PHOENIX – The two main attributes of connected television and OTT for advertisers are transparency and speed, says Adam Lowy, who’s witnessed the growth of convergence on the publisher side and now at software platform Telaria.
Lowy joined Telaria in the fall of 2018 from Dish and its Sling TV service, where he had been director of advanced TV and digital sales. In this interview with Beet.TV at the IAB Annual Leadership Meeting, he says he was motivated by the growing convergence of digital and TV buying, along with the uptake of programmatic transactions.
“I saw at Sling that if I could be able to do that at a larger scale and really work with many programmers in converging their businesses and help them grow the advertising space, it would be a tremendous opportunity for the entire industry to grow,” says Lowy, who is Telaria’s Chief Commercial Officer.
“What I’m seeing is more DSP’s really understanding the space and helping to go through to the agencies and through to the brands of how to do this. How to purchase this type of advertising. How to purchase in auctions, how to do the private auctions. And really understanding the safety of buying in the space.”
Along with transparency and speed, audience targeting also is a factor in the growth of CTV and OTT. “That’s really driving this wave as well and being able to really understand attribution and what’s happening to your buys.”
Lowy considers transparency to be the number one because advertisers want to know exactly where their ads are going. “And to be assured that your ad is targeted properly and correctly, and also being fueled or put next to the right kind of premium inventory that you want or the premium content.”
The speed and efficiency that programmatic offers extends to campaign optimization, namely “how quickly you can purchase an ad and see how your campaigns are running and be able to change or do what you need to do rather quickly.”
Lowy attributes the explosion of direct-to-consumer streaming video services to a universal desire for total control.
“They want more control of the advertising. They want more control of the content. They want more control of what’s going on and really to understand, start to finish, what’s going to the consumer and how to react and how to move quickly with them.”
Asked about Telaria’s growth plans, Lowy says while lots of partnerships are desirable, “we want to make them richer and deeper.” Citing clients like Hulu, Sling, fuboTV and Cheddar, Telaria wants to “get deeper into helping them to understand the converging business and to help them grow their business.”
Additionally, Telaria is eyeing more global expansion, including in Canada and Latin America.
This segment is part of Beet.TV’s coverage of the IAB Annual Leadership Meeting 2019, Phoenix. This series is sponsored by Telaria. Please find additional videos from the series on this page.
