People who are closest to the day-to-day nexus of data and technology are usually the first to discern meaningful turning points. For Evan Hanlon, that insight emerges as he considers years of industry talk, hopes and dreams. “I feel like we’re turning the corner beyond the sort of aspirational and the dream and all the good stuff and we’re starting [...]

The television industry is increasingly operating more as a platform than as individual providers, but there’s still work to be done to reinforce TV’s incredible power in an often changing and competitive media ecosystem. What’s not lacking is a global, common vision on the future of TV. “What’s very clear to me is there is an alignment across the globe in terms [...]

SAN JUAN, PR – Last September, Hurricane Maria devastated Puerto Rico. As cleanup and reconstruction continue, members of The Boys & Girls Clubs of Puerto Rico are still actively helping their communities, but they face challenges when it comes to resources. “They have the power to change our society. We only have to fight for them, for their voices,” says [...]

Its share price is still rebuilding after being battered by Facebook's decision to cut ties in March, but Acxiom is trying to see profound ad industry challenges as opportunities. Acxiom is a data warehouse firm that sells consumer profiles to the world's largest companies, available to advertisers and ad-tech platforms for advanced customer targeting. In one big challenge, Facebook said it would shut [...]

As more brands buying ads programmatically have found their ads appearing against unappealing and unintended content, the problem has given rise to yet more technology solutions. Ad measurement firms like Moat, Integral Ad Science and DoubleVerify now offer products rating the quality of the environments in which brands' ads are served. For Wayne Gatinella, CEO of DoubleVerify, which started a decade ago, [...]

The last year has seen a perfect storm hit the marketing industry - brand safety concerns, agency strife, GDPR and Facebook's data scandal. In response, the industry is seeing a big movement of money, from platforms now deemed undesirable, to alternative channels brands find more appealing. So says Geoff Ramsey, chairman of marketing analysis company eMarketer. In this video interview with Beet.TV, Ramsey [...]

While the role of media agencies in telling advertiser’ stories continues to evolve, storytelling alone is not enough to move the needle. OMD uses both homemade and acquired technology and platform partners “to actually build stories, not just tell stories,” says Chief Digital & Innovation Officer Doug Rozen. “The creative agencies are fantastic at telling stories. But stories just being told [...]

There can barely have been a moment in time so filled with anxiety over digital advertising techniques as 2018. In the last few years since the advent of "programmatic", many ad buyers have become used to using customer data from a variety of sources to piece together profiles that can target audiences through networks, wherever they may be. But two mega-trends are [...]

ESPN is heading to this year’s Cannes Lions as part of Walt Disney Co.’s “one-stop shop” platform, as the sports giant begins to experiment with household-addressable television and retargeting OTT viewers across its digital footprint. “Disney certainly has a lot to say at Cannes this year,” ESPN’s Vikram Somaya, SVP, Global Data Officer & Ad Platforms, says in this interview [...]

Over the last few weeks, many consumers have been receiving a deluge of emails from data handlers, controllers and processors seeking to re-obtain consent for communication under Europe's new GDPR. But could the complexity of the issue force some of the operators to simple stop doing business with Europeans altogether? That is what one analyst thinks. "We're going see more companies pulling [...]

What's old is new again - but, in advertising, the old practices have also received a pretty significant upgrade. So says Tim Castree, global CEO of the Wavemaker agency formed from the merger of Group M's MEC and Maxus. In this video interview with Beet.TV, Castree says traditional TV viewing is declining - but, by means of consolation, many viewers are migrating [...]

These days, the term “premium” typically accompanies the word “video.” But premium must also apply to viewer engagement with ads and the results that should accrue to advertisers, according to Pooja Midha. The new President of true[X] will share the company’s insights on how viewer interaction will transform the video ad business in a presentation at Beet Retreat in the [...]

It took streaming video options and ad-free platforms to tip the scale, but the advertising industry has finally caught on to the importance of the viewer experience. “The big picture is that programmers are thinking today more about the user experience than they ever have before,” says OMD’s Ben Winkler, who will join a host of advertising and media executives [...]

In an age where datasets through warehouses have become commoditised, what can be a competitive differentiator? For Ari Weiss, CCO, North America, DDB, the difference is all in the brain. Specifically, the Cortex. That's the name for the collaborative unit inside DDB's We Are Unlimited, the agency dedicated to serving McDonald's. Cortex, which launched two years ago, has been described as "a [...]

The main reason why consulting firms—some of which started in the mundane but essential accounting space—have moved into entertainment and media is that consumers have taken charge. And many marketers have failed to keep up. “Frankly, the reason why I think consulting is becoming so relevant at this particular moment is this is an industry undergoing tremendous change,” says Janet Balis, [...]

As Tim Castree prepares for his role as Jury President of the Media Lions for the upcoming Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, he hopes to see entries that reflect how brands have effectively married creativity and context. His first-time judging gig comes after the Cannes Lions reached a tipping point in 2017 as some agencies pushed back on the cost [...]

With broadcasters like Turner experimenting with shorter ad loads in order to improve premium video ad experiences, what is the commercial break anymore - and what is the optimum length of an ad? Suddenly, all bets are off - and answers to those questions are becoming necessary. That's why the FreeWheel Council for Premium Video, the ad-tech company's advocacy group comprising 45 [...]

If only broadcast owners really knew what ads viewers were watching, maybe then they could prove the value of their advertising to brands. But that prospect is no longer just a possibility, it is a reality, and NBCUniversal just became one of the latest to undertake the practice. It inked a deal with iSpot.tv, a real-time analytics company, has a panel of eight [...]

When you just took $7.5mn from one of the world's leading pay-TV operators, you can afford to be bullish. In this video interview with Beet.TV, a founder whose company helps deliver one of the new-wave methods of measuring TV audiences says one of those in the crop of techniques is "over-hyped". Samba TV CEO Ashin Navin was referring to audio-based automated content [...]

Amazon is a  "monopoly."   But whether it, and the other four U.S. tech giants (Facebook, Google, Microsoft and Apple) and the two Chinese (Alibaba and Tencent), will continue to grow depends on government regulation, says Sir Martin Sorrell, Founder of WPP. While not predicting imminent government intervention, he notes that these companies are increasingly in the spotlight with issues around privacy, [...]