Steve Ellwanger

Consumers may be driving the expansion of television viewing options, but publishers still face a balancing act between reducing ad loads and meeting financial goals. Ad buyers, meanwhile, are going to want to see demonstrable results for their investments in return for increased prices due to inventory reductions. “I think it’s a really complicated challenge […]

What do “digital pure-play” disruptors turn to when they need to ramp up customer and revenue scale? Television advertising, according to the Video Advertising Bureau. When studying big-spending, Silicon Valley brands the organization found some striking similarities, according to VAB CEO & President Sean Cunningham. “We found it interesting that the biggest bet that the […]

At its Upfront presentation last year, Hulu unveiled its live television streaming service, which offered a combination of live and on-demand programming. To date, the biggest learning is that “over half of the consumption in our live bundle is factually on demand,” says Peter Naylor. “That tells me the future of TV is a blend […]

While there’s no shortage of data available for enhanced consumer targeting, some advertisers still cling to gross rating points and broad demographic targets. “Some clients are opting in a little bit more than others,” says Anthony Laurenzo, SVP, Non-Linear Video, Dentsu Aegis. “We’re starting a slow evolution away from age and gender demography to more […]

With eight U.S. multichannel video programming distributors (MVPD’s) offering addressable television inventory, inadequate scale is becoming less of an issue. But achieving the “holy grail” will require a new approach to the cost of creative production. That goal is “to be to find the right segment and then create all these different creative executions for […]

Content amalgamation and proliferation seem to be the watchwords at Sinclair and its nearly 200 local television stations. As it prepares to become the first broadcast company in the addressable space, it’s experimenting in Dallas with ATSC 3.0 signals that could usher in the next era of connectivity. To CRO Rob Weisbord, Sinclair’s future road […]

If any tech company knows the economic value of traditional television, it’s 51-year-old Donovan Data Systems—now known as Mediaocean. So it’s in a unique position to respect that TV heritage while helping to shepherd the industry to a more digital-like future. “If all we do as an industry is make television look like digital programmatic […]

As the ability to identify and target television audiences across devices becomes ever more precise, it’s changing the way advertisers perceive both quality and the prices they are willing to pay. “There is a return to premium media from an advertiser perspective, an appreciation and a willingness to pay actually a premium price,” says Sandro […]

Driven by a combination of marketer uptake and viewer expectations, the use of interactive television ads is surging at Hulu. So much so that “I feel like there’s a bit of an inflection point for interactive ads in TV,” says SVP of Advertising & Sales Peter Naylor. “We’ve been working with people like BrightLine for […]

Sometimes, having a few options doesn’t provide one optimal solution. A case in point is television-viewing data, from traditional Nielsen panels to second-by-second tracking from automatic content resolution technology. “Each source of viewing data has its own virtues and benefits. They have challenges as well,” says Noah Levine, SVP, Advertising Data & Technology Solutions, Fox […]

Even as new data sources continue to emerge, there’s not going to be a “magic bullet” that will enable television advertisers to figure out cross-screen reach and frequency. At the heart of the challenge lies consumer privacy, according to Lance Neuhauser, CEO of 4C Insights. “We have to continue to make steps forward in being […]

Among the more noteworthy aspects of the ongoing evolution of advanced television is the pace at which the use of syndicated data sets for targeting viewers has spurred the use of advertisers’ first-party data, according to NBCUniversal’s Mike Rosen. And even while advanced audience targeting will be the subject of many conversations at this year’s […]

SAN FRANCISCO – As the advertising industry inches its way to more addressable linear TV, the OpenAP audience targeting consortium is looking to add more datasets to its platform. “There’s still a lot that we’re looking to be able to bring into it,” says Nicole Ruby, VP, Advertising Data Solutions, Fox Networks Group. Within OpenAP, […]

SAN FRANCISCO – New technology solutions are going to help replace household-level addressable television advertising with more granular targeting. But will agency holding company siloes stand in the way of creating, executing and optimizing the best advanced-TV campaigns? Former Starcom MediaVest Group advanced television specialist Tracey Scheppach has a foot in both of those spheres […]

SAN FRANCISCO – While there’s little question that being able to identify and target individuals across devices and screens will play a huge role in future marketing, we should not think that everything will go one-to-one. This might seem unusual for those with their roots in digital media, but not to Matt Spiegel. “I think […]

The year 2018 is one of “convergence” for Dish Network and its streaming Sling TV service, which combined now offer addressable advertising to about 9 million households. “We spent a lot of last year tying together the existing data partnerships on the Dish side with the Sling side and making sure that attribution and reporting […]

SAN FRANCISCO – One of the many positive outcomes that have emerged as the result of major marketers demanding greater digital transparency is a renewed focus on data quality. “I think what’s actually exciting is that we’re coming back to a sense of quality after a large period of flux,” says Simmons CEO Andrew Feigenson. […]

Tim Castree likes to think about audiences “as the nests that sit inside that larger purchase journey context to opportunity.” Until you can completely understand those consumers, you cannot target them to fulfill those opportunities. Wavemaker uses a two-step process that begins with identifying “the gaps, barriers, challenges, opportunities” associated with the purchase journey, the […]

While the glory days of reaching 75% of television households with just one commercial are long gone, automatic content recognition (ACR) stands to help advertisers calculate incremental reach. “That can certainly be valuable, says Jonathan Bokor, SVP, Precision Video, Publicis Media. Bokor discusses the challenges posed by using disparate datasets depending on TV/video tactics in […]

SAN FRANCISCO – Offering marketers mass reach is what television’s always been about. But in this age of advanced TV, it’s becoming more about “mass, targeted reach,” according to Mike Rosen. The EVP of Advanced Advertising & Platform Sales at NBCU talks about taking an agnostic approach to more advanced audience targeting and why the […]