls: Activating Choice & Transparency in Apps, on Thursday, April 15 @ 1 PM EST (Register now!), AdMonsters Head of Content, Tameka Kee, spoke with Alex Cash, Consent and Preference Management Lead, OneTrust, about what transparency really means, standardizing privacy management in CTV/OTT, and how the buy-side can help with managing consumer privacy and transparency.

Tameka Kee: “Transparency” can have a different meaning or connotation depending on who you’re talking to. For example, a media buyer might want transparency in terms of where and when their ads ran, while a media company would want to know which shows or time slots got them the highest CPMs. What do you think transparency means to the consumer when it comes to CTV/OTT – and how does that translate to what publishers need to communicate to them? 

Alex Cash: Transparency to me is not just being honest and open, but a method of communicating. I can tell someone a full truth but in language that they may not understand, or I can honestly describe a concept that they do not have the context to truly appreciate the impact of.

So to me transparency is not just saying who you are and what data you’re looking to use, but what that means to the user in easily understand phrasing. Extra points for also explaining how the choices they make can benefit them. For example, we can explain that we want to use an identifier so that we can conduct frequency capping and that will mean they don’t get spammed with the same uninteresting ads; this clearly communicates the value exchange in an accessible and transparent way.

Additionally, transparency is not just language, but UX. Hiding controls, buttons, and options in hard-to-find locations makes no sense – as a consumer I want to manage my profile data right alongside my consents and data sharing options – don’t separate them! Make it easy.

Ultimately transparency is a vehicle to generating trust, and trust is hard to create, but easy to lose.

TK: With different devices, service providers, contextual environments, etc. creating a “standardized” privacy management strategy for CTV/OTT seems almost impossible. Are there ways for pubs to start streamlining this process, or are we too early in the game? 

AC: Inevitably, as with any rapidly developing technology, standardization is challenging to adopt from the start. There are two areas worth exploring in conjunction to start with:

1. 1. Look to industry bodies! For example, IAB Europe’s TCF is designed to be a multiplatform framework, so here is definitely an opportunity to simplify.
   2. Your requirements on Web, Mobile, and across the myriad OTT/CTV platforms will likely be consistent in terms of what the user is asked to agree to/allowed to opt-out of. Additionally, you may find you’re using the same providers on multiple platforms. If this is the case, there is a good chance you have similar integration options in multiple locations, with only minor differences based on the platform in question – this can majorly simplify development and testing of any privacy signaling implementations.

TK: Media companies collect user data partly for their own purposes, but primarily to be able to help deliver value to their ad partners. So much of the onus in terms of managing privacy and transparency seems to fall on pubs (and partners like OneTrust). Is there room for the buy-side to help with this? Any thoughts or examples of what that could look like?

AC: In many ways, the onus being on the pubs is inevitable, as they’re the organization with ownership of the UX which is where so many of these principles are demonstrated. And I think it’s fair to say that’s a good thing – it’s good that Pubs have that ownership and control to curate an experience that matches their values.

We do already see buy-side orgs engaging in standards for disclosure and actively seeking consent where required (thinking of the TCF here!) – but I do believe we have additional options for expansion. Much like Apple’s new Nutrition Labels, I’d personally like to see a standardized approach for how pubs and vendors can disclose who they are, what they want to use data for, and where it’ll be shared in a universally consistent way. I believe this could feed into those concepts of transparency as we standardize the industry around educating end-users on what their data truly powers – but we can’t leave the responsibility for this entirely on the businesses who do own the end-user experiences.

Don’t forget to sign up for our webinar with OneTrust, OTT & CTV Privacy Controls: Activating Choice & Transparency in Apps, on Thursday, April 15 @ 1 PM ET. We’ll be speaking with Alex Cash and Tegna’s VP of Digital Products, Chris Fehrmann, about how Tegna is on the path to providing transparency and choice with their OTT audience and how you can also build trust within your streaming app.

The post If We Make it Easy for CTV Users to Give Consent … Maybe They Will, Says OneTrust’s Alex Cash appeared first on AdMonsters.