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At a Digital Content NewFronts where there was a plethora of new content distribution partnerships, ESPN was the rare standout. “One of the big things that we did announce was the fact that we had a big announcement, that we have no new distribution deals,” says Travis Howe, SVP, Platform Ad Sales Strategy, Solutions & […]

Snapchat’s joint venture with NBCUniversal on a new digital content studio is a sign that the media giant is “digging in deeper” with the popular imaging messaging application. “The joint venture is really sort of the next step in the evolution of the relationship with them,” says Aaron Radin, NBCU’s SVP of Partnerships & Portfolio […]

The fall of 2017 has been a big season of integrations for data science and media technology provider 4C Insights. First came its link to Mediaocean on the buy-side and shortly thereafter NBCUniversal on the sell-side. With NBCU making its television inventory available via application programming interfaces, “it was pretty natural for us to come […]

NBCUniversal’s self-service programmatic buying offering powered by 4C achieves a few milestones in the linear television world. Among the biggest is that advertisers will be using the same buying console that they already use to target audiences on major social media platforms ripe with video ad inventory. The deal with 4C “allows us to juxtapose […]

CANNES – For MEC, understanding the consumer purchase journey involves making waves and showing clients how their “momentum” stacks up against competitors. It’s a blend of data, content and technology—something that the Cannes Lions festival is catching up to, according to the global media agency’s Nathalie Haxby. “We’re seeing a lot of that now with […]

CANNES – So many video ad units and platforms, so many ways to attribute value to those units. “Trying to figure out the value of a video ad unit depending on where it runs seems to be one of our challenges as an industry,” says Shenan Reed, MEC’s Chief Digital Officer for North America. And […]

CANNES – In a world of seemingly endless video content choices, one thing is still missing: a better value exchange in which consumers realize that watching commercials might just be worth it. “I think it’s one of the things we’re kind of missing,” Dave Penski, CEO of Publicis Media Exchange Americas, says in this interview […]

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 […]

CANNES – Andrew Feigenson joined Nielsen Catalina Solutions about six months ago hoping that the ad industry was moving toward an outcomes-based approach to measuring success. So far, he hasn’t been disappointed. “From an advertiser perspective, we’re seeing a lot of that right now. Brands that are actually taking sales impact as a KPI and […]

Finding the right context for traditional television commercials and creating platform-specific creative are challenges and opportunities for brands and their agencies. When it comes to the latter, being screen agnostic is a plus, according to NBCUniversal’s Linda Yaccarino. “I think the creative agencies are wrestling with two things,” the media company’s Chairman of Advertising Sales […]

When MTV Networks alumni Judy McGrath and Nick Shore formed Astronauts Wanted in 2013, they certainly understood younger audiences. What has become a joint venture between McGrath and Sony Music Entertainment has a broadly defined audience of 16 to 30 but its “sweet spot” tops out at 24. Astronauts Wanted’s three main formats are premium […]

Given a multitude of digital content, some authentic some less so, POPSUGAR has hitched the credibility of its enterprise to emotion. “We believe that consumers can tell the difference between a Facebook growth-hacking, click-baity type of experience from of what is in POPSUGAR premium emotional storytelling,” says Global Chief Revenue Officer Geoff Schiller. While emotional […]

Conagra Brands is looking to partner on more content integrations this year. It’s one of the reasons why Media Manager Erica Hughes is at the Digital Content NewFronts and why the food giant has attended for the last four years. “We come here because we like to learn what the partners are doing in the […]

Best-selling author Andrew Davis has great disdain for MFOMO (Marketer Fear of Missing Out), CMO Pizza and the “marketing funnel.” He believes that if brands concentrated more on outcomes and not market share, they could avoid all three of these pitfalls. It was Davis, of Monumental Shift, who kicked off the recent Beet.TV Leadership Summit […]

Judging digital video campaigns based on the success metric of actual business outcomes can solve industry problems beyond calculating direct ROI, according to the CEO of video marketing technology provider Eyeview. “We’re trying to get brands, agencies and the ecosystem to move away from all this arbitrary proxy metrics of clicks and completions and demo […]

BARCELONA – As Turner continues to reinvent itself from the inside out, its Chairman and CEO sees the media giant becoming a “fan engagement company” to better monetize content. In this interview with Beet.TV at the Mobile World Congress, John Martin discusses Turner’s ongoing investments in data-enabling technology, partnerships with new distribution players and the […]

Faced with a “fast and furious” proliferation of digital advertising formats, agencies and marketers must contemplate less ad interruptions while figuring out how to give consumers what they really want. “Call that branded content, brand-created, something other than advertising,” says Zak Treuhaft, President of Omnicom’s Hearts & Science agency. Mobile in particular is characterized by […]

It’s become fashionable in some circles to say TV is dead, but perhaps the definition of TV is dead, says Scott Schiller, EVP and General Manager Ad Sales and Marketing at NBC Universal, in this interview with Beet.TV. Instead, NBCU is focused on showcasing to brand partners its multiplatform approach to marketing content, he says. The media giant has […]

CANNES –  Native advertising was very much part of the conversation at Cannes Lions with the BBC and others announcing ambitious initiatives.  One of the most talked about was the announcement of a joint venture between WPP, Snapchat and the Daily Mail around a native advertising initiative called Truffle Pig. At Cannes, we spoke with Rob […]