Advertisers need to come together with media, measurement and ad-tech companies to support the growth in advanced TV. Their partnerships will lead to greater automation and better outcomes that drive more investment in advertising as linear TV and digital video converge.

Interoperability Is Great Unifier

Kevin Lemberg, head of partnerships for advertising solutions at Comcast Technology Solutions

“There has to be some sort of unification and some sort of common language and goals between the partners within a solution or technology that we’re offering out to the industry,” he said. “Partnerships are going to be very important to round out the technology offering and the solutions for the industry in order for us to move forward.”

Holistic View of TV Landscape

Jen Soch, executive director of specialty channels at WPP’s GroupM

“We’re really seeing an idea where we can be with addressable and CTV part of the main video recommendation that goes into what we’re doing with a client, and look at it more holistically.” she said. “I do see a lot more interest in bringing it [addressable and CTV] very much to the forefront and being a bigger part of their overall play.”

Don’t Devalue Premium Content

Kelly Abcarian, executive vice president of measurement and impact at NBCUniversal

“Interoperability across linear and digital without losing the value of premium content along the way is going to be so critical,” she said. “If we lose and swing the pendulum too far to ‘audiences only,’ imagine content being cheapened over the coming years and basically creating a society that the value is placed on audiences alone….I look forward to working with the industry on how, as we try to equivalize and become more interoperable, we don’t lose the value of premium content.”

Addressable TV Unlocks Insights

Kristine Bayles, vice president of advanced advertising sales at AMC Networks

Addressable TV “enables us to get the insights into communication and driving deeper understanding in the industry,” she said. “We all know TV is important, but CTV and VOD is just as important…Viewership is truly fragmented now, and it’s not that less people are consuming, they’re just consuming differently. We need to understand this, and move forward with converged impressions.”

Automate Workflows for Savings

Mark Marshall, president of advertising and partnerships at NBCUniversal

“Our goal on that [automated workflows] is to work with our partners on the agency side be able to get rid of about 30% of the manual work that we do,” he said. “How do we find different APIs [application programming interfaces] and different ways to interact, and take out some of the manual elements to allow us to move faster and hopefully improve margins for clients.”

Outcomes Need Collaboration

Nicole Whitesel, executive vice president of advanced TV and client success at Publicis Media

“We need systems that collaborate — tools that talk to each other, data that can break down those walls, IDs that can understand each other,” she said. “Better sharing of that data enables us to have conversations with our clients about outcomes, and outcomes that deliver change to their business, and outcomes that change the way they decide media mix.”

Self-Scheduling Becoming the Norm

Vicky Fox, chief planning officer at OMD UK

“We’ve moved from a place where people were quite wedded to a linear schedule,” she said. “Self-scheduling is going to be the norm for everybody. Anybody who switches on the TV and either looks at their connected TV menu or their EPG [electronic programming guide] can see how much has changed, because some of the linear schedules may take second place.”

Technology ‘Lifts All Ships’

Richard Nunn, vice president and general manager of advertiser solutions at Comcast Technology Solutions

“Through automation and understanding what has worked and what hasn’t in more real time across channel – that in principle, should mean a greater ROI across what is a fragmented channel base,” he said. “They’ll drive that solution a lot more efficiently because of technology.”

You are watching “What’s Next For Advertisers? Key Changes That Will Drive The Industry Forward,” a Beet.TV leadership series presented by Comcast Technology Solutions. For more videos, please visit this page. For Comcast Technology Solutions’ paper on these topics, please visit this link.

Editor’s Note:  Special thanks to Jon Watts who collaborated and reported for this series.