ORLANDO – The Association of National Advertisers’ yearly Masters of Marketing Conference is a chance for marketing, media, agency and ad-tech professionals to share ideas about the best ways to engage consumers. As more people watch television programming on internet-connected devices such as smart TVs and mobile phones, there are growing opportunities to reach consumers based on criteria other than age and gender. 
“The world of digital enables you to do things differently, enables you to target better message differently. It enables you to measure differently,” Dave Morgan, founder and chief executive of television ad-tech firm Simulmedia, said in this interview with Beet.TV. “We’re going to see the capacity to deliver much more precision in campaigns. We are going to … elevate the role of advertising.”
The improved targeting that comes with the digital delivery of television is giving advertisers more flexibility to run campaigns that reach consumers at different stages of the purchase funnel, all the way from awareness down to the point of sale. Unlike other media channels that have multiple ad formats competing for attention, television gives advertisers to engage viewers on the biggest screen in most households.
“In the world of streaming, it’s a person’s time and attention to a large screen with really their full engagement. That’s scarce,” Morgan said. “We’re going to have top-of-the-funnel metrics drive the media — total points, total impressions, reach. What’s different is we’re going to find the secondary metrics” such as conversions, loyalty and share of wallet.
Marketers also are coping with a confluence of uncertainties such as a 40-year high in inflation, rising interest rates, a war in Eastern Europe, China’s zero-Covid policies that may trigger a global recession. Connected TV (CTV) has a chance to outshine traditional linear TV as marketers feel pressured to show a return on their media investment.
“It will be really helpful during the macroeconomic issues because people can justify to their CEOs and their shareholders the power of CTV in ways they can’t justify linear today,” Morgan said, “but it won’t just have to be direct response, blinky flashy ads, conversion, cost-per-acquisition-only.”
This video was produced at the 2022 ANA Masters of Marketing. For more videos from our coverage there, please visit this page.
