MIAMI — In some ways, it was the usurping of the old guard by the new school. Earlier this year, TV data company Rovi acquired set-top box outfit TiVo in a deal valued at $1.1bn.
Then the combined entity took on the TiVo name, creating a corporation that own box the boxes and the data.
So you’ll forgive Joan FitzGerald for feeling like a kid in a candy store. Previously with Rovi, she is now VPof Product Management & Business Development for TiVo overall. And the long-time TV and data executive is witnessing a big change.
“One of the main shifts is the shift from what I’ll call media research to data science,” she tells Beet.TV in this video interview. “The investment in big data processing systems, that has happened both at the agency level and the media brands.
“Most notably, NBCUniversal, Turner, Viacom have all made huge investments in … enabling those systems to generate more value for the advertisers. On the advertising agency side, you see the same investments – they’re investing in big data and new people to make those operational systems work for them.”
This shift is just the latest in line with a common trend – the boosting of traditional human analytical skills with computer science, allowing customers to do more of what they did before, better and better.
And that’s something the new-look Rovi-TiVo is going to do partly after the acquisition which involved the TiVo Research and Analytics (TRA) unit.
“We’re able to combine the assets that TRA built over a number of years with our enterprise software system,” FitzGerald adds. “For example, they were really the first to market with audience targeting.
“Your whole buying and selling process is just more closely aligned with the marketer’s goals. So we’re really at the tip of the iceberg in terms of helping marketers understand targets in the context of their media spend.”
This interview was conducted at Beet Retreat 2016: The Transformation of Television Advertising, an executive retreat presented by Videology with AT&T AdWorks and the 605. Please find more videos from the event here.
This interview was conducted by Verte Group founder and CEO Tim Hanlon
