Supply and demand for television inventory is still a big part of conversations during the TV Upfront season, but it’s now accompanied by talk of OTT and VOD opportunities along with new transaction models like non age/sex audience targeting.
When media agency Assembly talks with its clients, “These are all areas we feel are important as part of the Upfront conversation and the rest of the year,” says EVP and Investment Director Francois Lee.
Two years ago, a conversation with a TV network about a client like Expedia would involve how to target frequent travelers but end up with the network agreeing to guarantee delivery on adults 25-54. “For us, that’s essentially not saying much because we can do the same thing, to be honest,” Lee says in this interview with Beet.TV.
“But now the conversation is the network saying ‘all right we will guarantee you on that frequent traveler,’” he adds. “So that is changing the transaction model. That’s something we’re excited about.”
Lee needs to see two specific components to make audience targeting viable: how close to business outcomes sellers can guarantee delivery, and whether the seller can generate incremental value to what Assembly is getting.
“Keep in mind that as the networks get more sophisticated, so do agencies,” he says. “We have a pretty good idea of how media is performing for us.”
Given the long-term erosion of linear TV ratings, the issue of where to shift money leads to a multitude of options, including authenticated apps, paid apps, standalone apps and virtual MVPD’s like YouTube TV. It’s important to assess a client’s existing OTT exposure “because even when you buy Hulu, 70 percent of your impressions is in connected TV environments,” Lee says.
Asked to rate cross-screen audience measurement on a scale of one to 10, he says perhaps four or five.
“Seeing some of the test results from what Nielsen is doing, especially around digital content ratings, we’re not seeing enough consistency to make it scalable yet,” says Lee. “But we’re encouraged that Nielsen is approaching that direction and hopefully we’ll see further results in coming months.”
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.
