SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico—For local television, the 2018 election cycle was tantamount to an early Christmas present. And although 2020 promises to be even better sales-wise, TV providers have to speed up their efforts to roll out targeted, impression-based advertising without cannibalizing their “core bread and butter traditional linear inventory,” says Furious Corp. CEO Ashley J. Swartz.
In this interview, Swartz, a longtime Beet Retreat attendee and unofficial dean of the proceedings, sums things up thusly: “We’re trying to race F1 with a Datsun.”
Furious Corp. was founded in 2013 to provide linear TV and video yield optimization. It’s seen recent transactional data from the trafficking systems of operators and local station groups showing anywhere from five to 15X premiums on ad pricing, according to Swartz.
“Right now is an interesting time because although we’re talking about the challenges and the fear, uncertainty and doubt in TV, we’re coming off one of the best political seasons we’ve had,” she says.
That’s the good news. The not-so-good news is that it’s typical for clients of Furious to be using “software that was released in 1990. They’re running their ad businesses with Excel.”
As a result, the desire and need to move things forward is hindered by friction in the workflows of revenue and inventory management, causing revenue leakage. “The driver of revenue leakage is different depending on the TV product you’re selling, and whether you’re using a Nielsen guarantee for spot or impression-based sale,” Swartz explains.
With traditional, spot-based linear, the greatest revenue leakage is driven by pricing variability, implies inefficiency. Bringing uniformity and consistency to the rate card process “is in incredible opportunity to improve revenue” by three to 10% in a 12- to 24-month period, Swartz says.
For impression-based, addressable ads, “It’s actually about inventory utilization and allocation, and so the business challenge changes. The need to look at the other level of yield, which is inventory management, as a different part of that workflow to focus on in order to ensure that, as you’re introducing new products, you still continue to utilize your assets and inventory as efficiently as possible.”
This video was produced in San Juan, Puerto Rico at the Beet.TV executive retreat. Please find more videos from the series on this page. The Beet Retreat was presented by NCC along with Amobee, Dish Media, Oath and Google.
