Robert Williams

SALISBURY, Ct. – The growth of ecommerce and the greater complexity of the media landscape have led media agencies to expand their role from activating campaigns on behalf of advertisers to provide more value-added services such as strategic consulting. “Agencies have a right to play in the consulting field, and even more so in content […]

CANNES – The rapid growth in audiences for advertising-supported streaming video has pushed media companies to develop a viewer experience that matches or exceeds what traditional television offers. Marketers also want the assurance that their ads won’t appear so frequently that they become a nuisance and that the ads of competitors won’t appear in the […]

CANNES – The advertising industry is in the early stages of working to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from marketing activities. With the realization of how much fossil-fuel energy is consumed by computer networks that automate parts of the media marketplace, ad-tech companies such as Sharethrough are looking at ways to achieve sustainability goals without negatively […]

SALISBURY, Ct. – Diversity and inclusion efforts show signs of stalling after years of progress, according to a recent survey by the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA). It also found differences of opinion about inclusion efforts among different levels of management. “When you see that there are more changes felt and seen by the C-suite […]

CANNES – Retailers that sell advertising are riding a multibillion-dollar wave of spending by marketers that seek to reach consumers who are ready to shop or are open to discovering new products. The budding segment of media marketplace hasn’t matched the scale of other channels, such as television, social media and internet search, but that […]

CANNES – Younger generations of consumers tend to be more mindful than their older counterparts about buying products and services whose social values align with theirs. Amid this growing awareness, marketers must consider how they define the purpose of their brands. “Purpose is incredibly important to delivering on any and all marketing objectives,” Luke Lambert, […]

CANNES – The media-buying decisions of advertisers collectively have a big effect on how consumers receive information about the world around them. The Global Alliance for Responsible Media, a cross-industry initiative established four years ago by the World Federation of Advertisers, has sought to help marketers make more informed decisions about their media-buying strategies. Amid […]

SALISBURY, CT – Beet.TV this year hosted its first event in the Berkshires, recognizing that the highland region in northwestern Connecticut and western Massachusetts has attracted professionals from advertising, media and ad-tech companies who want a scenic getaway. With so many people looking for things to do and see, media executive Alan Katz last year […]

Beachfront on Tuesday named media and ad-tech veteran Frans Vermeulen as strategic adviser to the company, which specializes in sell-side ad-serving for convergent television. He will focus on Beachfront’s go-to-market strategy and harnessing its connected television (CTV) ad-serving technology to help media owners, programmers and distributors. “We’re about to enter a new period of television […]

Television viewers have more ways than ever before to see their favorite programming with the explosive growth in connected devices. This changing behavior has driven demand for ways to measure people’s attention to advertising, which is a specialty of Lumens Research. “Attention is so important because people are so good at ignoring advertising,” Michael Follett, […]

CANNES – The term “smart TV” is widespread in describing televisions that offer a way to connect to the internet, but they generally don’t have the same capabilities as a smartphone, tablet or laptop to run a variety of software. Television manufacturing startup Telly seeks to change that with a set that’s more versatile and […]

As an entrepreneur who started a company with seed capital, built it up and sold it to a strategic buyer, André Swanston is well familiar with every stage of business growth. He co-founded the audience measurement and data-management platform Tru Optik, which consumer data company TransUnion acquired three years ago for what was described as […]

SALISBURY, CT – The phrase “buy Rachel’s sweater” to describe how television viewers will one day be able to immediately order products that appear in their favorite shows such as “Friends” is gradually getting closer to reality. Digital advertising platform KERV is working with media companies and retailers to create shoppable television that’s convenient for […]

CANNES – Harnessing statistical data for marketing decisions can help brands not only decide where to advertise, but also what kind of technologies they need. For Hill’s Pet Nutrition, a unit of Colgate-Palmolive, marketing mix modeling helped to uncover the need for its own data clean room to support a more granular analysis of its […]

Consumers today divide their time spent with media among a wider range of channels and devices including mobile phones and internet-connected TVs. This fragmentation has challenged marketers to find more ways to measure the effectiveness of advertising, including people’s attention to brand messaging. “Measuring attention is extremely important because we do see it as a […]

CANNES – The media marketplace is filled with chatter about the economic outlook and its negative effect on demand for advertising. Amid this environment, brands are shifting some of their ad budgets from linear television to streaming. “We’ve heard lots of things like the market is soft, it’s a buyer’s market,” Kelly Metz, managing director […]

CANNES – Walt Disney in the past decade has expanded video distribution with the launch of streaming services that can reach a broader range of connected devices such as smart TVs and mobile phones. Each of Disney Streaming’s major brands – Disney+, ESPN+ and Hulu – has uncovered consumer insights that are meaningful to advertisers. […]

CANNES – Sustainability this year got more attention at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, another watershed moment for the advertising industry as agencies develop environmental, social and governance strategies. “At the risk of sort of oversimplifying, it’s really about doing the right thing and sticking to your values as a company,” Jemma Gould, […]

CANNES – Retailers that sell advertising are in the position of supplying audiences to consumer brands that are supplying products for their stores. This dynamic calls for greater collaboration among retailers, advertisers, agencies and ad-tech companies. “I wish that as retail media networks were chatting with their clients, with the industry, that they’re talking about […]

CANNES – The value of advertising is rooted in measurement, whether it’s counting the number of visible impressions or attributing a campaign’s contribution to driving revenue. Increasingly, brands, agencies and media companies are seeking to put a value on consumer attention to advertising. “Getting to an end state where we can actually transact against attention […]