Media measurement is at a critical juncture, with the industry racing to adapt to new technologies, shifting consumer behaviors, and evolving regulatory frameworks. 

As TV and video consumption splinters across devices and platforms, the need for consistent, reliable identity resolution (IDR) has become increasingly urgent. The complexities of audience fragmentation and data loss have forced companies to rethink how they approach identity and measurement at scale.

To that end, CIMM, in collaboration with OpenAP, launched a strategic review of the identity resolution ecosystem to address the challenges of stitching together data across disparate identity spines. 

David Levy, CEO of OpenAP, has been at the forefront of these efforts, emphasizing the importance of durable, privacy-safe identity solutions that can serve both buyers and sellers in the advanced TV landscape. OpenAP’s commitment to this project reflects its broader goal of establishing a more transparent and interoperable marketplace, ensuring that IDR evolves to meet the growing demands of advertisers and consumers alike.

Dennis Buchheim, Managing Director of ThinkMedium, shared that while identity resolution has made strides, the current environment is “fragmented and inconsistent,” calling for data quality and interoperability improvements. He emphasized the need for more transparency, saying, “The industry must work together to create an adaptable, privacy-safe identity ecosystem that can evolve with changing regulations and consumer expectations.”

At the recent CIMM Summit, sessions provided a look at the industry today with a roadmap for what lies ahead as data quality, transparency, and interoperability dominate the conversation.

5 Big Ideas We Took Away From CIMM Summit

Insight 1: Identity Resolution Is Still Fragmented — But Progress Is Being Made

The complexity of identity resolution continues to challenge the TV and video marketplace, but significant advancements are being made.

• Fragmentation Issues: The TV identity ecosystem is fragmented, with different identity spines and providers offering disparate solutions, making it difficult to track audiences across multiple screens and devices.
• Comcast’s Solution: Comcast’s deterministic signal authentication offers a promising privacy-safe solution to unify fragmented audience data, yet broader industry standardization remains elusive.
• Data Quality Challenges: The lack of data quality in some identity resolution practices is a consistent concern, with many speakers calling for more transparency and better labeling of data sources.
• Need for Buyer Education: As identity solutions evolve, marketers need more education around data quality and transparency, ensuring that they understand the signals they are working with and how those signals influence campaign outcomes.

Insight 2: Fragmentation of Media is Both a Blessing and a Curse

The rise of programmatic buying and connected TV (CTV) is transforming how media is bought and sold, but the growing complexity is a double-edged sword for buyers.

• Opportunities for Personalization: In the session Building the TV Ad Market of the Future, speakers like Freewheel’s Mark McKee and LG Ad Solutions’ Michael Hudes pointed to opportunities that media fragmentation offers. McKee described how personalization across fragmented content creates new touchpoints for audience engagement.

• Challenges in Measurement: As content spreads across different platforms, buyers face the growing challenge of managing reach and frequency. As Katie Klein noted, the difficulty lies in tracking audiences across a fragmented media landscape while delivering meaningful performance metrics.
• The Role of LG Ads Innovation Lab: Hudes emphasized that behavioral and emotional cues are critical to surfacing relevant content, making personalization even more integral to managing fragmented content across multiple devices.

Insight 3: The Shift to Multi-Currency Measurement is Gaining Momentum

Multi-currency measurement is quickly becoming necessary in advanced TV, but implementation is still in its early days.

• Enabling Optionality: During Ready or Not, The Advanced TV Ad Market Is Here, panelists like Paramount’s Michele Stone stressed that offering measurement flexibility — allowing buyers to transact based on the currency they’re comfortable with — is critical to the future of advertising. As agencies work with multiple measurement providers, they are increasingly focused on aligning these metrics to serve both buyers and sellers effectively.

• Growing Complexity: Publicis Media’s Sam Armando highlighted the complexity agencies face when dealing with multiple currencies during major events like the Super Bowl, where several measurement systems must work together. The challenge lies in ensuring consistency across these systems while maintaining accuracy.

