Steve Ellwanger

Using data to inform consumer advertising targeting decisions without breakthrough creative is a waste of time, but bringing the two together is “pure magic,” according to the managing director of the Nielsen Marketing Cloud. Mark Zagorski is about to find out just how magical data-driven creative can be, as he’s been selected to be a […]

In Hulu’s worldview, viewers don’t necessarily universally dislike advertising. You just have to be smart with your commercial load, give them a value proposition with regard to ads and let them choose for themselves. “I think restraint is a good business model when it comes to advertising load,” says Peter Naylor, the company’s SVP of […]

While addressable television advertising has added complexity to a heretofore “frictionless” environment, the Magna Global media unit of IPG believes it’s worth the incremental costs. “Addressable television is clearly the future,” David Cohen, President of Magna Global North America, says in an interview with Beet.TV. Many people on the media-buying side typically cite such consumer […]

Doing more with less has long been a corporate mantra. Fox TV hopes to bring this concept to television with consumer-selected immersive and interactive ads and, in the process, “reset” the relationship between consumers and advertising. “We call them engagement ads because we know people are engaged with them, which I believe is the goal […]

The emergence of data-driven media decisions mirrors an ongoing shift within media agencies as they evolve from channel experts to audience experts. Meanwhile, the Cannes advertising festival continues to morph beyond a celebration of advertising creativity. “Over the last couple of years it’s really become much more than that,” observes Doug Ray, CEO of media […]

Noting that video advertising environments like Facebook and Snapchat were “sort of the belle of the ball” at Cannes last year, GroupM’s Rob Norman has a whimsical suggestion for the 2016 festival. Let entries be judged on small, hand-held screens. “Maybe everyone should be given a cell phone and made to consume all of the […]

Although the company’s Total Audience Measurement data won’t be a factor this year at the Cannes advertising awards, Nielsen expects to hear more conversations about performance metrics and their use in judging awards entries. This is not to say that things like great creative, direction and cinematography have been pushed to the background, according to […]

While rarely a month goes by without headlines trumpeting the decline of traditional television networks and their programming, count as a decided naysayer Colin Kinsella, who recently took over as President of Havas Media North America. On the heels of the 2016 Upfront TV negotiating season, “I think this year feels like the return of […]

LONDON — What do convincing men in India to share laundry duty and selling premium headphones and speakers have in common? To MediaCom, they were opportunities to leverage technology and consumer data to inform both creative executions and content creation for major brands. In the walkup to the Cannes advertising awards celebration later this month, […]

Describing her company’s approach to choosing audience channels for its creative messages as “almost peripatetic,” GE Chief Marketing Officer Linda Boff predicts that media technology will become commoditized but never breakthrough creative. Having sold off most of its financial services holdings, the GE brand is now about energy, health and transportation and becoming a “digital […]

LONDON — With more than 50% of set-top television devices in the United Kingdom capable of delivering addressable advertising, clients of GroupM are excited because addressable provides more niche targeting and reduces dependence on panels for audience measurement. “We have to a little bit careful we don’t think we will change the world in one […]

Consumers have come to expect brands to entertain them as much as Hollywood does. The best way to accomplish that is to shock them—not for shock value itself but to shock them “in amazement,” says GE’s Chief Creative Officer. Andy Goldberg believes that when it comes to creating content, nothing is off the table these […]

In its first-ever trials of cross-screen addressable advertising for television and mobile devices, AT&T AdWorks  saw “tremendous” results tied to various key performance indicators for Walmart, a luxury automaker—and itself. “We ate our own dog food,” VP of Marketing Maria Mandel Dunsche says in an interview with Beet.TV. That’s a reference to the company’s experiment with Opera […]

Whereas traditional media optimization has focused on who an ad is delivered to, dynamic creative optimization (DCO) is the how and what you show them, according to one of its big proponents, David J. Moore, chairman of WPP unit Xaxis. “Once you add that component to a digital campaign, the results are nothing short of […]

What keeps the Senior Vice President of Media at Bank of America up at night isn’t the fear of digital advertising fraud, transparency or viewability. It’s ad blocking, and Lou Paskalis says a main conversation at this year’s Cannes advertising confab must address a different approach to engaging with consumers. Ad blocking, Paskalis says in […]

As he walks the halls of the Palais des Festivals convention center at Cannes, Kris Magel hopes “to be inspired” by examples of how data are informing the best advertising work in the world. As opposed to simply meeting with other executives who also have traveled to France for the annual creative pilgrimage, “I’m going […]

When Craig Atkinson talks about the contributions of data and creativity to advertising that is most effective in engaging consumers, he thinks in terms of Taoism, while some people perceive a struggle between the two. “I think the reality is they have to work in a yin and yang kind of approach,” Atkinson, Chief Investment […]

When people begin to equate digital video and television targeting to a hit Hollywood movie and things like “sabermetrics,” we know that things have changed in the TV world. To Scott Ferber, Chairman and CEO of Videology, the software provider for converged TV and video advertising, being able to integrate Nielsen data with information about […]

While brand marketers are thinking about addressable television advertising in a variety of ways, one thing is consistent: the desire to measure an increase in return on investment for their TV spending. “There has to be some ability for them to measure back the value of that TV investment” via media mix modeling or other […]

Having long said goodbye to digital and television media buys based purely on age/sex demographics, the more pertinent parameters are now passion and partnerships. So says the president of U.S. operations for Initiative, the media strategy and investment unit of Interpublic Group. “I don’t think we’ve made a decision about linear TV buying or digital buying […]