Welcome to #BeetU – our weekly educational series for advertising and media during the COVID-19 crisis, hosted by Ashley Swartz, CEO of Furious Corp, longtime Beet contributor and the Dean of #BeetU. Using Furious’s comprehensive and interactive dictionary, TV101, as our guide, these sessions will unpack the terminology of advanced TV, serving as an introduction for some and a refresher for others. So, [...]

LOS ANGELES - Its own ad-tech stack was already gargantuan, now Verizon Media is widening the set of tools it offers to third parties. In an announcement, the company launched new features for publishers via its media platform: Verizon Media Smartplay Prebid: Helps offer more inventory, for faster auction and for better prices, using prebid open-source software. Ad Data and Ad [...]

During a worldwide crisis, advertisers have to be particularly cognizant of the situation their audience is living through. Talking to customers as a cohort, and not as individuals, and letting advertisements end up alongside irrelevant content, can hurt brands more than ever.  Jeremy Cohen, the vp and head of global content partnerships at Publicis Groupe, says consumers are “hyper-tuned” to the [...]

The coronavirus pandemic has hit advertising spend hard, but are there signs the market may be starting to expand again? Tal Chalozin has data he says proves it. Innovid, the video ad-tech serving supplier Chalozin co-founded, just released a product that lifts the curtain on all the trends being seen this month... https://twitter.com/innovid/status/1252945290207903745 According to the platform, Innovid iQ, trends include: Some sectors' [...]

Consumption is changing for audiences who are now stuck at home, says Xandr’s head of video market development for EMEA Austin Scott. Device usage and the amount of content that people have an appetite for has surged. That has opened an opportunity for streaming companies: We’ve seen the launch of Quibi during quarantine. Netflix is adding 16 million new subscribers [...]

LONDON  -- As the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown hits broadcasters' advertising income, many are making cost cuts to stay afloat. But one ad exec says it is crucial they cut from the right areas - because not doing so may mean they will find it difficult to bounce back in the future. Across the industry, we are seeing staff cuts from the likes [...]

The COVID-19 pandemic is bad news for advertising-dependent broadcasters and bad news for brands in certain impacted industries. But, for advertisers whose products go unaffected by lockdown, the current circumstances have conspired to present a cost-effective opportunity. In this video interview from London with Jon Watts for Beet.TV, Matt Hill, the research and planning director of Thinkbox, a UK group championing ad-funded [...]

LOS ANGELES -- With the TV Upfront shelved, and an increasing amount of transactions happening in the scatter market, outcome-based guarantees need to be central to the new scenario, says Jay Prasad, Chief Strategy Officer of LiveRamp TV, in this interview with Beet.TV In his recent article published in AdExchanger, he advises: "To balance portfolios, ensure 15- 20% of budgets are [...]

While advertising around age and demo for certain programming categories has been the legacy of television advertising, the business is moving inexorably to "audience first" with rich data directing decisioning and understanding attribution, says Andrew Ward, president of Ampersand, in this Beet.TV interview. Audience first solutions are not just for addressable TV but across all TV platforms, he says. In this wide [...]

As the sun sets on cookies, many are looking to contextual advertising, the practise of targeting not the audience for content but the content itself, to offer up the best advertising results. In contextual targeting, ad buyers would seek optimal adjacency to various kinds of content. But, to Raja Rajamannar, there is one overriding context that everyone shares in 2020 - a [...]

For Cannes Lions, the notion of replicating the event online, or making it "virtual" is not possible, says Philip Thomas, Chairman of Cannes Lions and president of events Ascential, the London based operator of the Festival, in this interview with Beet.TV He advises other event organizers that the lack of human interaction can't be the same in the digital world, In the [...]

Vin Paolozzi probably expect to be launching a new marketing data engine on the cusp of a global pandemic that has put half the world's consumers in lockdown. But that's what he got. Still, the chief investment officer of Kinesso, the division IPG launched in October to provide data-driven capabilities to clients, thinks the unit has plenty of work to do. Chief [...]

As privacy regulation has dampened some aspects of advanced user targeting and as the deprecation of cookies looms near, marketers are seeking an alternative way to get the best fit. One of the leading contenders - contextual targeting, the practice of seeking out ad inventory adjacent to particular kinds of content, rather than targeting individual users, no matter what content they [...]

In a time of no live sports and heightened sensitivity to brand messaging, many companies have had to completely rethink their marketing strategies. In an interview with Beet.TV,  Donnie Williams, executive vice president and chief digital officer at Horizon Media, explored how the consultative lever of the industry has been busier than ever trying to help brands pivot accordingly. Consulting is [...]

Ad placements on news sites should be made by understanding the value of the publisher,  not always programmatically, by using key word blocking, says Steven Brill, co CEO of NewsGuard, in this interview with Beet.TV. He says that brand advertising are appearing increasingly on "hoax" sites which have been proliferating during the pandemic.    NewsGuard evaluates thousands of sites with its [...]

The relationship between programmers and advertisers has been closer than ever in recent times given the shifting viewing trends that have occurred. In this Beet.TV interview, Sean Cunningham, president and CEO of television trade association VAB, explains how this has led to advertisers finding their target audiences in unexpected ways. According to a study by iSpot.tv, nearly 26% more brands, accounting [...]

Comcast's FreeWheel is releasing a capability that unifies the way it handles decision making for TV commercials bought both directly through traditional media sales channels and via programmatic technology. NBCUniversal, also owned by Comcast, and The Trade Desk, a large demand-side buying platform, have both signed up to use FreeWheel's new unified decisioning. In a statement from NBCUniversal: "We enable marketers to reach key [...]

Welcome to #BeetU – our weekly educational series for advertising and media during the COVID-19 crisis, hosted by Ashley Swartz, CEO of Furious Corp, longtime Beet contributor and the Dean of #BeetU. Using Furious’s comprehensive and interactive dictionary, TV101, as our guide, these sessions will unpack the terminology of advanced TV, serving as an introduction for some and a refresher for others. So, [...]

As the sun sets on cookies and as privacy regulation has dabbed the brakes on some of the more advanced facets of audience targeting, many advertisers are looking for alternatives. Amongst the leading contenders - contextual advertising, the practise of targeting not the audience for content but the content itself. As contextual ad targeting gains prominence in 2020, many people are coming [...]

We all know that news and video publishers are experiencing a big traffic spike during the coronavirus pandemic. But how can they best serve audiences in order to hold on to new users after the lockdowns end? In this video interview with Beet.TV, Nielsen's EVP for media and marketing effectiveness Tina Wilson says traffic is booming - but publishers need to think [...]