Insight 4: AI’s Role in Measurement is Just Beginning

AI-driven media measurement is still in its infancy, but it has the potential to revolutionize how media is planned, bought, and measured.

• AI for Personalization and Automation: In the session Into the Future of Media Measurement, panelists discussed how AI will drive more personalized and immersive experiences by 2030. Automating content delivery and optimizing audience engagement is seen as a major benefit.

• Ongoing Challenges: AI also introduces challenges. As Sonata Insights’ Debra Aho Williamson pointed out in the AI-Driven Roadmap to 2030, questions around transparency, data ethics, and the accuracy of AI-driven insights remain unresolved. CIMM”s Tameka Kee stressed the importance of industry-wide collaboration to address these issues and ensure AI can deliver on its promises.

Insight 5: CTV’s Growing Influence on Performance Metrics

Connected TV (CTV) now plays a bigger role in performance-based advertising, offering brands opportunities to drive outcomes that were once difficult to measure with linear TV.

• Impact of Live Audiences: IPG Media Brands’ Maureen Bosetti noted that while linear TV still offers significant reach, CTV complements it with advanced performance metrics. Brands are increasingly using CTV’s flexible formats to deliver both brand-building and performance-driven campaigns.

• Cross-Screen Attribution: As highlighted by the panelists in Building the TV Ad Market of the Future, the ability to track audience behaviors across multiple screens is improving, with programmatic buying allowing advertisers to optimize reach and frequency in previously challenging ways.

Navigating these growing complexities — identity resolution, audience fragmentation, and measurement standardization — requires collaboration across the sell-side, buy-side, and tech platforms. 

The future of media measurement depends on the industry’s ability to adopt multi-currency frameworks, embrace AI-driven solutions, and improve the cross-screen attribution model to reflect today’s fragmented viewing habits. As AI integration advances and CTV continues its rise, the next steps will involve finding ways to unify fragmented data ecosystems and develop scalable solutions for cross-screen measurement.

Moving forward, the industry must keep pace with technological innovations and regulatory shifts to ensure that identity resolution and media measurement evolve together to support advertisers, publishers, and viewers alike.

The post 5 Big Ideas We Took Away From CIMM Summit — Identity Resolution Was the Biggest appeared first on AdMonsters.

In the constantly evolving age of cord-cutting, CTV continues to grow at alarming rates. It won’t stop anytime soon. 

Some see sports as linear’s saving grace, but with live sports more prevalent than ever on CTV, only time will tell if linear has a lasting impact. ComScore’s annual State of Streaming report shows that the number of CTV hours per household has increased by 21%. Numbers are only expected to go up from here, but what are some trends we will see in 2024 and beyond?

In the upcoming year, the confluence of Artificial Intelligence (AI), Free Ad Supported TV (FAST), Shoppable Ads, Measurement technologies, Attention Measurement, and more will be pivotal in reshaping how viewers consume and advertisers spend on CTV.

We chatted with a few CTV experts about what’s ahead for CTV, and their predictions point toward a bright, lucrative future.

What’s Next with AI?

When it comes to brand safety, AI is what’s hot, and blocklists are a thing of the past. It’s time for CTV professionals to rely on AI and video-level data. 

“Going into 2024, the streaming industry should be paying close attention to AI. We have still not realized the full impact of AI on CTV advertising. There are many opportunities to create personalized ad experiences attributable to CTV performance. This rings especially true when it comes to creative versioning and optimization across channels.” –Dina Roman, SVP, global ad sales, Fubo

“No brand wants their ad placed next to inappropriate or unsuitable content, leaving a poor brand association with consumers. However, brands that continue to leverage blocklisting solutions to address brand safety are doing more harm than good. Blocklisting is outdated and causes brands to avoid high-quality, more efficient, and lower-price inventory. Brands have been leveraging genre and channel-level blocklists, thinking they’re leveraging safer inventory, to have their ads run in TVMA comedies and horror movies. Video-level data will be critical for brands transitioning budgets from cable/linear into FAST and streaming. This applies to both targeting and measurement. Breakthroughs in computer vision AI data availability from companies like IAS make it possible to monitor the previously opaque FAST inventory. Leveraging new technologies like the IRIS_ID to access video-level data is now the most reliable, scalable, and cheapest way to address brand safety.” – Field Garthwaite, CEO and Co-Founder of IRIS.TV

FAST is Outgrowing AVOD 

To stand out as a streaming service, embracing sophisticated approaches to measurability will be crucial. 

