If you think it is too soon for so-called “programmatic” advertising buying techniques to jump from the web to mainstream television, consider this – the future president of the United States may already be buying TV ads this way.
That is according to video ad tech firm YuMe. Its chief revenue officer Scot McLernon concedes that “there is a little bit of hype around it”, with only 1% of TV ads bought using automation technology in 2014.
“Focus on the government elections for a little bit,” he tells Beet.TV in this video interview. “These guys are going to local television stations and they’re buying it up. You see it on the local news. They just can’t buy any more GRPs (gross rating points), there’s no more reach.
“That’s where the YuMe comes in to place … you can only get so much of your audience on television; cord cutters are simply not on network or local television. YuMe adds additional GRPs on a local basis. The political guys right now are calling us, versus us calling them, to find out, ‘How do we glean a little more reach?'”
McLernon says, today, “programmatic” buying of linear TV ads is mainly done through Mediaocean at the national US level and through Strata at the local level. His company has partnered with the latter to enable local programmatic buying. Here is the press release on the Strata alliance.
McLernon was interviewed by Beet.TV at the 4As’ (American Association of Advertising Agencies) Transformation 2015 event in Austin, Texas. Our coverage is sponsored by Videology. Please find more coverage from the conference here.
