Bringing linear television into the cross-channel, people-centric marketing world requires not only the mining of a plethora of consumer data but an entirely different mindset when it comes to the role of TV in the media mix.
This is one reason why former New York Times digital veteran Michael Zimbalist believes that the way TV is still transacted for advertisers “has kind of remained stuck in aspic.”
Zimbalist is one of the latest digital talents to bring his expertise to the TV world, having recently assumed the position of Chief Marketing Officer at Simulmedia, one of the leading practitioners of matching TV viewing to advertisers’ business outcomes. In addition to having served as SVP of Advertising Products and Research & Development for the Times’ parent company, Zimbalist’s background includes stints at Disney Imagineer and the Online Publishers Association, where he was co-founder and president.
“As the digital world has developed all kinds of new ways of measuring audiences, measuring outcomes, making media accountable, I think the time is now ripe for traditional to come into that world,” Zimbalist says as Simulmedia prepares to conduct its third annual PeopleFront event in Manhattan.
Zimbalist cites the predictive abilities of data to indicate where audiences might be and being able to close the loop of TV viewing and actions taken after seeing specific commercials as two game-changing uses of big data.
“All of these things are very nascent right now, but they’re moving very quickly,” he says.
We interviewed him in New York for the Simulmedia PeopleFront conference where he was a speaker. Please find more video interviews from the PeopleFront event right here. Simulmedia sponsored this series.