“FAST channels that want to be taken seriously by advertisers must stand out with measurability. A move toward more advanced measurability will drive standardization within the industry to ensure that metrics are comparable across different platforms and campaigns. Brands and companies will increasingly move beyond simplistic attribution models and adopt multi-touch/cross-platform models to consider the full customer journey and understand how different interactions contribute to conversions and LTV.” – Gijsbert Pols, Ph.D., Director of Connected TV and New Channels at Adjust

“FAST is the preferred TV model and is giving AVOD a run for its money. Many Free Ad Supported TV or “FAST” platforms were originally launched to give viewers more choices amid an increasingly expensive, subscription-driven streaming ecosystem. In 2024, we can see that the choice is a clear preference as legacy subscription players rethink their strategy around premium offerings, consumers are looking to cut costs, and the quality of FAST content is impressive. With every major news network and live sports making their way to FAST, these platforms are now becoming serious contenders for content exclusives and debuts, further challenging AVODs dominance.” – Michael Scott, VP of Sales and Ad Operations at Samsung

Shoppable TV & Retail Media

The fusion of content and commerce will redefine the TV-watching experience. 

“Retail media will become a pivotal part of the future of advertising as consumers can make purchases directly off their TV screens. Perhaps one of the most obvious examples, cooking programs could seamlessly integrate with grocery delivery apps, allowing viewers to purchase ingredients straight off their screen to their doorstep. The fusion of CTV and commerce creates an interactive platform where every click has real-world implications.” – Gijsbert Pols, Ph.D., Director of Connected TV and New Channels at Adjust

“Consumers want an omnichannel experience, and the arrival of Shoppable Ads in streaming environments brings this closer to reality. (From our recent study, we found that Shoppable Ads have great brand recall – more than half of respondents (55%) recall seeing a shoppable ad, and out of them, half (50%) have interacted with such an ad. In 2024, we don’t see this slowing down. When consumers see a product on TV, they want to be able to quickly learn more or purchase that product and increase the ease of access along their path to purchase.” – Michael Scott, VP of Sales and Ad Operations at Samsung 

Will We Get Measurement Right in 2024?

CTV advertising has faced difficulties due to fragmentation from the start. The future of measurement in the CTV sector is about trying new strategies. 

“New and integrated ways of measuring CTV in 2024 will expose who is watching what platform. Spoiler alert: there is not as much overlap as most brands think. This means brands will use new measurement abilities to find the audiences they have been missing through linear and selected CTV buys alone, decreasing fragment buying process and increasing their ease of ads management.” – Cathy Oh, Head of Marketing, Samsung Electronics America

“Viewability is top of mind for us as it is a crucial CTV metric. The IAB’s open measurement for Apple TV, Amazon Fire, and Android TV devices is a new technology that took some time for suppliers and app publishers to adjust. We predict that early adopters will begin supporting open measurement in 2024. Open measurement unlocks full cross-screen viewability measurement using the same underlying expectations and specifications across CTV, mobile, and desktop devices. It also discloses exactly how many ads serve partially off-screen or to the TVs that are turned off, Audio and AVOC measurement, the ability to transact on viewable impressions in CTV, and measurement and reporting based on customized viewability standards.” – Dan Slivjanovski, CMO of media measurement and ad performance at DoubleVerify

Attention is the New Currency 

Tapping into attention measurement is key to unlocking new revenue streams. 

