Steve Ellwanger

What do you do when you’re the “800-pound gorilla” aggregating advertising inventory from some 200 MVPD partners? In the case of Cadent, you extend your reach to local television broadcasters to become a one-stop shop. As advertisers increasingly seek better audience targeting and efficiency, “The marketplace has kind of come our way,” says the company’s […]

Even though some advertisers don’t need to be “very niche targeted,” data plays a role in all brand messaging. What’s common across the board is that “Every part of advertising is about performance at the end of the day,” says Christine Peterson, Managing Partner, Digital Investment Lead, Mindshare. “It’s just what do you use as […]

Heading into this year’s television Upfronts, advanced TV targeting will become a bigger part of conversations between buyers and sellers, as it will a year from now. “A corollary to that is so will addressable,” says Nick Troiano. “We have knowledge and capabilities to essentially put dollars to work over three-, six-, twelve-month campaigns like […]

There is plenty of numbers associated with Meredith Corporation’s $2.8 billion acquisition of Time Inc., but here’s perhaps the most salient: Meredith’s audience represents two of every three dollars that are spent in virtually every key consumer category. Leading up to the 2018 Digital Content NewFronts, “We offer an unparalleled combination of things no one […]

Beef jerky is a good example of products not suited to broad-based television advertising, which is why the family owned Jack Link’s brand opts for more precise audience targeting. “For us, it goes back to the simplicity of understanding the consumers really well,” says the company’s VP of Brand Marketing, Tim Goldsmid. “As a small […]

With advertisers still in the “test and learn phase” with advanced targeting of television audiences, NBCUniversal joining the OpenAP consortium “will really move OpenAP’s momentum forward towards a more usable tool that advertisers will want a part of,” says Julie Anson, Associate Director, Partner Innovation, Advanced TV MAGNA Global. Currently on the sell-side, there’s too […]

Even as the availability of addressable television advertising continues to grow, delivering more precise audience targeting, it will likely always be a complement to traditional mass advertising efforts. In the meantime, it’s bringing TV to brands with targets heretofore too small for spending on the medium and providing valuable targeting insights, according to Lyle Schwartz, […]

MIAMI-While advertisers’ first-party data is very powerful at helping them connect with consumers, it must be structured in an optimal way so as to be matched with other data to achieve scale, according to George Musi, Publicis media agency Blue 449’s EVP, Chief Data, Analytics & Insights Officer. By itself, “First-party data, although powerful, it […]

NBCUniversal’s decision to join the OpenAP audience-targeting consortium one year after its creation is a positive move that “gives us even more scale to buy and transact on from an audience standpoint,” says Maureen Bosetti, Chief Partnerships Officer at Initiative, IPG’s global communications agency. “Certainly the more partners that join OpenAP the more it allows […]

Although it can be “very overwhelming” for brands to rationalize multiple audience segments and customized creative iterations, doing so can unlock sales growth and lower the cost of customer acquisition. “To serve one set of content or one-size-fits-all approach just doesn’t work anymore and it’s very wasteful,” says Rick Acampora, Chief Operating Officer at Wavemaker […]

Reflecting on  the annual Upfronts and NewFronts, Dentsu Aegis Network’s Matt Seiler loves  the plethora of television content choices. “That we’re still talking about Upfronts and NewFronts and so on cracks me up, but whatever. Be that as it may, they continue,” says the President of Brand Solutions for the global network. “I think what’s […]

MIAMI-When Cambell Soup Company put its huge creative and media account into review last year, it didn’t seek the usual “spec creative” from contenders. Unlike when the company hired BBDO back in 1954, Campbell was looking for a partner to help it navigate “the pace and complexity of change.” Last month, Publicis Groupe was awarded […]

MIAMI-Having been in advertising since the 1970’s, David Sable knows all about the value exchange between consumers and advertisers. So when he views the controversy about Facebook and its users’ data, he sees “an awakening of the notion of data” and suggests another value exchange might be in order. “Let’s be very clear. This is […]

MIAMI-There’s lots of talk about the challenges facing advertising and media agencies, among them a very competitive recruitment market, diversity and inclusion. And then there is the actual value that agencies bring to the table. “There’s a lot of negative narrative out there about what’s going wrong for agencies,” says Marla Kaplowitz, President and CEO […]

MIAMI-Since Bill Koenigsberg founded Horizon Media nearly 30 years ago, he has opted for integrated services and independence over holding companies and their assorted offerings. And while he sees his media agency as a speedboat amid aircraft carriers, all vessels are fighting an uphill battle with the likes of Facebook and Google to attract and […]

Many U.S. marketers recognize the importance of Hispanic consumers but lack the research and content-creation resources needed to reach them most effectively. NBCU has just delivered those resources in the form of a new $250 million, state-of-the-art facility in Miami. The 500,000-square-foot Telemundo Center houses “eight studios the size of eight football fields and newsrooms […]

MIAMI-Even as digital-based audience targeting techniques grow in the television medium, there still needs to be a balance between one-to-one marketing and broader advertising efforts. “I think the two have to work together and you need to be careful that you don’t optimize toward specific audiences and optimize yourself out of business,” says Jason Harrison, […]

MIAMI-Veteran advertising and media author Ken Auletta predicts Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is “going to get beat up” when he appears before Congress beginning today. But he doesn’t see any easy answers to reining in big digital companies. “He’s just a prop,” Auletta says of Zuckerberg. “They’re the actors and they’re going to perform on […]

MIAMI-A group of 4A’s member agencies is banding together under the aegis of the organization’s new Advertiser Protection Bureau (APB) to collectively monitor the environments in which their clients’ advertisements appear. The APB establishes a process in which risky environments are flagged and then investigated by agency-client teams. Announced today at the 4A’s Accelerate conference, […]

MIAMI – The Association of National Advertisers is calling for “a new contract” that Facebook, Google and other digital companies should employ to regularly tell consumers what happens to the data they share online. “How many times are we going to go through surprise after surprise after surprise,” ANA CEO Bob Liodice says in this […]