Sneak Preview: Will Programmatic Advertising Overtake Brand Advertising in 2025?
On Thursday, February 27, Alan Wolk, one of the industry's most influential thought leaders, will moderate the Streaming Media Connect debate "Will Programmatic Advertising Overtake Brand Advertising in 2025?"
The ability of digital media advertisers to deliver targeted messages through automated platforms—aka programmatic advertising—has enabled them to buy audiences, rather than space or time as in traditional brand advertising. In streaming and CTV, this creates the potential for substantially lower CPMs. But such a hands-off approach also raises considerable brand safety concerns, and its effectiveness remains comparatively untested. So, is the programmatic ad revolution really upon us?
Confirmed debate panelists include:
Alan Wolk, a much sought-after writer, speaker, and consultant, has established himself as one of the industry's most influential thought leaders. By focusing on the intersection of streaming and advertising, Wolk—who coined the acronym FAST (free ad-supported streaming TV) and his TVREV colleagues have helped make the firm one of the media industry’s go-to resources as it attempts to process the changes brought about by the shift to streaming.
"The move to contextual targeting will solve a world of hurt around programmatic ad buying on CTV, which is why we are so bullish on it," Wolk says. "By putting in contextual keywords, you can avoid everything from brand inappropriate content to your funny ad showing up during the break-up scene."
Charlie Goodman is the Head of Supply Side Ad Platform at Roku. "At Roku (and through Roku Exchange), we are a huge believer in programmatic-led CTV advertising," he says. "Most advertisers should be planning and executing multi-channel campaigns, and the best way to bid on the right user, in the right moment, holistically is through programmatic capabilities. It’s our job to surface these opportunities in such a way that it drives a meaningful connection in the moment. In 2025, programmatic will continue to overtake managed campaigns, and it’s for the betterment of advertiser campaigns.”
As VP, US Sales for Vevo, Melissa Sofo leads the network's direct sales team in the U.S., with a focus on CTV strategy, partnerships, and revenue. Melissa is a media industry leader in linear and digital advertising, experienced in leveraging a large portfolio of media properties, data-driven audiences, the streaming ecosystem and branded content deals to address changing consumer behaviors and technology shifts in the marketplace. Prior to Vevo, Melissa held sales roles at Warner Bros. Discovery, WarnerMedia, and Turner.
"At Vevo, we offer advertisers every possibility to seamlessly transact, and we believe there is space for both programmatic and direct deals on CTV," Sofo says. "There’s no denying the continued growth in programmatic – the ability to gain greater flexibility and transparency in advertising investments has proven incredibly valuable, especially as campaign optimization technologies continue to evolve. Simultaneously, we’re still seeing sustained confidence in direct deals as well – underscoring the importance of trusted, one-to-one partner relationships with premium media owners. Our network allows buyers to choose the way they invest, prioritizing what matters most – the content.
"We’ve seen the definition of premium content evolve over the past few years, exacerbated by the growth in streaming and digital video. Take YouTube, for example, which has seen significant growth across critical aspects of its business – from increased transparency to its sheer volume of premium content available today. There’s a desire from marketers to tie these two aspects together – and it’s become a vital component of full-funnel advertising strategies. The next phase here will come down to measurement standardization across the entire digital advertising ecosystem. At the end of the day, advertisers want to create meaningful, long-lasting connections with their audiences based on the KPIs that work for their businesses."
Aulden Kaye Yi is Head of Advertising Partnerships at Philo, contributing to Philo's current and future advertising strategy. She works closely with Philo's top-tier demand partners to drive innovation and visibility for Philo's advertising capabilities, with a focus on delivering best-in-class programmatic solutions within Philo's premium OTT environment.
"From our perspective, programmatic is an automated activation method, but it does not define the marketing goal," Yi says. "In CTV, where inventory is fragmented across many publishers and platforms, programmatic streamlines the buying process and provides tools to scale across the ecosystem in a way that is not possible through traditional buying methodologies. Brand and performance campaigns can and should both be executed programmatically leveraging different setups and KPIs, whether optimizing for incremental reach and awareness or lower-funnel action."
Laura Florence brings nearly 20 years of experience in the entertainment industry to her current position as SVP, Global Channels at Fremantle. In this role, Laura oversees the Fremantle flagship U.S. game show network BUZZR, in addition to all channel offerings across major streaming platforms globally featuring classic Fremantle series such as The Price Is Right, Family Feud, Baywatch, Jamie Oliver and more.
