The COVID-19 pandemic has thrown momentum back toward local media planning and buying that had begun to look like a poor relation to national.
So Mediaocean, whose software helps advertisers automate their operations, is launching new tools to bring further efficiencies to what it says is still a highly manual process.
In this video interview with Beet.TV, Mediaocean’s Drew Kane explains the rationale.
New tools
In November, Mediaocean announced two new tools for local TV buying will be added to its Spectra and Prisma software suites:
- Pre-buy: helps buyers automate manual pre-buy tasks, leverage historical and predictive intelligence, and integrate planning with buying and billing.
- Performance Management: automates the posting predicted verss actual performance, pulling air times from WideOrbit and PremiumMedia360, then marrying them with Nielsen overnight data to show buyers how their spots are pacing on a daily basis.
Letting the artists paint
“Local (ad sales) is a highly specialised process,” Kane says.
“The folks that are working in local are experts at their craft. There is no luxury to be bogged down in performing manual processes.
“We are automating steps that have classically been repeated in a very manual way, so that we can make room for the artists of their craft to light up the canvas up with art.”
Local is back
In the COVID-19 pandemic, many ad industry execs have been saying that the prevalence of home-bound customers has forced national advertisers to think like local advertisers.
Local TV news has been the most consumed content, according to Nielsen.
For Kane, however, that is no longer just about a traditional cable TV news feed.
“We’re no longer in a world where it’s (just about) local linear,” he says.
“You still have local execution, you still have national execution … but we need to be able to enable it all in a converged manner.”
Mediaocean sets sail
Mediaocean, whose roots go back to the 1960s with Donovan Systems, has been aggressive about buying software companies that CEO Bill Wise has described as “mini Mediaoceans” in other markets.
The company acquired marketing technology firm 4C Insights, whose focus is on audience data, media planning and analytics for streaming video and social networks.
Other acquisitions include MBS and Symsys to expand into Europe, and PIN Systems and BCC AdSystems to push into the Asia-Pacific region.
