Whie Digital and TV ads are bought and sold differently, strides are being made to bring the two mediums closer together, says Forrester analyst Michael Glantz in this interview with Beet.TV
Citing efforts like NBC's partnership with Twitter and Facebook for the Olympics as well as comScore's push towards viewable impressions, Glantz sees efforts materializing for effective cross-platform buying and measurement.
But, he notes most TV buyers "don't understand" digital video and there a number of barriers.
TV buying still operates on a reach and scale basis, while online buying is still more focused on optimizing campaigns, he says in this video interview. "In digital you can target to a 30-year-old in a certain household income who has gone to a quick-serve restaurant in the last two weeks," he says to Beet.TV. But that's not the level of granularity that TV buyers are used to, which contributes to the siloed effect of the mediums, he says. TV buyers still spend the bulk of the ad money during the upfront.
Changes are afoot though to buy ads more holistically, such as via the aforementioned partnerships, or in the incorporation of GRPs into online video campaigns from companies such as Tremor Video. "Nielsen is the currency of TV and comScore is for online. What will be the currency of cross-platform?" Glantz says.
Daisy Whitney
