Discovery Communications’ Discovery Engage audience targeting offering has been well received from a mix of product and service categories going into the 2017 TV Upfront. And the company is always open to new ways to standardize audience targeting beyond traditional age/sex demographic targets, says Ben Price, President of National Ad Sales.
Having pushed its content out across a variety of platforms, when it comes to linear television, “What’s so important now is for us to be able to target it and also be able to measure it accurately,” Price says in this interview with Beet.TV.
To support its Discovery Engage audience guarantees, Discovery uses such data sources as GfK MRI, Experian, Nielsen and Polk. Discovery Engage is part of the One Discovery marketing platform.
“We’ve gone across several categories with it and so far the response has been overwhelming,” says Price, citing automotive, consumer packaged-goods, finance, quick-serve restaurants and travel. “We expect that in this upfront we’ll probably do more categories.”
Asked for his reaction to the OpenAP audience-targeting partnership consisting thus far of Fox, Turner and Viacom, Price emphasizes the need for commonality.
“We’re always open to finding standards that will run across a variety of media companies,” he says. “That’s the reason you have standards. So we’re very open to it and it’s something that I think will be much easier and more effective for clients and agencies to transact on.”
This segment is part of a series leading up to the 2017 TV Upfront. It is presented by FreeWheel. To find more videos from the series, please visit this page.
