SANTA MONICA, Calif. – Marketers have the technology to help them automate what kinds of connected television programming will provide a brand-safe context for advertising. What’s known as a content-object signal is part of the technical standard for real-time bidding, and needs greater adoption to be useful in the programmatic CTV marketplace.
“Content-object signals are really exciting for publishers and for buyers, but we’re kind of in the ‘chicken and egg’ situation,” Nicole Scaglione, global vice president of over-the-top and connected television at sell-side platform PubMatic, said in this discussion with consultant Joanna O’Connell at the Beet Retreat Santa Monica.
Publishers are wary of sharing information that allows advertisers to cherry-pick where there ads will appear throughout CTV marketplace, Scaglione said. Such retargeting on different websites is a common practice in digital display advertising that relies on tracking cookies.
“Publishers say, ‘I don’t want to share with you this information, because I don’t believe that you’re actually going to buy it. Or if I do share it with you, you’re just only going buy this and you’re not going to buy the rest of what I have,’” Scaglione said, “and buyers, I think, on the other hand, are confused as to why wouldn’t you be more transparent? Why wouldn’t you share all these signals with me?”
In some cases, publishers may be limited by legal contracts that dictate what kinds of information they can share with advertisers to help them in their media buying decisions. Wider adoption of standards such as the OpenRTB protocol for real-time bidding is one way that publishers and advertisers can better transact, Scaglione said.
“Buyers in general are doing their best and publishers are doing their best,” she said, “and we as tech partners are trying to listen to both sides of the transaction, and build for them what is going to make things the easiest and most effective.”
You are watching coverage of Beet Retreat Santa Monica 2022, presented by Ampersand, MiQ, Nielsen, PubMatic, T-Mobile Advertising Solutions and The Trade Desk. For more videos from the Beet Retreat, please visit this page.
