Steve Ellwanger

MIAMI – Maybe it’s fitting that a panel about the promise of advanced television advertising takes place in the state that brought us the Ringling Brothers. While data is fueling more qualitative audience targeting decisions, media agencies and their clients can be forgiven if they often feel like perpetual jugglers. What becomes clear from the […]

LONDON – Ashley J. Swartz’s message to media owners is clear: Be agile, flexible, and get your internal act together. “There’s a lot of value and insight intelligence around audience that is untapped within the enterprise of a seller,” Swartz says in an interview with Beet.tv. “I think there’s a lot of unlocked value that […]

LONDON – Legacy media needs to join digital in using census-level data for audience targeting and attribution, according to Irwin Gotlieb, Chairman of WPP’s GroupM. “If we look at the effect of our media campaigns and try to do proper attribution on them, we have to do it, we have to get legacy media on […]

LONDON – As Leon Siotis takes in Europe, “What’s most fascinating about today is to see that there is no one thing that is happening with programmatic TV,” says the Managing Director for video advertising platform SpotX. “Each of the different countries is evolving differently. They’re trialing different ways to sell their inventory programatically.” In […]

LONDON – Marketers have just begun to scratch the surface of mining the biggest behavioral data set ever amassed: social media. “There’s just so much there,” says Josh Dreller, VP of Product Marketing at multiscreen analytics and activation provider 4C Insights. With more than 1.5 billion social media users in database mapped to 250,000 interest […]

MIAMI – As Twitter endeavors to future-proof itself, live video has been trending this year. The traditional 140-character communications platform sees “global video solutions” as a way of letting users view and communicate with all sorts of characters—with advertisers in tow. “If you open up that app today, it looks a hell of a lot […]

MIAMI – Trying to “retrofit” television into digital is harmful because it devalues advertising inventory, according to the CEO of Cadent. Since the company’s rebranding a few years ago from TelAmerica, focusing on value along with direct-selling has helped to upend its customer base from overwhelmingly direct-response TV advertisers to mostly national brands, says Nick […]

MIAMI – Finding needles in hidden haystacks just might be the best metaphor for the current state of cross-platform targeting. As was evident during a panel discussion during the recent Beet.tv Retreat 2016, approaches vary by company and are limited to the best data sources until better ones come along. For Sorenson Media, which uses […]

LONDON – The need for census-level data in the media planning process “is paramount right now,” according to Mike Bologna, President of GroupM’s Modi Media advanced television unit. “It’s what advertisers are looking for,” Bologna says in an interview with Beet.tv. “They night not necessarily need the data all the way down to addressability, but […]

LONDON – Adam Gaynor has a way of making the most confusing subjects sound quite simple. For example, addressable television is a “product.” Programmatic is a “process.” In the United States, says DISH Network’s VP of Media Sales & Analytics, “When you ask 10 people what programmatic TV is, you get 11 answers.” But in […]

LONDON – If anyone in the premium video business doubted the logic behind FreeWheel’s acquisition of StickyADs.tv, French media giant Canal+ dispelled it by choosing the combined entity to optimize and manage its advertising inventory across all screens. “So now we can safely say we have a presence as FreeWheel at very single broadcaster in […]

MIAMI – If the transition to more audience-based television advertising was a horse race, data would be in the lead and plumbing would be a laggard. “I think we’re at an important transitional moment from the world of content-based advertising, which is TV’s legacy to an audience based television world,” says Jonathan Steuer. That transition […]

Letting consumers opt in to engage with digital commercials in lieu of seeing a full pod of them is just “the tip of the spear” in the quest to replace frequency based advertising, says Fox Networks’ Joe Marchese. “This is where we’d like to end up. But between here and there, there’s a lot of […]

LONDON – As he looks ahead to CES 2017, GroupM Chairman Irwin Gotlieb sees “enormous developments” in all six categories that are typically his focus at the global consumer electronics and technology trade show. In an interview with Beet.tv, Gotlieb identifies those categories as automotive, computing, computing mobility, consumer electronics, health & fitness and integration. […]

MIAMI – Some people are anxious because addressable television ads represent a mere one percent or so of total TV spending. Then there’s Andrew Ward, who suggests that everyone take a step back and consider how far things have come in the past decade. Back in 2006, when Comcast first debuted addressable ads in Huntsville, […]

MIAMI – In the tug of war that is television advertising, programmers pull the traditional ratings window beyond 30 days while advanced TV specialists grapple with more precise targeting. Somewhere in the middle lies a holistic view of all advertising impressions that buyers can bid for, but it’s a galaxy far, far away. This is […]

Video has just been invited to the brand marketing cloud party, courtesy of integration escort Innovid. The new Innovid Marketing Cloud Suite lets marketers link with massive backend systems from Adobe, IBM and Oracle to “synchronize the customer journey across different channels,” Zvika Netter, CEO & Co-Founder of Innovid, says in an interview with Beet.tv. […]

MIAMI – Google doesn’t have to search for television partners. The digital giant is busily helping broadcasters and cable networks connect with viewers while distributing and monetizing their content. “We definitely have a perspective that eventually everything is going to go IP,” says Brian Jankovsky, Director of Entertainment & Sports Partnerships at Google, during a […]

MIAMI – While at Mixpo, Anupam Gupta played in the creative management layer space. However, the last five to seven years in advertising “have been all about targeting,” says the Chief Product Officer for 4C Insights. “But that doesn’t mean that we won’t come back to creative.” During a panel discussion at the recent Beet.tv […]

MIAMI – Whether the subject is Nielsen ratings, video on demand or addressable television advertising, communications giant Comcast is all about the “macro experience” for consumers and advertisers. This holistic approach to the rapidly evolving entertainment landscape comes across loud and clear from Kevin Patrick Smith in a panel discussion at the recent Beet.TV Retreat […]