Robert Andrews

SAN JUAN — The world of TV advertising is evolving from generally targeting viewers of broad TV show categories, to one in which marketers armed with consumer data can make more specifically-targeted ad buys. But what if the presuppositions they made with that data could be improved on in yet another step-change? One leading TV […]

SAN JUAN — As much of the advertising landscape moves from human-, direct-sold advertisements to a data-infused, automated process, does the nature of TV become mechanistic along with it? That was one of the many tricky balances debated in a fireside discussion at Beet Retreat between Turner EVP of data strategy and product innovation Jesse Redniss […]

It has been in operation for 12 years now, and video ad technology firm Innovid is welcoming 2019 by taking a $30 million new investment round. The new money comes from Goldman Sachs’ Private Capital Investing, a new backer for the company. It is a Series E – the latest of nine rounds now totalling $95.1 […]

2018 was the year Amazon became the number-three digital ad platform in the US, according to eMarketer‘s analysis. And that tipping point coincided with a large-scale new bearishness that plagued its rival tech platforms, as concerns over ad practices, mental health and democracy coalesced to dog Facebook and Google. So, who will be winning the race […]

SAN JUAN — By dint of being digital and connected, new over-the-top TV services are supremely measurable. So why is that a problem? In this video interview with Beet.TV, Omnicom Media Group chief research officer Jonathan Steuer opens up on the dilemmas presented by the emergence of connected TV platforms. Interviewing Steuer for Beet.TV is veteran […]

Amid the ongoing march of VOD, TV isn’t without a fight. In fact, some of the smarter broadcasters are now using advanced software technology to wring far greater efficacy from their ad inventory than ever before. Case in point – NBCUniversal, which just switched on a new tool that uses machine learning to better indicate […]

The rise of Netflix has given ad-funded media and ad buyers alike the collywobbles. Analysis from nScreenMedia suggests U.S. Netflix viewers, by substituting free viewing for subscription video-on-demand, are missing 2 billion ad views every day, totaling missing ad sales estimated at between $3 billion and $6 billion annually. So what’s an ad buyer to […]

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — For some devices, ad targeting is all about profiling and reaching individual users with laser precision. The emerging online TV landscape is a little different. After all, television – at least, the one that persists in the corner or on the wall of a living room is a shared device. […]

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — When people think about “brand safety”, the extent to which it is possible to assess ad inventory for alignment with an ad buyer, they often tend to put the onus on the buyer itself. But don’t publishers also have a duty to better indicate the kinds of ad spots advertisers […]

LONDON — With old-fashioned TV, things were simple. The gross-rating point was the predominant ad-buying currency. Now that the world is exploding in to on-demand TV, premium video and a host of other channels, ad-buying currencies are up in the air again. Lorne Brown wants to pin them down. In this video interview with Beet.TV, the […]

LONDON — As the number of TV platforms proliferates and the range of buying options across them explodes, ad buyers need to seek out simplification. That is why the new owner of Cablevision has launched what it’s calling a “one-stop shop”. Altice USA’s a4, a division which helps brands and agencies advertise to citizens across […]

LONDON — It may often be analog and it certainly doesn’t have the luxury of advanced foresight through on-demand – but that doesn’t mean live, linear television can’t benefit from the same kind of automations that have also come to programmatic VOD. That is the view of one exec who spent two decades in ad […]

LONDON — TV isn’t dying, it’s just changing. Whilst that isn’t necessarily the view of tech aficionados who like to declare telly “dead”, it is the view of many within the TV industry who are trying to march the medium on to a brighter future. TV isn’t without its challenges, of course. But, in this video […]

LONDON — Across Europe, in multiple media industries, what once were competitors are coming together, forming a variety of ad sales cooperatives in a bid to pool inventory they hope can match the vast scale of Google and Facebook. In another such initiative, French TV channel operator M6 is teaming with rival TF1 and public […]

LONDON — The UK’s pay-TV company Sky has blazed a trail by serving billions of addressable TV ads, those targeted at individual households. But German addressability is limited by regulation. Yes, for addressable TV as for plenty else besides, in Europe, things can get fragmented. The new unit established by GroupM to smoothe the path […]

LONDON — Europe’s leading pay-TV company was executing on household-level TV ad targeting before it was even being called “addressable TV”. Six years after launch and having just been acquired by Comcast, Sky suggests this new method of selling TV ads is now commonplace across the company. It was back in 2013 that the UK […]

LONDON — Ahead of the tenth anniversary of its online TV catch-up player, Irish public broadcaster RTÉ is planning to add new features it thinks could please both viewers and advertisers. RTÉ Player launched in April 2009, offering hundreds of hours of TV shows available to catch up with through online and some TV platforms. It […]

LONDON — Over the last two years, the growing realization that Amazon brings significant skin to the digital advertising game has ballooned. And that is crossing off its ecommerce platform and on to online TV, too. In a recent terms of service update for Fire TV ad sales, Amazon says “Fire TV Ad-Enabled Apps must […]

LONDON — Thirteen years in business and $72 million in funding tends to give you a certain authority position in the marketplace. For Amobee, the demand-side platform and analytics suite operator, that position seems to be getting bigger. After already acquiring Ringring Media, AdJitsu, Gradient X, Adconion, Kontera and Turn, the Redwood City, CA, company this […]

LONDON — So far in the evolution of addressable TV advertising systems, the big secret has been the extent of operations that are actually performed manually. Next up, ad-buying agencies and other users deserve to jettison some of that manual work, says an exec from one company trying to make it happen. In this video […]