CTV Ad Strategists and Adtech Pros Talk Making Streaming Ads Perform at Streaming Media Connect 2024
On Tuesday, August 20, 2024, at Streaming Media Connect, Alan Wolk, Co-Founder/Lead Analyst, TVREV, and one of the industry's most influential thought leaders, moderated a panel that confronted the current challenges (or, some would say, failures) to reliably deliver the right ads to viewers and measurable results to brands and discussed innovative technologies and strategies to make streaming ads perform. Panelists included Christina Chung, VP Business Operations, Digital and Streaming Media, Estrella MediaCo, Julie Triolo, SVP of Research & Marketing, Vevo, Erin Firneno, SVP, Business Intelligence, Advertiser Perceptions, and C.J. Leonard of Mad Leo Consulting.
Differentiating between “persons versus households”
Wolk began the session by asking C.J. Leonard, “What metrics are people not getting? What are some of the issues you're seeing people complain about?”
“One of the things with streaming measurement is we want to get down to the user or the household, and we want to know that that person's holding that device, and we're just not there yet.” She emphasised that the current technology needs to catch up to accurately measure usage in a way that meets the need for the sophisticated data tracking that advertisers now require to get the clearest picture of who is watching what, when, and on which devices. However, she said that she is seeing progress. “I was doing some work with AWS over the last few months in different areas where the processing power of the log-level data and so forth would allow you to do a lot of this,” she said. “It's getting there, and it's getting to the price point that publishers can engage with advertisers and actually have a coherent conversation.”
The importance of “measuring attention” to meet customer expectations
Wolk asked Julie Triolo of Vevo, “As a publisher, what are some of the issues that you are seeing?”
“There's been a seismic shift in the industry in terms of how we keep up with consumer expectations on these platforms,” Triolo said. “And I think publishers, platforms, and programmers have been chasing after that customer journey. And so when we think about the ways in which we can create better experiences in these environments, both for advertisers and our fans, we want to think about what is really engaging them.” She mentioned that Vevo did a test case in the UK with TVision, which closely monitored the attention of viewers to what they were watching onscreen. “The study really showed that in even a co-viewing environment, each individual had eyes on-screen during the content, during the ad, and then back to content,” she said. “So it even shows that this sort of premium environment delivers on ad receptivity as well.”
Why “walled gardens” inhibit effective data measurement and sharing
Christina Chung of Estrella Media emphasised the need for more standardised definitions of metrics and, above all, more openness to sharing data. “I think that there is a huge opportunity right now where we need to work together, not in disparate pieces,” she said. “We need to make sure we share information and data across many different systems. Right now, a lot of technology is behind walled gardens. And so I think that if we were to open up these walled gardens, it would allow for a lot more of this data and the experts in each of the respective fields to really take a play at what is important, what are these outcomes, and how do we make sure we provide them to our end user.”
However, Erin Firneno of Advertiser Perceptions was not optimistic about the breaking down of these garden walls any time soon. “The reasons why publishers guard that data is because it's beneficial to them,” she said. “They can offer their own measurement to advertisers so that advertisers get some sense of the effectiveness of campaigns. There is no real incentive for walled gardens to share their data in the industry to offer holistic campaign measurement until advertisers keep pushing and advocating for change. [But] I don't see a time in the near future where walled gardens are opening up their data to everyone for visibility.”
Contextual targeting and the challenges of data privacy
Wolk said that contextual targeting is currently a very hot topic in advertising due its effectiveness with placing ads that match directly with programming content, though with the massive amount of personal data required to make contextual targeting effective, privacy issues have become a concern. He asked Chung to discuss some of the issues with privacy in contextual targeting and how those issues could be addressed.
“I think it's something that we are very much aware of and part of the reason why we haven't fully gone full force into things like contextual,” Chung said. “There are so many regulations right now. At a Google symposium specifically for privacy, they said the government may not accept [data] from contextual signals. So I think from an operation standpoint, we need to be careful of what's actually going to happen with regulation and privacy.”
Streaming bundles and their impact on advertising effectiveness
Wolk asked the panel about their thoughts on streaming bundles and their impact on advertising effectiveness.
Erin Firneno of Advertiser Perceptions said, “We just released our CTV landscape report where we asked streaming advertisers what solutions are particularly important to them when choosing a provider, and the ability to buy across streaming providers across linear and streaming through one provider was at the top of the list.” She said that bundling is very appealing to advertisers. “I think in that case, if you're buying from one provider, the measurement capabilities are easier because you're typically dealing with a walled garden that can give you a view of the performance of your campaign across all of their properties.”
How security mechanisms can ensure content reaches the intended audience
During the session’s closing Q&A, Alan Wolk read an audience member's question asking if any publishers have security mechanisms in place to ensure the content they send arrives at a target audience as intended.
Chung of Estrella Media said, “We have certain content for a specific distribution platform. So, we don't necessarily have content specific to a certain individual, but we do have it on a platform-by-platform basis. As an example, we have a great opportunity with Curiosity Stream, and they are part of our Samsung TV Plus partnership. And that's an example of ensuring we have different content on different distribution partners.”
Triolo of Vevo said, “All of our videos are tagged with metadata, and therefore, if there are certain videos that you want to deprecate, then that is fine. If there are certain target audiences you want to go after, we have targeting capabilities.”
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