Years after "converged TV" became the industry's biggest buzzword—we finally have the interoperability needed to make holistic media buying a reality.
The panel on Making Exposure Data Actionable at TV's Advanced Advertising Summit at Cannes Lions 2022 discussed the convergence of linear and digital, the role programmatic plays, and how marketers can leverage new technologies to plan, execute and measure campaigns holistically. The panel, moderated by OpenAP Chief Business Officer Chris LoRusso, featured Valerie Bischak, general manager and head of growth at Amobee; Doug Hurd, head of corporate strategy and business development at Xandr; Matt McLeggon, SVP, advanced solutions at Magnite.
Watch the full conversation above.
What is exciting now is that the budgets and the lines [between linear and digital] are blurring and finally this notion of convergence is happening. You can start a campaign with an advanced audience target in linear and extend that into digital, or digital into linear.
- Doug Hurd
Converged TV has been a long time coming—our panelists were around for many years of its history—and the road to it has seen many incredible, industry-defining innovations, like the emergence of data-driven linear. Along the way, TV has become more precise, to the point where convergence is finally possible.
But why now? "We've been saying the word 'convergence' in ad tech since... like, 2010," McLeggon recalled. "We're now at a place where it's real." It's because we finally have an open and interoperable ecosystem in which buyers can bring their own DMP or their choice of measurement provider. This level of choice in the market has allowed Magnite, and others, to begin serving linear ads programmatically, McLeggon explained.
Today media owners and buyers, they want to consider programmatic holistically. It's less about the execution type, it's more about 'how do I consider everything together and increase yield?'
- Matt McLeggon
While the pandemic and the subsequent rush to streaming video content accelerated convergence, linear and digital—particularly media budgets for each—still remain siloed in many ways. There's still a need for more convergence and innovation in video advertising. While there is room to grow, "what we are trying to do is, for buyers and sellers, give you a unified way to plan, forecast, measure and execute against both environments," McLeggon said.
We talk a lot about TV becoming more programmatic. I'm not sure we spend as much time talking about what right now I see in the future: digital becoming a bit more like TV.
- Valerie Bischak
Early adopters of CTV often did so to realize the best of both worlds: the scale of linear with the precision of digital. That left buyers and holding companies with some critical questions: "'Help us understand waste, help us understand duplication, help us understand overlap,'" Bischak recalled. Understanding buyer questions and concerns allowed media sellers to evolve the conversation from efficiency to effectiveness, Bischak explained. Despite the premium price, CTV has become much more effective, she said.
Where is the conversation going next? Now that marketers have gotten smarter about using data and technology to buy across unified video environments, they are caring more about brands, premium, context and content. "The magic really happens when [they] combine data, technology and premium," Bischak stated.