MVPD platforms and programers could do things the same way they have always done them – or they could take a stab at laying a groundwork for the future.
Little by little, programmatic trading of TV ads is becoming a reality.
But Jake Richardson, Director, TV Partnerships, The Trade Desk, would like to see it develop farther and faster.
Hesitation block
In this video interview with Beet.TV, Richardson says the shift to programmatic TV “has taken a little bit longer than we thought”.
He blames sell-side “hesitation and uncertainty”, despite favourable marketplace conditions.
“They know that there is this premium on programmatic or addressable demand. However, they’re unwilling at some level to push all of their chips into that basket,” he says.
“Our hope is that we make sure that we don’t treat this giant generational shift from linear over to digital as sort of more of the same.”
Disney data
The Trade Desk was recently part of a deal in which Disney would begin to offer clean room data, in partnership with Snowflake, a cloud software provider.
Richardson, who appears at Beet Retreat Santa Monica in November 2022, says it will see Hulu ads transacted in a way that’s measurable for the advertiser but doesn’t give away Hulu data.
“It allows them to retain ownership of that data, but also transact on an addressable way,” he says. “This deal is huge. We think that it’s sort of a bellwether for a lot of what we’ll see going forward in the identity and activation space.”
Future focus
But Richardson hopes to see more big deals, breaking what he sees as the slow evolution to programmatic TV.
“We’ve seen just about every major (platform) come online in some form or fashion programmatically, with the exception of Netflix and Disney’s coming on shortly,” he says.
“We’ll expect that some time next year. Netflix may be a little bit longer journey.
“For a long time, inventory was being either monetized by a subscription or via advertising, and it’s all moved into both. It has to be some form of both because content is so expensive to produce and you really can’t exist in a world where you’re only monetizing half of your inventory.”
