Having made major advertising commitments to YouTube before last year’s Upfront television negotiating season, IPG’s Magna has a new partnership with Roku that gives its clients advanced audience targeting capabilities and “one-stop shopping” for premium inventory.
In an interview with Beet.TV, Amanda Medeiros Kigel, Magna’s VP of Partner Innovation, says the exclusive arrangement provides advanced targeting “that we really don’t have access to with other partners” in the over-the-top TV space.
OTT is an environment that some clients have hesitated stepping into because of concerns about audience targeting and measurement, according to Kigel. Working with Roku helps to overcome these hurdles.
“Because they’re able to authenticate their users, we can pair that with our proprietary data stacks and go into the space to target on a more sophisticated level,” says Kigel.
OTT targeting thus far has been confined to common audience behaviors or the types of content people consume, “Which really isn’t as telling as some of the signals we get in the digital space,” Kigel says. “So working with Roku is a step in that direction.”
While Magna has worked with individual TV companies in the OTT space, partnering with Roku provides a way “to aggregate a lot of that premium inventory so that we can access through them directly,” she adds.
She believes that OTT viewing is beyond the initial stage of evolution. “Recently the data started to catch up to tell us that people are actually there,” says Kigel, alluding to new measurement metrics from Nielsen. “It’s not as nascent as people think. I would say it’s mainstream now.”
The next step for advertisers will be the ability to see OTT TV consumption coupled with linear TV. “And then we’ll really start to see where there’s duplication and how much OTT’s bringing to the plate that we’re not getting in other channels,” Kigel says.
In contrast to channels like desktop and mobile, OTT closely resembles linear television viewing in that “You’re still in your living room, you still have a big screen, you’re still co-viewing with your family and friends,” says Kigel.
“The Ad is experience is very similar. You’re still watching it in a pod in the middle of your content, in addition to some other opportunities with first impression units.”
