Buyers of digital media and buyers of traditional television are “kind of meeting in the middle” when it comes to OTT and connected-TV” is the viewpoint of Premion’s Jim Wilson. They are attracted not just by audience reach but tying business outcomes to exposures.
A division of TEGNA, Premion is an advertising platform for regional and local advertisers, providing access to more than 125 content providers sourced through direct partnerships. Part of Premion’s “thesis” has been that broadband would “sort of democratize content,” Wilson explains in this interview with Beet.TV.
“Great content can almost come from anywhere. As long as it’s great content it can generate eyeballs. It doesn’t have to necessarily be on a specific network,” Wilson says.
Premion has worked with, among others, Pluto TV, Tubi and Filo. “We built a platform that aggregates all of it and makes it simple for advertisers to access that at scale, which is really important. It’s been a great opportunity for us to bring dollars to them as they’ve grown in the marketplace.”
Not all media buyers have flocked to OTT and connected-TV. “Some have moved into the OTT CTV business more quickly than others,” Wilson adds. Having recently spoken to a group of 100 people, “Half the room hadn’t bought OTT yet and the others were down the road on OTT and looking at how they use it for business outcomes.”
Noting a move from “auto intenders to psychographics” on the broadcast side, Wilson sees elements “that you typically would think that are coming from the digital side are very quickly coming from the broadcast buyers. They’re getting up to speed very quickly and they realize that yes, this is a reach vehicle and yes it’s shoring up my total video buy.
“But there are opportunities here that we don’t have or may not have right now in other forms of video where we can look at ROI and business outcomes. You’ve got this whole broadcast learning curve that’s been happening over the last couple of years.”
On the digital side, buyers who are used to things like KPI’s, metrics, measurement, viewability and verification view OTT and connected-TV as “an opportunity to extend their reach as well, so we sort of see them all kind of converging together.”
This video is part of a series about the emergence of OTT as an advertising platform. For more interviews, please visit this page. This series is presented by Premion.
