Streaming Wars and Hard Change: A Dispatch from LA TV and Innovation Week

You might disagree given that the central theme of nearly every TV advertising conference is an exhortation to move forward move creative forward move measurement forward move towards a bright shiny addressable future No one in the industry thinks they are moving fast enough to keep pace with the economic and cultural changes of our worldJones39 poetic statement came during a panel on the difficulty of change led by MediaVillage39s own Jack Myers who gave voice to the frustration many in the room feel on a daily basis quotWe39re taking these neverending baby stepsquotMyers also pointed out that despite the need for a holistic approach the ad industry is still hopelessly siloed amp8212 an organizational relic from another time It39s a time in which as he said quotthere were reasons silos were more productivequotThat certainly isn39t the case anymore and yet the silos persist But other major shifts have indeed occurredThe rise of programmatic amp8212 and its adoption by much of the industry amp8212 is one such shift The other is a move toward managing attention Ben Jankowski Mastercard39s head of global media and the man rounding out Myers39 panel with Jones sees these two changes leading to two different ad marketplaces one primarily operated by machines and based on commodities and another that focuses on driving consumer experience and behaviorThis second marketplace will of course require reams of data But as USIM executive vice president Rob Jayson said in another panel quotIt39s important for us to think about the strategy first and data secondquot There39s danger Jayson added in relying only on what data tells you amp8212 how many people clicked on a website link how many leads an ad generated amp8212 instead of a mixture of creative and analytical thinkingThe change in perception when it comes to agency transparency is yet another hot topic On the one hand Jankowski told Myers quotyou would never say transparency is a bad ideaquot On the other hand Jones said quotif an agency takes a position in the marketplace and has that for you versus a 20 percent higher price in the scatter market do you care if you don39t know what the agency paid for itquotAnd then there39s the quotStreaming Warsquot amp8212 a conflict that has in fact spurred seismic change at companies such as Apple Amazon and every legacy media company Just hours before Myers39 panel Disney had launched Disney its stuffedtothegills streaming serviceWithin the first 24 hours Disney would rack up a user base of 10 million accounts Mike Margolin chief digital officer at LA ad agency RPA deemed Disney only the second streaming service to be a quotmusthavequot during a panel hosted by MediaVillage39s Jeff Minsky The first musthave streamer NetflixquotPeople voted for Netflixquot Margolin said quotThey chose not to have their content broken up by ad breaks It39s incredibly friendly to usersquotThat might seem a tad concerning to those who depend on buying and selling advertising for a living amp8212 Margolin included But advertising is eternal Adsupported streaming services AVOD in industry parlance such as Tubi are seeing consumers flock to them as they realize how much they39re paying for each of these streaming servicesTubi chief resource officer Mark Rotblat said its service is in fact the largest free adsupported entertainment app out there with 20 million monthly active users quotPeople don39t hate ads amp8212 they prefer free content with a light ad loadquot Rotblat addedBut even quotadfreequot Netflix is not actually free of brand marketing The most recent season of Stranger Things featured a significant partnership with CocaCola which briefly resurrected its New Coke as a tieinquotWe don39t know yet what future ad pods will look likequot Margolin said Maybe the 30second linear TV spot fades from prominence though it won39t likely disappear completely and brand integrations become the order of the dayThese kinds of deals though can get quite messy Dan Callahan head of audience for Fox pointed out quotDo the producers get the ad revenue or does Netflixquot he asked No one really knows complete transparency has never been an industry feature But lack of knowledge isn39t exactly conducive to a robust marketplaceAs with every other aspect of the TV ad business change is coming How hard will that change be Only time will tellClick the social buttons 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

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Streaming Wars and Hard Change: A Dispatch from LA TV and Innovation Week

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Oriana Schwindt

FEMA and the Ad Council Encourage AANHPI Communities to Enhance Disaster Preparedness in New PSAs - Ad Council InSites

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Streaming Wars and Hard Change: A Dispatch from LA TV and Innovation Week

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Oriana Schwindt

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