Lots of OTT television choices means a boon for consumers, but it also means programmers must balance ad loads better. “That’s certainly a place we have to keep an eye on with OTT,” says Onmicom Media Group’s Sal Candela.
“A lot of viewers flocked to OTT very early on from the fact that it gave them a lot of choice,” the President of Enterprise Partnerships adds in this interview with Beet.TV. “I think beyond that it was probably a slower place for advertisers to start to market their products and services. And now that reach has hit critical mass, we see a lot of advertising in the space.”
With so many platforms to consider agnostically across linear TV and OTT, scale and reach are top priorities. “And by and large, we’re seeing a tremendous amount of growth in that area. The plumbing and the framework behind it related to technology and data, a lot of that is being built in and it’s being built from a digital lens.”
As a means of preserving a value exchange with viewers, frequency capping is needed to prevent ad overload, according to Candela. “Moving towards an automated approach in buying OTT and connecting with consumers in that environment is going to be the way in which you solve for frequency. It’s an area that we believe has a tremendous impact on the consumer.”
As TV providers and advertisers gear up for the annual NewFronts and Upfront rituals, “I think from an innovation perspective we’re going to see a variety of advancements.” Examples on the OTT side include server-sider ad insertion driving improved viewing experiences by curtailing latency, along with emerging ad formats like pop-up ads when OTT viewing is paused.
“We’re seeing the ability to really integrate interactive, shoppable ad experiences into that environment,” says Candela.
Omnicom’s centralized people-based solution for all of its agencies is called Omni, fueled by data from Experian, LiveRamp, Neustar and others.
“There’s quite a bit out there for us to look at and I think we would be maybe a bit foolish to think we could do it with pen and paper.”
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.
