Collaboration among the sell side of TV advertising has catalyzed innovation - now it's time for the buyside to respond.

That was the consensus coming out of the Buyer Perspective panel at TV's Advanced Advertising Summit at Cannes Lions 2022. The panel featured Katie Klein, chief investment officer at PHD US; Jay Askinasi, chief growth officer at Publicis Groupe; Doug Rozen, CEO of dentsu Media - Americas; Jonathan Schaaf, global chief investment officer at Stagwell Media Network; and was moderated by Joanna O'Connell, VP, principal analyst at Forrester.

Watch the full conversation above.

Looking at [measurement] alternatives is very important, but we do all need to come together to set that new standard.
- Katie Klein

There's been a lot of progress on interoperability between buyer and seller tools, which have accelerated new innovations in advanced TV that have benefitted both parties. But, there hasn't been much momentum for interoperability among the buyside. "If you look at what each of [the agencies] are doing with each of [the publishers], it's fantastic," Rozen said. "I think collectively [the buyside is] moving things forward, but we're doing so on a one-by-one basis...instead of having individual efforts, how do we come together more to drive greater consistency and fluidity and commonality?"

Speaking of consistency, our panelists agreed that consistency is still paramount to how advertising is measured and transacted. "Despite the challenges with the legacy way we've been doing business, the consistency is important," Klein pointed out. "We don't buy just one partner, and it's important that we have that consistent look at [measurement] data, the ability to compare and contrast, the ability to have consistent benchmarks." Askinasi agreed, emphasizing that for brands, the ultimate goal is to bring the addressability of digital across all platforms for consistent cross-platform targeting and measurement.

Brands really want that one-to-one addressability, whether it's linear, streaming audio, or digital, and the ability to do it consistently.
- Jay Askinasi

Despite the improvements in new currencies and ways of transacting, there is significant progress to be made to better align media buys with business outcomes. "We've been making buying decisions for decades based on imperfect data and information," said Schaaf. "We need to get to that point where data is driving our insights, driving our purchase decisions and driving the value chain."

We need to get to that point where data is driving our insights, driving our purchase decisions and driving the value chain.
- Jon Schaaf

What data are advertisers eager to look to as the metric of value? According to Rozen, it comes down to attention. "If we could trade on 'did a consumer see an ad and do something with that ad?'" he pondered. "We're all doing a lot of work around attention understanding and eye tracking, but we have to then do that across multiple formats. So for us, we're really focused on the value of attention."

We need to race towards understanding the value of attention and how attention leads to business metrics. Viewability and impressions are not sustainable metrics.
- Doug Rozen