Attention and AI have been buzzword staples in conversations among adtech executives over the last year. But how does each impact content experiences audiences have in a web of platforms? Easy to understand, but growing harder and harder to amass amidst fragmented and rapidly changing viewership experiences.
To kick off this year’s Audience Summit at CES, moderator 3C Ventures’ Michael Kassan sat down with WndrCo’s Jeffrey Katzenberg and Human Ventures’s Joe Marchese to talk about the role attention, audiences and AI play in defining the future of video advertising.
Data may be the key ingredient in reaching today’s audiences, but chief above even data in the advertising equation is attention. Simply put, without attention, there is no audience to view an ad. You can have “all the data in the world, but if I don’t have your attention, I can’t tell you a story,” Marchese stated.
Attention matters, and is getting harder and harder to garner, no matter the format of the content. But that doesn’t mean format doesn’t matter–it certainly does–and it plays a critical role in defining when and where advertising is most effective.
“Long-form video is the gold standard for storytelling,” Marchese said. That applies to both content as well as advertising. Advertisers who wish to tell stories with their creatives will find long-form video audiences have the attention and appetite for longer, more engaging ads.
Long-form, professionally produced content is also the format that is the “safe place” for consumers, Katzenberg asserted, the format that’s not only the gold standard for storytelling but also the gold standard for reliability, quality and high standards, something important to consumers and advertisers alike.
Moderator Michael Kassan closed out the opening session by turning the conversation to AI–perhaps the biggest buzzword heard at this year’s CES. What role could AI play in TV advertising and how could it upend legacy media business models?
Our panelists are both optimistic about the opportunities AI will create for creators and platforms alike, and how AI will catalyze the next frontier in content.
“These new tools are actually what are going to enhance, empower and create the opportunity to create the new platform that will have a new form of content on it,” Katzenberg hypothesized.