LONDON — With old-fashioned TV, things were simple. The gross-rating point was the predominant ad-buying currency.
Now that the world is exploding in to on-demand TV, premium video and a host of other channels, ad-buying currencies are up in the air again.
Lorne Brown wants to pin them down.
In this video interview with Beet.TV, the CEO of ad-tech firm Operative says broadcast TV and video owners, whilst they may now be pursuing different rating and currency mechanisms, should nevertheless align standards to make buying ads easier.
“In the U.S., we started an initiative called the council,” Brown says. “We’re bringing the top 10 networks – NBC, CBS, Disney – to talk about the things that they need to enter into different markets.
“For those buyers who might want to buy TV or they might want to buy maybe premium video, but they want to do it with their currency, with their transaction method, and they way that they’re used to, and they don’t want to be exposed or have TV exposing their complexity to them.
“So what we’re trying to do is align the TV companies with a lot of standards around technology and APIs to allow them to transact in different ways. So that’s one of the things that we’re working on.”
In the last couple of years, the industry has seen the rise of initiatives like OpenAP which creates consistency in how on-demand TV publishers describe their audience segments – one way advertisers can more easily buy audience-based campaigns across a range of services.
Brown says things are getting complex. As media owners’ portfolios fragment along with consolidation and mega-mergers, they need to simplify their systems and align product strategies, to harmonize the media buying experience.
This video is part of Beet.TV’s coverage of the Future of TV Advertising Forum 2018, London. The series is sponsored by Finecast. For more segments from the series, visit this page.
