Supply and demand for television inventory is still a big part of conversations during the TV Upfront season, but it’s now accompanied by talk of OTT and VOD opportunities along with new transaction models like non age/sex audience targeting. When media agency Assembly talks with its clients, “These are all areas we feel are important as part of the Upfront conversation [...]

Having set aside $1 billion in inventory for non-Nielsen audience guarantees during this year's TV Upfront, NBCUniversal has seen demand for its audience targeting products double year over year. Although it's a big commitment, market dynamics are in the company's favor. “The reason we’re continuing to be confident about increases in demand is because we’re seeing it come from a broad swath [...]

Shortly before the 2017 TV Upfront began, Disney unified the way it sells ABC, Freeform and its Disney entertainment cable networks to advertisers. If only the advertising/media industry could coalesce around standardized cross-platform audience measurement. Like other media executives whose content is distributed on an ever-increasing number of platforms, Debra O’Connell “would like to see it move faster. We continue to [...]

We are right in the middle of the upfronts, the spring season in which TV networks and publishers tout their upcoming content roster to secure upfront committed advertiser spend. But what do brands get out of the upfronts? One woman who guides advertisers through their upfront buying strategy says there are both pros and cons involved in their approach. "There is a myriad [...]

After reducing the ad load in some of its programming on truTV and TNT, Turner has seen a corresponding ratings lift while seeking to bring more native ads to television as a complement to the ad reduction. And in this interview with Beet.TV during the 2017 TV Upfront, Ad Sales President Donna Speciale says she expects more media companies will [...]

There might not be anything revolutionary per se about the 2017 TV Upfront, but that’s not to suggest there aren’t a variety of evolutionary forces reshaping the competitive landscape. They range from competitive pressure to build out dynamic ad insertion capabilities to offering more precise audience targeting and ensuring brand-safe digital ad environments. These are some of the trends that Tim [...]

Moves by big US TV networks to guarantee TV ads targeted at specific audiences using data beyond mere demographics have been welcomed by a major media agency. Several of the big US TV networks have declared they will make moves to let advertising buyers use granular and first-party viewer data, over and above traditional Nielsen data, to target ads on linear TV to guaranteed audiences. The [...]

Only one company spent more on US TV ads during the winter holidays, according to iSpot.TV - but Target is still looking for the box in the corner of the living room to prove its worth. One of the retail giant's  top execs says TV is still performing for the chain - but that doesn't mean times are not changing. "We continue to see a reasonably [...]

If premium video providers need a promotional tagline to summarize their current world, it could well be “Coming to you live on your living room television.” That’s because two of the biggest takeaways from the FreeWheel Video Monetization Report (VMR): Q4 2016 are a big uptick in live and simulcast viewing and a migration of viewing from computers and devices to [...]

Buying television based on audiences as opposed to programming is a welcome evolution to media veteran Wenda Harris Millard. And while the term “quality programming” is in the eye of the beholder, she thinks marketers have every right to know exactly where their ads are running. “I’ve been in the business for a long time. I never thought that demographics made [...]

LOS ANGELES – In an age of advertising as storytelling, it starts with deciding what stories to tell that are worthy of an audience’s time. The next part is what gets tricky, namely figuring out the best places and ways to tell those stories. As much as some brands might wish to create a particular message once and then chop it [...]

LOS ANGELES -- Trying to target an individual consumer when people's breadcrumb trails are scattered across a plethora of devices feels like a headache for many marketers today - but those data trails can be united to piece people back together. Started seven years ago, Tapad was one of the first of what is now a rash of vendors claiming to do just [...]

Given supply and demand dynamics amid shrinking television ratings, it still makes sense for brands with big TV budgets to participate in the annual Upfront negotiating ritual. Unlike last year, the President of National Video Investment for OMD USA doesn’t foresee significant price inflation this time around. “By and large, if you have a sizable amount of advertising dollars to spend in national [...]

When people think of advertising analytics vendors that offer an insight in to the viewability of ad inventory, Moat is often top of most minds. Now it is also part of one of the biggest IT companies on the planet. New York-based Moat, founded seven years ago, has signed an agreement to be acquired by Oracle in what will be one of the [...]

LOS ANGELES – People are unpredictable and messy, so understanding what drives their purchase decisions is truly a work in progress despite oceans of data. Then there are machines like Alexa and Siri, who are slowly nudging humans from the decisioning process. But these realities are what excite Stephanie Stopulos, the SVP of Advanced Analytics & Insights at Starcom USA. And [...]

VIEQUES, PR – The transformative power of data is about much more than just being able to target audiences with more precision and relevance. Data also has the power to cure many digital ecosystem ills. “Data is paramount to every strategy we put together with our clients, with our partners. It’s sort of the universal language that we have not just [...]

LOS ANGELES – Being big for the sake of buying clout used to differentiate media agencies. Now creative agencies are finding ways of trimming down to keep pace with ever-speedier, lower-paying client demands. For Steve Erich, “not your typical agency model” means contracting for the best creative talent for the nascent Erich & Kallman shop based in San Francisco. “Agencies on [...]

LOS ANGELES – If you could hold a mirror to the current world of content marketing it would largely reflect what’s been happening for a long time in sports and entertainment sponsorships. One of the elemental rules is that just borrowing enthusiast audiences doesn’t cut it unless you actually connect with them. “It’s not about writing a check and being part [...]

VIEQUES, PR -- Around the world, television sets are getting connected to the internet - and that is creating a huge new opportunity for a new breed of gatekeeper. But the new broadcast contenders should not just assume they will become all powerful. One executive brokering the future of connected TV advertising thinks quality of experience must be the watchword. "Television is at [...]

VIEQUES, PR – There’s no shortage of data to apply to linear television audience targeting and, likewise, a variety of ways to attribute campaign results. In the middle lies the customer experience, which is also data-fueled and growing more sophisticated by the day. These and other insights emerged from a discussion about enhancing the value of traditional TV at the 2017 [...]