CANNES – So many video ad units and platforms, so many ways to attribute value to those units. “Trying to figure out the value of a video ad unit depending on where it runs seems to be one of our challenges as an industry,” says Shenan Reed, MEC’s Chief Digital Officer for North America.
And it’s probably not going to get much easier going forward, Reed explains in this interview with Beet.TV at the Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity.
“I think we’re going to learn some things over the course of the next year that are really surprising,” says Reed. “We know that consumer attention us dropping every time we turn around. We have less attention span than a goldfish. We’re not getting any better.”
The implications are profound because “as we start to look at ad formats, we’re going to have the expectation that those ad formats need to be shorter and faster to grab attention.”
The need for speed will ultimately rest on the shoulders of creative because they won’t be thinking of “that anthem 30- or 60-second unit that they used to build but how do I build something that’s fast, gets to the point and engages instantly.”
On the subject of data and walled gardens, Reed is asked whether her agency gets everything it needs from Facebook. “Does anyone get the information they need from all of the walled garden partners?” she says with a laugh. “No. Certainly not.”
On a positive note, she believes the caretakers of the gardens “have actively taken an approach to say that they are willing to try to find a solution with all of our clients. It’s going to take time.”
Nonetheless, the clock is ticking. Reed thinks that in the next year or so Facebook and its ilk might have to get more magnanimous and “figure out how to give data back to the advertisers in order to be able to truly address ROI, or it will significantly affect their investment levels.”
In the meantime, new players are emerging all the time that could become the next Amazon, Facebook or Snapchat. “Let’s not forget that AOL was the behemoth many years ago, and now they’re starting that resurgence again with Oath,” Reed observes.
This video is from The New TV Ecosystem Leadership Forum at Cannes Lions 2017, presented by FreeWheel. For more from the series, please visit this page.
