Dave Antonelli: The Sling Shot Series

Antonelli Sling TV39s newish Head of Ad Strategy and Revenue worked at Viacom when the potential of streaming video was still being exploredamp160 He then joined a mobile data platform and most recently was Chief Revenue Officer for Cognitiv an advanced machine learning companyamp160 He has only been at Sling since April but already sees that the world of overthetop OTT streaming is at an inflection pointThe appeal of Sling for Antonelli was that it has the backing of a more traditional TV distributor with the culture of a startupamp160 Their OTT success using this model has been welldocumented Sling was the first OTT provider to offer its ad inventory programmaticallyamp160 The product is constantly offering new channel packages and subscribership is still growing steadily with 242 million as of FebruaryThese are all good things but Antonelli and his team are ready to push even furtheramp160 quotWe39re at this moment where Sling has led the way in the space but it continues to evolve and that presents a ton of new opportunitiesquot he saysamp160 Those new opportunities include among many other initiatives expanding live dynamic ad insertion DAI the process by which software places specific ads in different programming based on customizable factors like location or time of dayamp160 This is not as simple as flipping some kind of switchamp160 quotThere39s a lot of technical heavy lifting that goes into building that kind of functionalityquot Antonelli saysamp160 But Sling39s early efforts have put it in good stead and it now has more than 90 channels that support this kind of functionality maintaining its leadership positionSling has also led the way with audience targeting and measurement and currently works with over 20 data vendors enabling both targeting and campaign measurement based on its firstparty dataamp160 Sling offers myriad attribution solutions to advertising clients who each may have very different measurements of successamp160 Think quotthe person who saw the ad visited the storequot versus quotthe person watched all of the adquotamp160 Ultimately this also leads to what every ad buyer clamors for transparent and actionable results as well as attribution the Holy Grail of ad salesOTT and DAI are new territories for the entire industry which is why Antonelli believes education is crucial at this particular inflection pointamp160 Some of the conversations Antonelli has with clients remind him of the earliest days of digital when buyers were trying to understand the unique benefits of a thennew medium and how to incorporate it into their larger buysOne of the points of education Antonelli likes to talk about is the term quotOTTquot itselfamp160 quotIt39s important to be precise when talking about the spacequot he saysamp160 quotThere are different types all acronyms of course AVOD SVOD TVOD live TV like Sling etc but they39re very different from each other and each with unique benefits to consumers and brandsquotamp160 He believes quotthe future isn39t going to go in only one directionquot which is why each brand should have a comprehensive TV strategy that encompasses all types of opportunitiesFlexibility is key in this dynamic and fastchanging industryamp160 Antonelli believes that this is perhaps the biggest key to Sling39s continued successamp160 amp160The team has adopted an extremely flexible approach to meeting advertisers39 needs as they develop their ad offerings and platformsamp160 That flexibility Antonelli says goes handinhand with curiosityamp160 In ad sales in order to be flexibleamp160you need to know what exactly your clients and partners are looking for what they needquotIn our industry you have to keep adapting to client needs and challenging assumptionsquot Antonelli saysamp160 quotYou have to continue to evolvequotStay tuned for the next installment of Dave39s Sling Shots Series to learn more about the world of OTTClick the social buttons above or below to share this story with your friends and colleaguesThe opinions and points of view expressed in this content are exclusively the views of the author andor subjects and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaVillagecomMyersBizNet Inc management or associated writers If you no longer wish to receive updates from DISH please click here

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Dave Antonelli: The Sling Shot Series

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Dave Antonelli: The Sling Shot Series

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