AWNY: Streaming's Strategic Advantage
Marketers are reconsidering how to capture attention and provide significant outcomes as consumers shift to streaming platforms. At this year's Advertising Week New York, Reed Kiely, Director, Data Insights & Trends, VAB, moderated the panel Streaming’s Strategic Advantage: Precision. Scale. Results. The panelists in attendance were:
- Brian Danzis, Chief Revenue Officer, Seedtag
- Ken Barbieri, Managing Director & SVP, Media & Marketing, Affinity Solutions
- Peter Jones, VP of Revenue, Premion
- Lauren Chaplin, SVP, Media Investment, Digitas
The panelists discussed how streaming provides a premium setting for brand storytelling, contextual relevance, data-driven accuracy, and scale. They talked about how top businesses use streaming's special advantages to influence customer behavior throughout the funnel, balance performance and brand equity, and leave a lasting impression in a cutthroat media environment.
How streaming differentiates itself from linear TV
Kiely started off the discussion by asking the panelists how streaming differentiates itself from linear TV in today's media landscape.
Barbieri said, “With linear TV, it has a very broad reach, but with streaming, you obviously can do much more granular things, whether measurement or targeting, given the amount of data and connectivity. But I think also on the creative front, there are so many more advertising treatments and creative types that you can leverage to do a better job interacting with consumers. We're just really at a nascent stage. I feel like even though streaming has been around for ten or so years, it really seems like it's just starting from an advertising perspective.”
Chaplin gave her viewpoint from a buyer’s perspective. “I've sat on the agency side my entire career, and I started in traditional linear television,” she said. “Seeing the streaming migration and how much we could do with CTV, that it’s not just a linear replacement, is exciting to me. But there is still an idea of how to capture that appointment television [approach], and I think it's just looking at it a little bit differently, but in the same mindset as we've always seen on the big screen TV in the house.”
Danzis noted that streaming accelerated what cable was already doing in the 1990s in terms of diversifying content, with “super stations” such as the USA Network, along with music, television, and cooking networks. “[Streaming] has just given the consumer unprecedented choice and decision-making capabilities and personalization. Even if you don't watch TV, you can put the fireplace channel on and read a book. And I think that just underscores why contextual is so important to connect those pieces of content and find people in what they truly enjoy.”
Jones added that for digital marketers, streaming “makes TV part of that full funnel. It used to just be awareness at the top. Now it's like a digital campaign. You have all these other different KPIs that you can leverage. You can drive outcomes, so you get to include it in your omnichannel media plan. It's much more tactical.”
The importance of contextual advertising, integration of AI, and the use of consumer purchase data
Kiely added that contextual advertising is also an exciting and useful element of streaming, along with the amazing variety of content available.
Danzis said, “I think there's a reason why contextual advertising is enjoying a sustained renaissance right now, and that's because it cuts through and captures the essence of who we are and what brings us joy. Advertising done right is organically relevant and can energize our values and reinforce beliefs, forming a stronger connection and ultimately driving what an advertiser wants, which is action.”
Kiely joked about the ubiquitousness of AI discussion during this year’s Advertising Week New York, noting that its frequent mentions could work all too well as a bingo or a drinking game. He asked the group to elaborate further on their thoughts regarding AI.
Chaplin discussed the unique ways that Digitas is encompassing AI into its operations. “The exciting piece about AI is digging into the front end for us, that planning, that targeting, unpacking things that maybe we don't know, we haven't learned from our use cases we have for performance at Digitas,” she said. “We'd love to create AI agents, and we front-end all the information and briefings we have. Then, we just start pummeling it with questions like, What would you do in this scenario? What happens if this retailer closes? How do I find that consumer? And we start to build these new audiences and exciting opportunities for our clients. And to me, that's where much of that excitement comes from.”
Barbieri explained what AI means to Affinity and how they have been working with it. “I'd say AI comes into play in two ways. For a long time, given the volume of data we handle, we've been using machine learning models, and probably some element of AI that just wasn't called that at the time, because you have to collate and transform that data and make it meaningful. So we've been doing that for a long time. I think what's exciting in terms of what the future holds is that we have a number of partners who are looking at our data, and we're working with them to think about the consumer journey in terms of consumer purchase behavior. And so you can think about AI as building better predictions about what people are going to do next, and I think that's kind of really the next frontier, as retail media networks are the big buzz out there. So, understanding past behavior and what it may indicate about future intent, I think, will be very, very valuable.”
Kiely also mentioned the vast amounts of consumer purchase data that CTV garners: “There are so many signals, there's so much data across the board, so it's more important than ever.” He asked Barbieri, “How does the consumer purchase data help fuel the bottom funnel outcomes like sales?”
“Our new tagline [at Affinity] is actually ‘we are what happens’. What we mean by that is that historically, there have been a lot of proxy metrics for measuring consumer intended behavior, whether that's clicks or conversions or even location-based things. So, we capture the consumer card swipe or transaction at the point of sale. And I think that's so important, one, because there's no guessing about it, this is what people actually did. And as we know with consumer behavior, they don't always do what they say. I think it's powerful in that regard. The accuracy of the data we provide when fed back into planning, targeting activation, and even measurement is very accurate and helps us understand consumer intent and what happened very clearly.”
The challenges of data privacy and fragmentation in the streaming landscape
Kiely mentioned the mounting challenges of data privacy. “It's hard for marketers and platforms,” he said. “These consumer data protections are not only becoming more prevalent, but they're also becoming more complex.” He asked the panelists to discuss their thoughts on this issue and how their organizations approach it.
Barbieri said at Affinity, “We get our data by running loyalty programs for financial institutions. So we've been dealing with regulated data for over 20 years, which has its own challenges and something we take very seriously. As it relates to our space, digital advertising and streaming television, there are a lot of evolving privacy standards and compliance issues, as we're all aware. We were an early adopter in clean rooms, so we've been working with Snowflake for several years now as a flagship early partner. We've built some really interesting technology there. We have a few clients that are adopting it, but I think many more need to.”
Jones noted that Premion has partnered with Affinity before on clients, and he said that it is essential to ask, “[What is] the methodology behind your measurement, or are you using clean rooms? I always say we're not grading our own homework, so don't take our word for it. We're not taking your data. We're leveraging a clean room to basically measure it and check the work that we're doing.”
Key takeaways for brands and agencies that incorporate streaming into their video campaigns
Kiely wrapped up the talk by asking the group to provide some key takeaways for brands and agencies with streaming as part of their video campaigns.
Jones said to remain agnostic, and to have inventory, data, and measurement as the three agenda items for any media strategy.
Barbieri declared, “Lean into these tools at your disposal for data and measurement in AI. All these things will help improve efficiency and drive more value over time.”
“For me, it's test and learn,” Chaplin said. “Don't be scared to put a test campaign out there. Don't be afraid to lean on a new partner for that closed-loop measurement. And really, we're still in a space of innovating, so we need to continue testing.”
Danzis said, “Don't target the person; target the interest, right? Break down the stereotypes, the labels, the bucketing of people in places. Generally, you're inaccurate anyway. So target people and what they care about, and that will have the greatest impact.”
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