MIAMI – Viewers are way ahead of the television and video ecosystem, which remains siloed in some quarters. But there’s an inevitable shift happening that will culminate in both a unified currency and inventory pool.
With over-the-top and set-top box viewing at about 50%, the big TV screen still accounts for four out of five hours daily. But shifting viewing habits pose challenges for buyers and marketers, according to Herve Brunet, GM, FreeWheel Markets.
“We still plan in a very siloed fashion,” Brunet says in this interview at the recent Beet Retreat Miami 2017. “We have planning processes for TV and planning processes for digital video.”
A single inventory pool would make things a lot easier.
“You can do things like de-duplicated reach, you can do frequency capping across linear TV and digital devices,” Brunet says.
A typical example would be someone watching a program on linear TV who can then be targeted with ads on an OTT device, which is connected to the same TV set.
“And we actually know that we’ve been targeting you twice. One time in a linear fashion and one time in an OTT fashion. So that’s a real value for the marketer.”
On the matter of currencies, transacting on a mix of gross rating points and impressions holds back progress in unifying inventory pools.
“As the TV world evolves more toward like digital decisioning, it’s going to evolve into an impression-based world. It’s going to be easier to unify the currency towards probably an impression-based currency or unit-based currency,” Brunet adds.
Asked about the evolution of the Comcast Advanced Advertising group, which includes FreeWheel, Brunet talks about helping to transform linear TV and digital video into one industry.
“I think the only way to make this industry work is look at the entire value chain, from the viewer to the marketer. And I think that’s exactly what we’re trying to address as a group.”
This video was produced at the Beet Retreat Miami, 2017 presented by Videology along with Alphonso and 605. For more videos from the event, please visit this page.
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