"Fremantle’s content is largely family-friendly and consistently meets the highest standards, ensuring a trustworthy and brand-safe environment for our partners and advertisers," Florence said. "Programmatic advertising has been a key component of CTV since its inception, and it will continue to grow as an effective, results-driven way for advertisers to connect with their audiences. Programmatic is not just automation; it’s a powerful tool used by brands, agencies, and tech partners to enhance targeting, optimize campaigns, and deliver measurable results with precision and efficiency."
Register now for Streaming Media Connect 2025!
Related Articles
Wednesday, February 26, leading industry expert Brian Ring will moderate the Streaming Media Connect panel "LLMs on Air: Gen AI Use Cases for News, Sports, and Entertainment." Large language models (LLMs) are making inroads everywhere in the streaming world. As a text-generating subset of Gen AI that stands apart from audio and video creation but is nonetheless having a significant impact on how broadcasters deliver content and how viewers experience it, how will these LLMs get commoditized? This expert panel addresses a host of issues around LLMs and streaming, from aggressive data scraping to metadata-driven discovery and more. Confirmed panelists include experts from Sinclair, Play Anywhere, and evision.
14 Feb 2025
On Thursday, February 27, Mark Loughney, Senior Consultant, Hub Entertainment Research, will moderate the Streaming Media Connect panel "OS Wars: The New CTV Playing Field." From live linear to FAST, AVOD, and all flavors of free streaming, how are the OEM and OS wars transforming the way TV is distributed and monetized? As the global battle for TV interface dominance persists, and powerhouse OEMs increasingly assert their role as content gatekeeper, are we moving toward a closed society when it comes to CTV? Confirmed panelists include experts from Revry, Hartbeat, Shout! Factory, and Whale TV.
10 Feb 2025
On Thursday, February 27, leading industry consultant Brian Ring will moderate the Streaming Media Connect panel "FAST Forward: How FAST Platform and Infrastructure Providers Can Better Serve the Market." As with any other type of streaming delivery, FAST needs to "just work" to support publishers' monetization goals, but that's nowhere as simple as it sounds. This panel examines essential infrastructure challenges and key emerging strategies for better FAST delivery. Join us to learn about manifest manipulation vs. encoded playout; optimizing and maximizing "Be Right Back" slots as in-house inventory; using GenAI to program the channel; solving the context/genre madness with LLMs and captions; advanced graphics for background, tune-in, and monetization; QR code execution, a must-have skillset; and how to execute picture-in-picture content programming. Confirmed panelists include experts from A+E, Plex, Revry, and Freemantle.
10 Feb 2025
With a potential TikTok ban still looming and platforms competing for relevance, one big question looms for brands: where should their content go next? Joe Perello, founder and CEO of Props, believes brand content will break free from mobile and desktop confines to take over connected TV as the next big stage. In this Q&A, Joe discusses how brands can redefine success by creating engaging, trust-driven content that works in the living room.
05 Feb 2025
On Thursday, February 27, Chris Pfaff, the leading new media and technology producer and strategist, will moderate the Streaming Media Connect panel " App, Crackle, Pop: What a Video App Really Needs." What makes streaming apps pop? Support across multiple platforms is a critical feature, of course. But when it comes to building sound, seamless, and satisfying user experiences, what are streaming users really asking for? How are expectations changing in the age of AI and in an increasingly fragmented consumer streaming market? Confirmed panelists include experts from Plex, Crunchyroll, and Tubi.
30 Jan 2025
Comscore's State of Programmatic 2025 offers survey-based data that reveals where advertising budgets are going in 2025 (think CTV), how quickly marketers are turning to cookie-free (48% cookie-free by the end of 2025), and what CTV ads do well (branding) and not so well (performance). It's a free download and well worth your time to retrieve and digest.
28 Jan 2025
How will ad tech and ad experiences evolve for large-scale live sports streams in 2025? Is current architecture up to the challenge? Expert opinions vary dramatically, as we learn in this heated debate Streaming Media Connect featuring Paramount's Jarred Wilichinsky, Victory+'s Narendra Nag, Index Exchange's Rob Hazan, and FanServ's C.J. Leonard.
26 Jan 2025
FreeWheel is ready to support a streaming marathon for this summer's Paris Olympics, enabling programmatic buying for the first time for targeted ad-serving. Here's what this means for FreeWheel, NBCUniversal, advertisers, and premium sports streaming.
22 Jul 2024
What are some of the best approaches for advertising strategies that incorporate both direct and programmatic partnerships, and how can advertisers looking to expand their reach best optimize the rising trend of co-viewing experiences? Jennifer D'Alessandro, Head of Ad Sales and Marketing at Future Today, a leading CTV monetization solutions provider, provided some key insights into these current trends in the streaming marketplace.
29 Jan 2024