ben winkler

ORLANDO — By now, most people understand that “native advertising” means an ad unit presented in a seamless way that fits both the aesthetic and the experience of the container channel. But how can “native” work in TV when the content, by definition, changes on a second-by-second basis? In this video interview with Beet.TV at […]

The 2018 television Upfront “is a marketplace with more moving parts than ever,” says media agency veteran Chris Geraci. Still, the age-old dynamics between supply and demand for linear TV advertising inventory endure. Overall, this year’s Upfront is “not all that different from a marketplace that’s reflective of a relatively healthy economic backdrop,” Geraci, who […]

It took streaming video options and ad-free platforms to tip the scale, but the advertising industry has finally caught on to the importance of the viewer experience. “The big picture is that programmers are thinking today more about the user experience than they ever have before,” says OMD’s Ben Winkler, who will join a host […]

The season in which digital media publishers pitch their upcoming content roster to advertisers is in full-swing – but what do advertisers’ agencies hope to get out of this year’s Digital Content NewFronts? One agency exec says he is hoping to find a worthy rival to Google and Facebook, and proof that old-line publishers can […]

CANNES – NBCUniversal’s Symphony initiative keeps adding new players to its promotional ensemble, wherein all company units pull to together to promote a specific initiative. This year Symphony will benefit from NBCU’s partnerships with the likes of Apple News, BuzzFeed and Snapchat. Therein lies a paradox of sorts, given NBCU’s public bashing of some of […]

CANNES – OMD’s Chief Investment Officer welcomes a warming of the discourse between traditional TV content providers and their digital counterparts. Not only does it reflect reality, embracing both is the only way for advertisers to meet their business objectives, says Ben Winkler. In this interview with Beet.TV, Winkler mentions a conversation he had onstage […]

Brand safety up, virtual reality down. To Ben Winkler, these are the two biggest changes year-over-year in the magnitude of discourse at the Digital Content NewFronts. “I haven’t seen a single presentation that didn’t begin, have a middle and end with brand safety,” says the Chief Investment Officer at OMD. “I’ve seen the biggest rise […]

Pure programmatic buying of television ads in a real-time, automated fashion is not happening at any kind of scale today and probably won’t for a few years, according to the Chief Investment Officer for OMD USA. However, “A lot of the benefits from programmatic thinking are starting to come into the marketplace, mostly through the […]

It’s a world in which more data can be measured than ever before – and marketers are on the cusp of being able to thread them all together. But, just because they can’t quite yet, they shouldn’t be hard on themselves. That was the view of panelists convened at an industry discussion. “There are too many areas that […]

Yes; these days, brands are enthusiastically creating “content”, the material publishers used to call editorial, in a bid to blend in and influence consumers. But what is the real place of “content” in a marketer strategy? And are they prepared to to the next step – to create content that’s so good people would pay for it? […]

In a media world fast moving to a fragmented array of multi-screen consumption, advertisers are racing to measure holistic consumption – and the effect of multi-screen ads. But are they asking the right questions? OMD chief digital and innovation officer Ben Winkler doesn’t think so, and he’s got a better idea. Winkler says the history of online […]

The auto-playing video ads Facebook introduced a while back could make the social network $3.8 billion by 2017, a Nomura analyst recently forecast. So just how good is the new format, and what challenges remain? Ben Winkler, chief digital officer of ad agency OMD USA, says the ads were bound to be successful, given Facebook’s scale – […]