Media companies working together on advanced television audience targeting is “a nice first step.” What needs to happen faster is measurement of content on different devices—not of the devices themselves, says Lyle Schwartz.
The President of Investment for GroupM North America acknowledges that advertisers know more about TV households than ever before. “The plethora of data out there is tremendous,” Schwartz says.
The limiting factor to addressable TV advertising, he explains in this interview with Beet.TV, is not how many houses but “the amount of available inventory that we can use to reach those people. But I do believe that as the industry grows, more and more money will follow that.”
Targeted TV is different in that there are various ways to reach particular audiences and apply various data “to really hone in and value the inventory based on what your marketing clients are trying to achieve.”
Asked for his thoughts on the audience targeting consortium OpenAP, which Fox, Turner and Viacom began to roll out this month, Schwartz says the good thing is “is that the media companies are working together, which is something that’s positive. But I need to have more visibility on my side and be able to do stuff behind the curtains, you might say.”
Using household-level data from Rentrak is one tactic for advanced targeting in which price negotiation is still done based on demographics. Schwartz cites a “value differential” he can return to clients based on being able buy more of the impressions his clients actually want.
“I may have 10,000 customers but 3,000 drive 40 percent of my business, and I can now look into things like that,” he says.
A veteran of innumerable Upfront negotiating seasons, Schwartz says this year’s was better for sellers than some people had anticipated. “I think coming out of the marketplace, demand was a little bit higher than most pundits on Wall Street thought.”
A major challenge isn’t people shunning TV but not getting good measurement of how and where they are doing so. “We’re measuring too many times the device and not the content,” Schwartz says. “We have to move to the content and the ads that are in the content.”
This video is part of a series of Beet.TV’s coverage of the Advanced Advertising conference held during NYC TV Week. Beet.TV’s coverage is presented by 4C Insights. Please find additional videos on this page.
