VIEQUES, PR — Already this year, several of the big US TV networks have declared they will make moves to let advertising buyers use granular and first-party viewer data, over and above traditional Nielsen data, to target ads on linear TV.
Speaking on this Beet Retreat panel, representatives of the networks explained their strategy.
The recent announcements included:
- Fox, Viacom and Turner teamed to form OpenAP, a system in which they will allow ad buyers to define audience segments that are targetable across the networks, not just individually.
- NBC plans to sell $1bn of its upfront inventory through its own Audience Targeting Platform.
- A+E followed with a similar announcement.
NBCUniversal advanced advertising SVP Denise Colella:
“We’re going to avail up to $1bn in inventory to be traded on non-Nielsen guarantees, or audience guarantees.
“Our clients are investing a lot in data, they really want to put that to use. We’re willing to put our money where our mouth is. We’re not reserving inventory per se. We’re making all our inventory across all of our networks available for audience.”
Turner Broadcasting ad innovation and programatic VP David Porter:
“OpenAP does three things – helps define audience segment, allows an advertiser to choose wha publishers they want to share that segment with, and aggregates reports. That solves a lot.
“There will be no commingling of inventory in this platform, this is not a transaction platform. This is just a way to get a consistent definition. Then the advertiser can send that definition out to any publisher.”
Viacom audience science EVP Julian Zilberbrand:
“It is uber-complicated to have different methodologies when you have one data set you’re working off of.
“This is about enabling the advertiser to have an easier experience.”
ABC TV Group programmatic VP Michael Dean:
“We’re excited about it and we’re supportive. This is all the right things to do. Removing friction, removing cost, lowering complexity is absolutely where all of us want that market to go – as long as we can make differentiation, that’s the key.
“The devil is in the details. For Disney Company, it’s about ‘How do we bring our unique data assets – what we know about families, homes, from the parks, from our games network?’”
605 president Ben Tatta:
“It’s great news. We felt, for a while, that there will be a shift to more audience-based buying, selling and measurement – but that starts by moving off a panel, which is really just a large focus group. It drives demand for census-based data. The market is demanding that more granular attributes, other than age and gender, are available.”
Panelists also discussed the emergence of addressable TV advertising technologies and amateur versus premium video.
This interview was conducted by MediaLink MD Matt Spiegel.
This video is part of a series produced at the Beet.TV Executive Retreat in Vieques. The event and series is presented by Videology and 605. For more videos from the series, please visit this page.