 “Ad outcomes and differentiating audiences will remain a key topic in streaming, with certain metrics becoming increasingly significant. For instance, analyzing ad attention and audience engagement across channels to quantify the outcomes of CTV campaigns will be an area of focus. These metrics are critical to helping the TV industry better understand the value of various CTV experiences and services for advertisers.” – Dina Roman, SVP, global ad sales, Fubo

“Right Mindset + Right Creative = Better Campaign Performance. Video-level data enables brands to better identify consumers, ensure they’re reaching the right audiences, and better place ads within the context of the content they’re engaging with. Research shows that consumers pay 4X more attention to ads relevant to the content they are watching. AI and machine learning offer promising avenues for ad creative development and targeted messaging. However, the challenge lies in ensuring ads align with audience mindsets. As the advertising landscape evolves, reaching consumers in the right mindset becomes as critical as crafting quality creative. Misalignments can result in negative brand perceptions, impacting political campaigns as well. In fact, according to the AVCA, more than half of consumers were less interested in the brand and products found in contextually misaligned ads. For brands that are looking to better increase campaign performance in 2024, it’s crucial to not only leverage video-level data but emotional and AI-driven data to deliver the right ad, in the right context and right mindset of the consumer.” – Field Garthwaite, CEO and Co-Founder of IRIS.TV

Content Bundling

Will 2024 be the year of the bundle?

“The streaming landscape, especially sports content, is more fragmented than ever. Consumer frustration and advertisers’ challenges to reach target audiences mean the industry is approaching a tipping point. As a result, we’re starting to see a return to content bundling. Fubo has long said there is power and value in content aggregation — the very heart of our business model. Super aggregation will benefit audiences and, in turn, advertisers.” – Dina Roman, SVP, global ad sales, Fubo

“2024 will see the rise of streaming services joining the legacy bundle, as evidenced by the recent Charter Disney deal. I predict we’ll see more SVODs partner with MVPDs to bundle offerings. While this represents a retreat to the wholesale model, it will likely add some stability to subscriber counts. Bundles work, and consumers are less likely to drop any particular service when it’s part of a broader package that includes broadband, cable, or satellite and phone. I don’t know that it will slow the rate of cord cutting, but there does still appear to be tens of millions of households where this model could work and help both parties.” – Dave Bernath, Vice President Sales & Partnerships, Americas at Wurl

Social Media Is Challenging Streamers

Let’s keep it real: these days, many of us are busy going down the rabbit hole on TikTok as opposed to sitting through a show on Firestick.

“The rise of short-form video platforms, such as TikTok, YouTube Shorts, and Facebook Reels, poses a significant challenge to all CTV platforms. Short-form players draw a significant portion of ad spend primarily because they align with consumer preferences and offer advanced personalization and measurement features. This shift can redirect ad dollars away from long-form video, including traditional TV and CTV/OTT. Additionally, social media is becoming more appealing to brands with its premium content deals and tools for creators and influencers. UGC has grown up, essentially. This trend is expected to continue, putting pressure on streaming services even as they see unprecedented growth.” – Dan Slivjanovski, CMO of media measurement and ad performance at DoubleVerify

Miscellaneous Predictions

CTV will become the household’s central digital hub, a true performance channel, and a place to target multi-screen experiences.  

“In 2024, we’ll see CTV offering a transformative user experience transcending traditional boundaries. Just as the smartphone revolutionized what can be done using a phone, the digitization of TV will do the same for television. CTV can transform the TV from a device for watching content to the central digital hub in every household. The convergence of stationary and social will not only elevate user engagement but also create more robust opportunities for advertisers to connect to consumers with many different interests.” – Gijsbert Pols, Ph.D., Director of Connected TV and New Channels at Adjust

“Advertisers will finally leverage Connected TV as a true performance channel. Advancements in AI-driven technologies and performance marketing solutions will give rise to more targeted and personalized CTV experiences. This, in turn, will give streamers and publishers the ability to accurately measure and attribute a viewer’s actions to a specific campaign, enabling advertisers to turn marketing efforts from a cost center to a revenue driver.” – Ron Gutman, CEO at Wurl

“As CTV ad capabilities continue to improve and evolve, digital screens get more dynamic, and retail media ecosystems explode, it will be critical for advertisers to shift their ad campaigns beyond the living room. Targeted multi-screen experiences will be key in 2024 to reaching consumers with messages that move with the medium. Expect retailers to get smarter with their in-store screens, and expect brands to start to bring their CTV campaigns out of the home, onto mobile and into retail and other out-of-home locations in 2024.” – Cathy Oh, Head of Marketing, Samsung Electronics America

The post Streaming Into the Future: CTV Predictions of 2024 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.

