LAS VEGAS — Creative and media teams frequently operate in isolation and optimize independently despite opportunities to integrate contextual signals across both functions for improved campaign performance.
“Too often they’re in silos and optimize separately,” Christopher Murphy, svp, strategy and business development at Innovid, told Beet.TV Editorial Director Lisa Granatstein at CES. “The fidelity of signals, whether it’s an audience or a context that starts with targeting, but flows through analytics and creative optimization is really where I’m focusing my time and attention here at CES.”
Murphy seeks greater application of contextual metadata in creative optimization and personalization beyond current targeting uses.
Context needs creative application
Contextual targeting has advanced through companies analyzing emotions, genres, and AI-powered insights, but these signals rarely inform creative delivery decisions.
“A lot of contextual is used for targeting and there’s so much fantastic things that have happened,” Murphy said. “But it doesn’t always make its way to the creative. When we have multiple creatives to deliver for our customers at Innovid, we would love more signals, contextual signals ideally, to match the relevance of that creative with the relevance of that content.”
Signal mix over singular approaches
Every impression contains both audience and content/context data, though technology limitations, privacy constraints, and inertia prevent consistent signal availability.
“Whether it’s technology issues, privacy issues, we don’t always get the audience. Sometimes due to inertia, we don’t get the contextual signal,” Murphy said. “Customers and advertisers need to take a signal mix approach and try to maximize as many signals as possible so that they can orchestrate as easily as they can to drive as much performance as possible.”
Measurement precedes planning changes
Planning workflow evolution follows measurement and analytics shifts as new signals reveal past campaign performance patterns that identify optimization opportunities.
“Usually changes in planning start with changes in measurement and analytics. Every time there’s a new signal, you want to know how the past campaign performed with that,” Murphy said. “You find that ideal insight where if I only targeted this or I could match the creative with this context, that’s where the planning changes start.”
Insights drive resource allocation toward what worked and away from underperforming approaches, using budget leverage to secure deeper signal optimization.
AI mindset breaks inertia
Brands tied to audience-based TV tactics must overcome market inertia by adopting AI-oriented thinking that prioritizes what works over historical processes.
“Unfortunately there’s a lot of inertia and status quo in our market. There’s no inertia and status quo in AI,” Murphy said. “I think, ‘What would AI do?’ It wouldn’t think of the history and the process. It would say, ‘What’s working? What’s not working?’”
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