Crown Media's Casey Gould, Senior Vice President, Ad Sales and Advanced Advertising and Tom Ziangas, Senior Vice President Revenue and Strategic Research are a formidable team. Gould (above left) is responsible for securing advertising and integrated marketing partnerships and enhancing the company's position in the marketplace while Ziangas (above right), with his extensive research background, supports these efforts with long- and short-term research strategies and data-driven insights that drive revenue. As the Upfront approaches, our Charlene Weisler poses a few key questions.
Charlene Weisler: What is new in the ad sales space at Crown Media?
Casey Gould: Crown Media's Advanced Advertising unit is breaking new ground and gaining momentum as it strikes new audience-targeted deals with several advertisers in multiple categories across our linear platforms. In an effort to meet clients' evolving needs, we offer new solutions that unlock even more value in our audience, an advantage brands have long sought. We are incredibly excited to work with new and existing partners in innovative ways that drive their business forward.
Tom Ziangas: We are working to better understand the value we offer our advertisers and working with iSpot TV-attention metrics, which provides our advertisers with quantitative data that show our audience engagement levels with their brands. [iSpot measures creative effectiveness, impressions, performance and second-by-second attention of TV ads.]
Weisler: What is the value proposition?
Gould: Well, let's start with our amazing brand and the fact that [Hallmark has] clocked in as the No. 1 entertainment cable network across multiple key demos in fourth quarter for many years in a row. We have always known that our platforms offer our advertising partners unparalleled access to a powerful and valuable audience.
Now, through our partnerships with data-driven linear platforms like Xandr [a data-enabled technology platform powering a global marketplace for premium advertising] and OpenAP [a consortium of major media companies dedicated to advancing audience-based campaigns], it has become even more evident that our audience drives results for our partners, ultimately elevating our overall value proposition.
Tapping into advanced audience insights enables our partners to more thoughtfully home in on the exact targets they are looking to reach with their commercial messages. And while that reach is critically important, it's also vital to remember the environment. Crown Media offers a reliably safe and positive space for our partners to engage with our audience.
Ziangas: As Casey says, a main point of distinction for Crown Media is that we are the leader in holiday programming -- the gold standard that all other networks attempt to replicate. Research shows that our networks are also highly successful beyond holiday, delivering large audiences to our advertisers all year long. This reach allows us to tap into the micro-targeted segments they want to reach.
Weisler: What are some recent successes or achievements?
Gould: We are particularly excited about early successes in this space with partners in the automotive, telcom, insurance and pharmaceutical categories. The breadth of these categories is indicative of the spending power of our viewers, regardless of age and gender, and we believe there is even more potential to unlock within our audience.
Weisler: What's on the horizon for Crown Media's Advanced Advertising efforts?
Gould: Our primary focus is listening to our partners to understand their objectives. Knowing what they wish to accomplish allows us to develop solutions that meet and fulfill those goals. We're excited to have these conversations with our traditional partners, as well as with newer brands and agencies that are really leaning into this space. As the industry continues to evolve, Crown Media will be there with ad products and measurement solutions that meet the needs of our partners and give them access to our unrivaled storytelling and the powerful audience it draws.
Ziangas: Harnessing the power of national addressable advertising, we are working with and participating in the Roku Addressable pilot [a streaming service that has introduced dynamic linear ad insertion], which offers our advertisers the opportunity to further target their brand and message to the appropriate audiences across Crown Media.
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