LONDON – Ashley J. Swartz’s message to media owners is clear: Be agile, flexible, and get your internal act together. “There’s a lot of value and insight intelligence around audience that is untapped within the enterprise of a seller,” Swartz says in an interview with Beet.tv. “I think there’s a lot of unlocked value that we can tap into if we tied it all together.”
Which is precisely why two years ago she founded Furious Corp., of which she is CEO, to offer an advertising enterprise management platform for TV broadcasters and premium publishers called PROPHET.
“Our business has gotten so complex,” Swartz says. “There’s so much technology, new channels and vertical ad stacks, there’s nothing tying it all together to help someone run their business.”
When Swartz is asked for her opinion about census versus panel data for making advertising decisions, the answer is yes and yes. Meaning, media sellers have to be agile and flexible.
“The reality is that everybody’s looking for an easy answer, and there isn’t any easy answer,” Swartz says of a common currency. “The idea that you need to be able to sell in multiple currencies and equalize.”
This is because while a TV buyer probably will want to buy against a traditional Nielsen guarantee, a digital buyer who might be “foraying into television” will most likely desire a buy based on impressions, according to Swartz.
“So we need to be able to do the math with ease and make informed business decisions based on data, regardless of what the currency is,” says Swartz.
She goes on to discuss her efforts to help operators in Europe develop a road map and strategy for building out a sales house, of which there are few and mostly large. Operators are in a “unique space” because they don’t have two minutes of inventory to sell like their U.S. counterparts, while they have or ultimately will have set-top box data with which to sell inventory.
“So the question is, do they enable broadcaster partners to sell their inventory using the addressable data, or do they aggregate and then build a sales house and sell it? There’s a lot of business questions that have to be asked,” says Swartz.
She is heartened by the news that addressable ad platforms provider INVIDI has been acquired by AT&T, DISH Network and WPP.
“I’m so happy for the Invidi team because they have been committed to our industry and its success and they’ve been in the boat rowing for a long time,” says Swartz. “It makes my heart smile and as a founder it encourages me. That’s an awesome sign that we are moving forward.”
We spoke with Swartz at the Future of TV Advertising Forum in London. Beet.TV’s coverage is presented by the 605. For other videos from the series, please visit this page.
