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 interview with Beet.TV, Jamie Power, the chief [...]

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico—Craig Berkley sums up LiveRamp’s role in reducing friction in television and video advertising targeting in one word: identity. “It’s clear that we all have various pain points that we can address or work on. Our mission and role in this whole ecosystem is to provide automated deterministic identity at scale,” says the Head of Revenue, TV. LiveRamp [...]

LONDON – A year ago, NBCUniversal brought together a cross section of advertising and media executives in New York to confront industry “inertia.” Its own remedies represent a “very strategic cadence” that includes its growing use of contextual ad offerings, says Linda Yaccarino. Core pillars of that cadence are measurement, commercial innovation and technology, The Chairman of Advertising & Partnerships says [...]

LONDON -- Just a few short years ago, the worlds of media had become islands. Online, supremely trackable, was selling ads in a vacuum. TV, disconnected, looked isolated by comparison. Now, digital TV and identity resolution technologies are building a bridge, however. In its latest report entitled Assigning TV Credit: A Practical Guide to Attribution, FreeWheel Council for Premium Video (FWC), the education [...]

LONDON -- It is now more than a year since GroupM launched Finecast, a new subsidiary to bring together various strands of addressable TV advertising. What comes next? Maybe getting it in to the hands of media agencies, says the man who runs the product. "We're looking to bring that out into markets, so the agencies can use that themselves," says Finecast head [...]

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico—In the complex and confusing world of advanced television and more precise audience targeting, everything starts with a foundation constructed of currency data, according to Nielsen’s Dave Hohman. Atop that foundation can sit a variety of “metrics to monetize,” he explains in this interview at the recent Beet Retreat 2018. The currency foundation, according to Hohman, is Nielsen [...]

LONDON -- It's not so long ago that marketers were getting excited about how their jobs could be fuelled by data, that data was becoming "the new oil" powering their industry. Fast-forward to 2018 and it seems the pendulum is swinging a little bit away from the new dataism. GroupM director of audiences research Simon Thomas, in this video interview with Beet.TV, says [...]

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico—If reach is “God’s gift to advertising,” to paraphrase the late media research guru Erwin Ephron, it’s a gift that doesn’t keep on giving, according to Howard Shimmel. “We downplay the importance of being able to plan to optimize reach,” says Shimmel, formerly of Turner Broadcasting. Now the President of consultancy Janus Strategies and Insights, which is named [...]

SAN JUAN -- It recently became the first vendor to gain accreditation from the Media Ratings Council (MRC) for video ad measurement in a connected TV environment. But what if the future of connected TV was one with fewer advertisements? In this video interview with Beet.TV, video ad-tech firm Innovid says it is working with publishers to explore exactly what the best [...]

LONDON -- It owns several of the leading pay-TV platforms in Europe - but Liberty Global says enabling addressable, targeted TV ad opportunities for channels may involve a mix of third-party partnerships. "It's (about) picking the right model for the right market," says Liberty Global MD, advanced ads and data, John Paul in this video interview with Beet.TV. Belgium: Liberty Global’s Belgian operator Telenet [...]

LONDON -- Eight months after NBCUniversal rolled out its new measurement currency for quantifying time-shifted and on-demand viewing on any platform, one exec thinks the deployment is a game-changer. NBCU's aim with CFlight was to give advertisers a sense of how their marketing campaigns are being seen, regardless of time or location. In this video interview with Beet.TV, Simulmedia CEO Dave Morgan, whose company helps [...]

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico—Having acquired the assets of Videology last summer, Amobee picked up solutions for the sell-side and, as a result, stands to be “the most broad and deep omni-channel platform,” says GM of Business Development, Tony Yi. Singtel’s Amobee now seeks to simplify the delivery of advertising across all channels and screens—including video, display, mobile, and social. Its platform [...]

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico—There’s lots of industry talk about data being the “connective tissue” that can unify advertising buys across various channels. But while many hurdles currently prevent brands and agencies from normalizing the execution of buys across linear and advanced television, data is already playing a key role, according to dataxu CEO Mike Baker. “While you can’t do all that [...]

LONDON -- If ads and subscription payments sit on two sides of the media see-saw, the trick is in getting the balance right. Whilst many broadcasters are now keen to copy Netflix's subscription model, what could be the impact on ad sales? "There's maybe less premium content available for the ad sales team to monetize," says Comcast international GM, advanced advertising, Thomas [...]

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico—The advanced television train has left the station. And while the addressable TV car lacks certain systemic, logistical and executional amenities, testing addressable makes sense for at least half of all advertisers, says Mike Bologna, President, one2one media, Cadent. “What I think that we should focus on more is the value proposition of addressability. If you plan your [...]

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico—As the industry learns to transact in new and hopefully more uniform ways, Disney is building targeting segments that will ultimately represent the totality of its audiences. It’s a process over which Disney has far more control than, say, reconciling disparities in current digital measurement options. To make audience targeting more mainstream and move away from age and [...]

LONDON -- The new owner of Ooyala's adtech unit has promised to "reinvest" in the company as it bids to embrace a continuing digital advertising opportunity. INVIVI, which facilitates addressable advertising systems for global TV platforms, is acquiring what it calls "the advertising technology division (formerly Videoplaza) of Ooyala". That amounts to Pulse, a software-as-a-service ad platform, based in Stockholm, that is [...]

LONDON -- UK cable operator Virgin Media is replicating its evolving addressable ad strategy in Ireland, after acquiring a TV channel operator. Like in the UK, what is now branded "Virgin Media" is the product of a roll-up of several historical roll-ups of regional cable operators, offering telco and TV service, and is now owned by John Malone's Liberty Global. Three years [...]

LONDON -- For the UK's main cable TV operator, targeted advertising was a long time coming. Although the cable distribution method, coupled with its use of a connected TiVo set-top box, seemed to offer distinct advantages, it was not until relatively recently that Virgin Media began offering addressable ad targeting capabilities. For that, it can partly thank Cadent. On top of announcing, [...]

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico - Puerto Rico's most celebrated chef, James Beard Award honoree Jose Enrique,  cooked for the closing gala dinner and fundraiser at the Beet Retreat last Thursday evening at the 400-year-old Spanish fort, Castillo San Cristobal. The chef, who owns his namesake restaurants in San Juan and at the St. Regis resort in Rio Grande, was lauded by [...]