Steve Ellwanger

MIAMI – When the current-day Acxiom was founded in 1969 as Demographics, “people-based marketing” was basically direct mail. Having acquired LiveRamp in 2014, Acxiom is looking to be the predominate provider of identity graphs across digital and television. LiveRamp has long been active in the digital space, using both personally identifiable and anonymous information from […]

MIAMI – When full-service ad agencies started unbundling their media departments in the 1990’s, the media landscape was a whole lot simpler—as in no digital. This is reflective of why when GroupM unveiled Team Arrow Partners for its client Target about 18 months ago, the announcement declared “Analytics and creativity are no longer opposing forces” […]

MIAMI – Investor decks for martech ventures are typically rosy if not a bit over-the-top in their marketplace prognostications. Then there is the one that Tru Optik put together in 2014 as it tried to project the scale and growth for consumer uptake of OTT and connected-TV by 2018. “For every single one we actually […]

MIAMI – The year 2018 and, in particular, the Upfront television market will see a “tipping point” in achieving greater audience targeting precision. This should resonate well with direct-mail catalogers who should be looking beyond the mailbox to the set-top box. Thus says Tracey Scheppach, the former Publicis executive who spent upward of 15 years […]

MIAMI – Although best known for its video encoding software, Sorenson Media wants the television ecosystem to think holistically by using smart-TV data to inform every second of the viewing experience. Two of the company’s newest products are a measurement solution for local broadcasters and addressability for linear TV, according to VP of Advertising James […]

MIAMI – Looking at the competition between digital and television as some kind of warfare isn’t very productive, according to Paul Alfieri, CMO of Cross MediaWorks. “TV shouldn’t be looking at Facebook or Netflix and saying they’re stealing our revenue,” says Alfieri. “TV should be saying what are Facebook and Netflix and Amazon and Google […]

MIAMI – With addressable and programmatic advertising converging in the form of OTT television, expect a lot more one-to-one brand messaging and interactive viewer functions like commerce. “By bringing the strength of programmatic from the online and digital space over to this converging marketplace, it really changes the game of how you can buy and […]

MIAMI – If you “see” consumers an average of 1,200 times each month, thanks to their mobile devices, you get a pretty good idea of their retail habits. Those learnings can empower new ways of understanding how website traffic impacts store visits. When location-data marketing platform NinthDecimal studied the connection between digital assets and offline […]

MIAMI – Sometimes you need to learn from new media channels in order to better understand and use the ones that are much older. Social media and television is a case in point. Media technology provider 4C Insights cut its teeth on digital platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and others. As it shifts into the […]

MIAMI – Personalized video provider Clinch has gained a bird’s-eye view inside the walled gardens of Facebook and Instagram. It’s one of just three companies out of several hundred applicants chosen to participate in Facebook’s global Marketing API Accelerator program, which concentrates on areas that are key to the social media giant. “We’re the video […]

MIAMI – What used to be transactional relationships based on dayparts and demographics in the television business is quickly evolving into “more of a data relationship,” according to NBCUniversal’s EVP of Portfolio Sales, Mike Rosen. “This is happening so quickly. What we now realize is it’s leading to a very different kind of relationship we […]

MIAMI – If the folks at Eyeview are correct, there’s a predictable progression happening in the advertising world as it moves from buying audiences on broad demographics to more targeted transactions. “Everyone’s going to eventually move to outcomes,” says Brian Katz, the company’s VP of Advanced TV Insights & Strategy. “The CMO’s on the marketing […]

MIAMI – A lack of television advertising inventory yield optimization by media companies can lead to “extreme volatility in pricing” to the tune of nearly 10% of topline revenue. “That is ultimately what is driving the opportunity cost of not maximizing yield,” says Furious Corp. CEO Ashley J. Swartz. Furious Corp. began operations in 2014, […]

MIAMI – The fragmented TV viewing environment is reality. But it doesn’t pay to wait for “the perfect system” for cross-screen measurement and ad campaign attribution. “I think the time is now,” says Videology’s Tony Yi. “Facebook video impressions are growing exponentially. Amazon is out there in full force.” In this interview with Beet.TV at […]

MIAMI – It’s hard to think of a company that has ramped up more data prowess than Oracle Data Cloud. But even with companies like BluKai, Datalogix, AddThis, Crosswise and Moat under its wing, achieving unified cross-screen audience measurement isn’t going to be a cake walk. “That is certainly one of the objectives for us […]

MIAMI – As connected-TV/OTT viewing proliferates and adds to viewer fragmentation, it’s not necessarily a bad thing if you can buy audiences as opposed to demos. And while two minutes of local able advertising inventory remains the norm for addressable campaigns, that’s slowly changing. In the connected-TV and OTT space, “There are quite a few […]

MIAMI – When you’re swimming in data about your guests, context is everything to determine appropriate messaging. It’s no wonder, then, that content needs will grow. “What we find is that as we’re creating more targeted segments of guests that we can deliver messages to, each of those groups have different needs and things that […]

MIAMI – Spectrum Reach has been running test campaigns in Los Angeles and New York for its first addressable advertising offering on linear television with the goal of having both markets activated this year. “We’ll have five million households by the end of 2018 and then expand to the rest of our footprint and beyond,” […]

MIAMI – Verizon was ahead of the technology curve when it began offering fiber directly to the home with Fios (fiber optic service) in 2005. Now that its Fios addressable television offering just celebrated its one-year anniversary, the company is able to tout the benefits that speed brings to advanced TV targeting. Because it’s a […]

MIAMI – There are the headlines—traditional TV versus digital upstarts—and then there’s the reality behind the scenes. To wit, Google is playing a big part in helping traditional broadcasters transition to the digital future with solutions like dynamic ad insertion. In the U.S., “We work with 28 of the top programmers,” from sports content to […]