Why Are These Needed?

Distribution disruption! Until broadband and WiFi capacities allowed video content and ads to be reliably delivered over the internet (IP) around 2007—when Netflix launched streaming video services—broadcast and cable/satellite television had a lock grip on most of the ad spending in the US. They owned the distribution channels.

However, for more than 10 years streaming video and its digital siblings have been delivered outside of those closed systems straight to personal computers, mobile devices, and increasing connected televisions. Anyone now can be a digital broadcaster.

AdMonsters’ Brian LaRue provides a short history of what led to the need for viewability standards:

• Late 00s: study after study showed that massive percentages of digital (display) ad impressions were never seen by an actual person.
• In 2011, advisory groups the IAB, the ANA and the 4As together launched an initiative called Making Measurement Make Sense (3MS), with the goal of standardizing ad campaign measurement metrics and methodologies, including viewability.
• In March 2014. the MRC supported by 3MS and other industry groups issued viewability guidelines for display ads—50% of pixels in view for 1 second.
• In August 2015, MRC added viewable impression guidelines for video—50% of pixels in view for 2 seconds. This was focused on desktop behavior, so in 2016, similar guidelines were issued for mobile.

(Writer’s note: I wish these had been introduced as “minimum” viewability requirements as expectations for tracking advertising delivery in the digital realm moved to traditional and emerging television platforms where there had been no viewability criteria in the same sense.)

• In 2015, GroupM announced it would count and pay for impressions only when they were 100% in view for display, or 100% in view and played 50% of the way through with the audio on for video.

This further complicated the process of gaining industry consensus on all sides of the buying ecosystem:

• In March 2019, the MRC issued a draft of proposed new standards for a 60-day period of industry comment, not just for T/V viewability, but also for all display and video cross-media measurement.
• On September 4^th, 2019 the MRC announced that the comment window feedback resulted in one change to the initial draft regarding viewability: Duration Weighting. This new measurement criterion introduced in 2019 has stimulated lots of industry conversation such as this Ad Age piece (more on Duration Weighting below) and this MediaPost interview with MRC CEO George Ivie.

The New Cross-Media Measurement Standards

These are required for MRC third-party audits and certification, necessary for the safety and trust that ads are running as the purchaser contracted. The full 76 page final MRC document can be found here. Key new standards are:

• Viewable Impressions: For combined deduplicated cross-media video measurement, a viewability qualification threshold of 100% of pixels on screen for at least two continuous seconds must be utilized for both digital and linear components. Viewable impressions are the minimum required qualifying measurement unit for cross-media advertising Reach, Frequency and GRP.

The big changes to previous standards are 1) that 100% (not 50%) of a video ad must appear on screen for 2 seconds, and 2) this will be applied not just to PCs and mobile platforms, but to linear live and on-demand T/V, i.e. broadcast, cable, satellite and newer live streaming advertising components like Over The Air (OTA), Over The Top (OTT) and Connected TVs (CTV).

Remember: the term impressions in viewable impressions is not measured strictly from servers now, but by on-screen presence. It does not mean the impression has been seen by a human. Automated Content Recognition (ACR) will be a key technology for future T/V measurement.

• Duration Weighting: For audience measurement of any kind, including cross-media, average Viewable Duration reporting (based on unduplicated viewable duration) is required, with viewable completion audience metrics also required in cross-media video measurement. The standard provides for flexibility in duration reporting based upon criteria such as actual and quartile. (Note: Duration weighting will not be required until 2021.)

