CANNES — After TV viewing pivoted to on-demand, “live” content may be coming back — with a twist.
Younger audiences are increasingly associating live experiences with social platforms and streaming rather than traditional broadcast events, said Megan Pagliuca, chief product officer at Omnicom Media Group, in this video interview with Beet.TV.
She said this evolution means brands must adapt their strategies to engage with audiences who view live content as a multi-dimensional experience encompassing conversation and commerce, not just the primary event itself.
Making live sports addressable and measurable
At Cannes Lions, Omnicom announced partnerships with Disney, Walmart and other platforms to advance addressability and measurement capabilities for live content.
“On the live sports side, we announced partnerships with Disney, Sky in the UK, and Amazon,” Pagliuca explained. “Disney and Sky have similarities in being able to take advantage of when users tune into a livestream. Historically, live sports was just bought linearly—you didn’t have the addressability or measurability of programmatic.”
These partnerships enable brands to purchase inventory programmatically and personalize ads when viewers first join a livestream. The platforms can also pass contextual signals based on what’s happening during the sporting event, creating more relevant advertising opportunities.
Amazon’s data integration transforms sports marketing
According to a report by Research and Markets, the live streaming market is projected to expand by $20.64 billion, achieving a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 16.6% from 2024 to 2029. This surge is driven by increased smartphone penetration, enhanced internet access, the rising popularity of live streaming content across various platforms, and the burgeoning esports industry
Pagliuca sees live as a route to commerce media. Omnicom’s partnership with Amazon for Thursday Night Football helps it understand viewer behavior and its relationship to purchasing patterns.
“The Amazon Thursday Night Football capability allows us to bring Thursday Night Football and understand it within Amazon’s clean room environment,” Pagliuca said. “That means not only granular reach and frequency and sales, but we’re actually looking at a customer look back of purchases over the two seasons that Thursday Night Football has been live on Amazon.”
This collaboration will eventually provide a five-year look back at customer value and purchases, transforming how live TV is measured. The industry is moving rapidly toward more sophisticated measurement, with Omnicom also recently partnering with NBCUniversal to deliver program-level reporting across streaming platforms.
Walmart partnership bridges commerce and influence
Extending the data-driven approach to retail, Omnicom also announced a partnership with Walmart that connects purchase data with influencer selection, creating new opportunities for shoppable content.
“We can take Walmart purchase data and use it for influencer selection as well,” Pagliuca explained. “And then (we) can use those influencers and have them on Walmart shopping live.”
This integration follows the trend toward shoppable livestreaming experiences. In 2022, Omnicom partnered with Firework to integrate shoppable livestreaming video directly into brand websites, reflecting the growing convergence of content and commerce.
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