SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — Eleven months after they last gathered on the shores of Puerto Rico to discuss building-out the future of connected TV advertising, how did Beet Retreat San Juan speakers rate the industry’s progress?

After four days of debate, networking and socializing at Condado Vanderbilt Hotel, San Juan, delegates gathered for a closing plenary.

Moderator Jon Watts asked executives to rate the industry’s collective position in 2023.

A solid foundation

Mike Fisher, Executive Director, Investment Innovation, GroupM, said companies in the space are set well for a coming wave of change.

“This year, compared to last year, there was a lot more alignment and a lot more of a consolidated effort to move things forward,” he said.

“How are we doing? We’re doing better than anybody expects. We are doing very well. And I think that’s been reaffirmed over the last two days…

“We are in a very good space as an industry right now, going into a time where there’s going to be consolidation both on media partner supply as well as technology, supply technology platforms. I think we’re set up well for it.”

Movement on multi-currency

Nicole Scaglione, VP of CTV & OTT, PubMatic, said significant progress had been made on adoption of alternative TV currencies.

She cast her mind back to the 2022 Beet Retreat, when the idea of publishers and others using new measurement standards and providers was novel.

“Fast forward to now, everybody agrees that multicurrency is the way we need to move forward,” she said. “And we have our JIC, which I think is actually a great thing.

“We’ve recognised we have to credit these (measurement) companies and start to move forward together – that’s progress.”

A need for more speed

Lisa Giacosa, Chief Investment Officer, Spark Foundry, said she wished more big tech companies would engage in industry debates.

“We all have a hunger to go faster than is actually technically possible – but I also think we’re moving a little bit slower than we should,” she said. “We all recognize the need for collaboration, and I’ve been really encouraged by a lot of the collective agreeance, but also the debate.

“What I find alarming is that we still don’t have some of those key elephants in the room that we need.”

A different game?

Dave Morgan, CEO, Simulmedia, said companies in the space are making plenty of momentum, but he warned the tech companies may be playing a different game.

“I applaud the progress we’ve made. There’s a lot more data being brought. I think we have a lot of work to do on the transaction management and piping and the people-heavy things,” Morgan said.

“I do have a concern that we may be …we are playing small ball when there’s a big ball game happening…

“We’re seeing such strong moves with really data-driven companies in the space that have direct relationships with consumers – Apple, Amazon, Google, Netflix – that I think they are going to be setting the market and, if they’re here or not here it, they may not need us.”

You’re watching coverage of Beet Retreat San Juan 2023, presented by LiveRamp, Madhive, Magnite, Paramount, T-Mobile Advertising Solutions and VideoAmp. For more videos from the Beet Retreat, please visit this page.

By Robert Andrews on @robertandrews