VIEQUES, PR – Seth Walters is “insanely passionate” about commerce-enabled interactivity. Which makes him a logical evangelist for the power of connected television targeting and measurement. As Senior Partner for Interactive & Connected TV at Modi Media, the advanced TV unit of GroupM, it’s Walter’s job to help GroupM’s clients understand the opportunities for messaging, targeting and measurement.
His focus is on emerging platforms like Apple TV, Roku and Amazon Fire TV Stick. “Our North Star is truly addressing audiences at a household level,” Walters explains in this interview at this year’s Beet.TV Executive Retreat titled Video Everywhere! The Transformation of Media & Advertising.
One of the benefits of connected TV and a “profile-type environment” is being able to take targeting down a step further and pinpoint specific household members, according to Walters. “Increasingly, we’re trying to work with our partners to help enable this for clients,” he says.
Modi approaches video investments for its clients at a portfolio level, paying particular attention to decision creative iterations for targeted households. For example, a household whose known annual income is $250,000 might see an ad for the American Express Platinum Card.
“We’re also able to look at the outcome and understand if that exposure is driving traffic to the website and conversions, to really move that altogether to create more value,” Walters says.
His passion for commerce-enabled interactivity derives from being able to pre-qualify an audience and target them based on purchase behavior. Or to provide people with the ability to purchase something immediately or “at the very least add to a cart to move them down the funnel.”
He cites Amazon as a major player in using first-party and purchase behavior to understand and motivate its users. “I’m excited when it goes beyond just enabling through a tile on Amazon Fire TV to something we can actually build throughout our entire video investment on their platform and off,” says Walters.
This video is part of a series produced at the Beet.TV Executive Retreat in Vieques. The event and series is presented by Videology and 605. For more videos from the series, please visit this page.
