SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico – Can a dishwasher maker clean up when it comes to TV ad targeting?
Serge Matta thinks so. As president of LG Ads, Matta is driving the electronics maker to leverage its substantial TV footprint as a key ad sales intermediary.
In this video interview with Scott Schiller for Beet.TV at the Beet Retreat San Juan, Matta explains why he thinks original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) are well placed.
Upfronts reception
LG Ads has automatic content recognition (ACR) running on more than 20 million US TVs and 140 million worldwide – giving it the opportunity to know what shows and ads viewers are really watching.
That is the kind of capability OEM divisions like LG Ads are using to sell ad buyers on advances like targeting, frequency-capping and outcomes attribution.
And it’s something the division, which was formed out of LG’s acquisition of Alphonso, says is being well-received.
“We saw the craziness of the upfronts (TV ad sales season) last year,” Matta says. “We’re going to see it even significantly more. And we’re already seeing that this year. The reception that we’ve seen just in the past year, it’s as if we’ve been in business for six, seven years.”
This week, Omnicom Media Group (OMG) announced it would be buying ads for its clients through LG Ads Solutions.
TV OS wars’ evolution
LG Ads is joined in the OEM OTT race by the likes of Samsung Ads and VIZIO’s Inscape. Matta thinks that crop will now drive OTT, sunsetting the age of plug-in OTT TV dongles, which have historically been used to internet-enable legacy TV sets.
“Four or five years ago, the interfaces or the OSes that they had was not in par with the (add-on TV) sticks in terms of the Roku sticks, the Fire sticks and all of that,” he says.
“Fast-forward four years later, everyone’s caught up. The time spent on these sticks have significantly declined. The time spent on the WebOSes, the actually operating systems of these TVs has significantly increased.
“That’s only going to increase because we’re spending money on it. We’re investing on that platform. We’re investing in terms of better apps, better usability, better discoverability, all of that. So that the reliance on these sticks is not really needed. Why do you need a stick when you have picture quality, amazing technology, and you have a really great platform?”
More exclusive content
System integration is not LG Ads’ only play in the market. Like Samsung and Roku, the division is also beginning to offer its own content channels through its TV, thereby creating its own inventory.
In November, for example, it launched an NCAA football channel, the NCAA Championships Channel, with Turner Sports and CBS Sports, exclusively carried on LG smart TVs. More is on the way, Matta says.
“A big focus of ours is to go and create more exclusive content on the TVs,” he explains. We have our own FAST channels. We have our LG channels, which is 350 plus-channels in the U.S.. And then we have equivalent number of channels in a lot of different countries globally.
“When you own the screen, when you have proprietary ACR or data running on the screen that’s all privacy compliant and opt in, and you have your own exclusive inventory, you’re going to do really well in this industry.”
Pay for outcomes
Indeed, “global” is a watchword for the Korean electronics giant. LG Ads is a recipe Matta wants to roll out worldwide.
He plans to replicate the plan in the UK, Canada and Australia, hoping that ad buyers will take advantage of features like Guaranteed Outcomes, a capability the division launched in January.
Through its new Guaranteed Outcomes program, it will pledge that every campaign bought and delivered either via on-TV native ads or CTV video will hit stated KPIs.
As a starting point, ad buyers can get guarantees on:
- reach and frequency
- demographics
- age
- gender
- ethnicity
- household Income
- education level
- presence of children
- video completion rates (VCR)
More interestingly, the program will guarantee on conversion metrics, starting with app installs. Coming in the next few months, it will also offer guarantees on:
- tune-in
- web visits
- physical location visits
- more
“Don’t pay us a dime until we guarantee you X, Y, Z in terms of demo guarantees, age, gender, income,” Matta says.
You are watching coverage from Beet Retreat San Juan 2022, presented by AppScience, Infillion, MadHive, SpringServe, Univision & VideoAmp. For more videos, please visit this page.
