As an advertising medium, TV has traditionally been all about attaining the biggest audience reach possible.

Now that connected TV has the ability to reach individual consumers based on refined targeting criteria, some in the industry want it to become a one-to-one medium.

But there is a third way.

For Jonathan Steuer, Omnicom’s chief research officer, the two tactics can co-exist in a media plan.

“I absolutely feel like it’s a chocolate and peanut butter, you know,” he tells Beet.TV in this video interview. “Targeting and reach are great tastes that taste great together.

“I think the normal human tendency is to want to swing the pendulum all the way one way and then swing it back the other way. What we’re seeing is that desire to try to make TV as much as possible like Google and Facebook and it doesn’t fit and it doesn’t wanna be that. But we need to make it more like that and that’s the tension we’re living in right now.”

Steuer was talking after a Beet Retreat in the City panel during which he heard industry executives espouse opinions at both ends of that spectrum.

“The truth, as usual, is probably somewhere in between,” he says.

The interview was conducted at the Beet Retreat in the City at the post event reception by Matt Prohaska, CEO and Principal of Prohaska Consulting.

This video was produced at the Beet Retreat in City & Town Hall on June 6, 2018 in New York City. The event and video series are presented by LiveRamp, TiVo, true[X] and 605. For more videos from the series, please visit this page.

By Robert Andrews on    @robertandrews