Samsung Ads, the media conglomerate’s ads division, provides the measurement and targeting at scale for the billions of smart TVs operated by the company.

“These four to five billion smart TVs, connected on a daily basis – they’re smart about that and now our data is one-to-one deterministic,” says Karl Meyer, head of sales, media and entertainment for Samsung Ads. “So that’s why they’re looking to us as a key partner.”

Samsung Ads has typically partnered with linear networks, providing data and insights to a legacy market that has been picking up the pace and pushing businesses like Samsung Ads to grow its business into other areas as needs change. One area is direct response.

“It’s immediate and it’s so actionable,” says Meyer. “The information we get is through ACR – we’re able to turn that data around provide it back to our customers so they can use it the very next day to action an audience.” According to Meyer, both retargeting and ratings are primary KPIs.

Part of Meyer’s job is to help clients work through the changes that are happening in the entertainment industry. One such shift is the move to what Samsung calls “discovery” mode, or search mode: The time viewers spend looking for the next thing to watch on their smart TVs. That typically ends up giving about a 15 to 20 minute gap in viewing, where ads can get prime visibility.

“That is the winning opportunity for an OTT app or linear and that is in some sense the sweet spot,” says Meyer. “So it’s the advertising and promotional opportunities that we present back to this particular cluster of accounts and clients and allow them to market and promote their shows down to the program level.”

This video is part of a series produced at CES 2020 called Television Redefined, sponsored by Samsung Ads.  For more videos, please visit this page.