What is the future of TV advertising? Offering more platforms, serving more points in the marketing funnel and using more in-house customer and measurement data.
That is the takeaway from a leading soothsayer at one of the US’ leading broadcast companies.
In the last couple of years, Comcast has built a significant technology portfolio and overhauled its own ad sales efforts to support data-driven, targetable advertising in both linear TV and digital video.
“What kind of data are we harnessing? The most beautiful kind,” says Andrea Zapata, Comcast VP research and insights, Comcast Spotlight, in this video interview with Beet.TV. “We have viewership data across our platform. We started tapping into our (own) data in a very privacy-compliant way about two years ago.
“I will tell you, though, that we have really pivoted away from using a lot of third-party syndicated measurement to really using our data to help inform what happens across our house.”
Zapata was speaking with Maryann Halford, senior advisor at MTM Consulting, for Beet.TV.
Comcast Spotlight is publishing some top-line data from its Comcast platform through its quarterly TV Viewership Report, the latest in a long line of insight products that has also integrated all the publications its FreeWheel unit was producing.
“They’re watching in ways that may be fairly surprising to you and actually might break some of the ideas that you have, the contracts that you have and how you reach your customer,” says Zapata.
“It’s not just prime time, it’s not just a handful of networks. In fact, it’s probably networks that you don’t even know but your customer is watching and values.”
She says Spotlight offers advertisers the initial big reach that goes with mass, data-driven linear TV, perfect for upper-funnel goals, followed by lower-funnel approaches which use addressable TV capabilities.
This video is part of a series from the Beet Retreat in the City, “We’re Going Local!” hosted by GroupM Worldwide and sponsored by Amobee, Comcast Spotlight, TVSquared and WideOrbit. Please visit this page for additional segments.
