Steve Ellwanger

CANNES – As long as television and premium video remain atop the ROI stack for marketers, agencies need to solve convergence of the two for their marketer clients. If they don’t, they could be disintermediated by giants like Facebook and Google and knocked down a rung on the value chain by new entrants like Accenture. […]

CANNES – Delve into the challenge of cross-platform video audience measurement with three buy-side veterans and you’ll get sports metaphors, frustration and eager anticipation for things like Facebook’s plunge into scripted programming. So it was when Comcast presented a panel at the Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity featuring Amplifi US’s Lucas Cridland, Magna’s David Cohen […]

CANNES – What does drinking beer and scaling Mt. Everest have in common? For Sports Illustrated, it was an issue dedicated to augmented reality with Coors Light tagging along in a “high-touch, custom-created solution.” The May 8 issue of SI was an AR-lover’s dream as it enabled readers to scan its content without the use […]

CANNES – U.S. television broadcasters can take solace in the fact that it’s not just their world that is being upended by digital distribution. The same thing is happening in Latin America. “Everybody’s trying to reinvent themselves in one way or another,” says Renato de Paula, CEO of MEC Latin America. “We are experiencing video […]

CANNES – So many video ad units and platforms, so many ways to attribute value to those units. “Trying to figure out the value of a video ad unit depending on where it runs seems to be one of our challenges as an industry,” says Shenan Reed, MEC’s Chief Digital Officer for North America. And […]

CANNES – Yes, broadcasting live sporting events is expensive considering the rights fees. But it’s a great viewing environment at a time when consumers can avoid ads in other programming. It’s that “other” programming that concerns media sellers like ESPN and Fox, as evidenced by the discussion during a Comcast panel at the Cannes Lions […]

CANNES – If you are one of the many people whose attention to a television show is shared by another device, there’s a decent chance Alphonso knows what you’re watching. The automatic content recognition company indexes TV like Google indexes the Internet. So when an Alphonso SDK in a tablet, smartphone, smart set-top box or […]

CANNES – Even if unified cross-screen audience measurement remains a bridge too far at present, understanding linear television audiences gets better all the time. This is something that A+E Networks can attest to following an engagement with TV analytics firm 605 in which ad exposure data was matched with transactional records. The result, as moderator […]

CANNES – Call it television, video or neither. What matters to ESPN’s Eric Johnson is that it delivers “value and impact” to advertisers. Like other attendees of the Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity, Johnson welcomed the many conversations about how the industry can come together and drive more effective ways of measurement. “We’re trading on […]

CANNES – Reducing commercial ad loads on network television is paying dividends for viewers and advertisers. Now the industry needs to balance context and content to improve the ad experience on digital platforms. That’s the prognosis of Chris Linn, President of Turner Entertainment’s truTV, which was the first network to announce limited commercial interruptions “and […]

CANNES – Time Inc. doesn’t foresee a letup in the niche segmentation of television content going forward. And even if that content doesn’t attract huge audiences, that’s okay as long as viewers are “super engaged,” according to Rich Battista. Just in case this prediction doesn’t pan out, Time Inc. will be churning out all manner […]

CANNES – Sailing against companies like Facebook and Google, Oath—the combined AOL-Yahoo entity—finds itself navigating deeply competitive waters. So it’s apt that the person chosen to pilot the new vessel, John DeVine, not only ran Yahoo’s global operations but also is a former U.S. Navy officer. Oath is a portfolio of more than 50 media […]

CANNES – In a world of seemingly endless video content choices, one thing is still missing: a better value exchange in which consumers realize that watching commercials might just be worth it. “I think it’s one of the things we’re kind of missing,” Dave Penski, CEO of Publicis Media Exchange Americas, says in this interview […]

CANNES – Expanding its premium video advocacy footprint beyond North America, FreeWheel debuted the FreeWheel Council for Premium Video Europe (FWCE) at the Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity. Right out of the gate, the FWCE garnered the support of the some of the biggest TV programmers and operators across the region. Initial FWCE members include […]

CANNES – What constitutes “premium content” is in the eye of the beholder. So rather than trying to ascertain a common definition, one’s time is better spent understanding the drivers of ROI while taking into account things like environment, ad formats and targeting. “That’s really more what we’re focused on versus worrying too much about […]

CANNES – Global agency MEC has a bias against bias. Toward the top of the list is “unconscious bias” and it’s become an acute problem in a day and age when agencies are facing more competitors than ever. “We’ve done an awful lot of work on unconscious bias. It’s a huge thing in our industry,” […]

CANNES – Live streaming video is helping to break down the perceived barriers between traditional television and premium video, while OTT viewing continues to see tremendous growth, according to the latest FreeWheel Video Monetization Report (VMR). In this interview with Beet.TV, VMR author Ying Wang discusses the first quarter VMR findings, which show that premium […]

CANNES – It would make a great question on Jeopardy: which 129-year-old legacy print media brand is the top brand account on Instagram? Answer: National Geographic. “I always kind of take that as an encouraging thing that we have Millennials and Gen Z’s interested in the subject areas where National Geographic has always been a […]

CANNES – NBCUniversal’s Symphony initiative keeps adding new players to its promotional ensemble, wherein all company units pull to together to promote a specific initiative. This year Symphony will benefit from NBCU’s partnerships with the likes of Apple News, BuzzFeed and Snapchat. Therein lies a paradox of sorts, given NBCU’s public bashing of some of […]

CANNES – When Lucas Cridland compares broadcast television to digital video, he sees data gaps and a lack of flexibility in the former. “The dynamic nature of the premium marketplace is constantly moving,” says the President of Dentsu Aegis Networks’ Amplifi US. But while there seems to be “a lot of innovation on the supply […]