The September 4, 2019 release changed Duration Weighting from the previous draft proposal so it should now be expressed through a relative approach (duration viewable / advertisements creative length) versus the originally suggested absolute approach (duration viewable / a static 30-second denominator).

• Sophisticated Invalid Traffic (SIVT) Filtration: Cross-media audience measurement must be based on filtration inclusive of General and Sophisticated Invalid Traffic (GIVT and SIVT, respectively), standards that disqualify bot and non-human traffic.
• Consideration of Audio: Presence of audio must be considered in determining a Viewable Video Impression (and input into GRP) for cross-media video. Measurement organizations should separately report Viewable video duration that is also audible (non-mute or non-zero) where this can be measured.

What Will the Impact be for Tech?

• Adding cross-media viewable impressions and duration weighting will aid buyers and sellers in establishing the value and currency of T/V advertising that is purchased across the many different media platforms, devices, distribution systems and content providers.
• This will address concerns about paying for ads that can never be seen due to being off-screen or by non-human traffic. A trustworthy and auditable proof of performance system is good for all.
• As Ad Age suggested this will “toughen rules for digital and TV,” putting technologists and ad ops center stage in this next shift of change. Technology brought us here and will need to continue to adapt and change with the needs of customers, viewers, and ad-supported content providers. Hopefully, few will try to take advantage and “game” the new system in the transition, as much learning and cooperation will be needed on all sides of the advertising and technology marketplace.
• All industry stakeholders need to understand ACR and become savvy in how it works and how it will be integrated into existing buying and sales and performance analytics platforms.

The post New Cross-Media Measurement Standards Get TV and Video on the Same Page: Viewability appeared first on AdMonsters.

This is what TV advertising solutions company MadHive set out to do with their recent partnership with Smart TV viewing data provider Inscape. MadHive has paired their AI programmatic advertising platform with Inscape’s glass level TV viewing data from more than 11 million Smart TVs to sell linear advertising alongside data enriched OTT inventory. More importantly, the partnership will help brands easily plan, target, measure and optimize cross-platform, linear and OTT campaigns in real-time in a way not done before.

“OTT allows advertisers to leverage the precision targeting of digital on the TV screen, but at the same time it’s also contributing yet another platform to an already fragmented media landscape,” said Adam Helfgott, CEO at MadHive. “This partnership enables advertisers to holistically analyze cross-screen, linear and OTT campaigns, while calibrating audiences to drive real business outcomes.”

Currently, MadHive is powering linear to OTT reach extension, targeting, and fraud detection in nearly all (95%+) of the DMAs across the United States. This gives local broadcasters the ability to offer addressable advertising and allows national and local brands to reach local markets.

“Advertisers are increasingly looking to take advantage of optimized OTT ad buys, especially using local broadcaster inventory,” said Jodie McAfee, SVP of Sales and Marketing at Inscape. “This deal brings optimized cross-platform advertising to all local TV markets in the U.S., regardless of what service provider a home uses to bring OTT into the home.”

MadHive is also integrated across TEGNA Premion’s 125+ local OTT networks, to generate better targeting for advertisers and cryptographic proof for buy-side transactions. “OTT not only has the capacity to extend an advertiser’s reach, but working with MadHive we are able to measure a campaign’s impact on select business outcomes,” said Jim Wilson, President of Premion.

Cross-platform solutions like this are going to play an essential role in the future of advertising. Local advertisers, by their very nature, must be more sophisticated, as they work to deliver business outcomes. National brands can now also leverage similar targeting strategies to either execute a national buy or heavy up in local markets.

With people consuming content on more and more screens, the industry needs to develop solutions that look at these platforms holistically in order to effectively optimize advertisers’ media dollars. And this partnership enabling advertisers to strategically plan campaigns across linear and OTT, is a great first step in driving the idea of cross-platform cohesion, and they’re doing it in a way no others are.

The post How Local Advertisers Are Holistically Looking at Linear and OTT appeared first on AdMonsters.