Now Streaming: The Evolution of CTV

I think one of the most intriguing shifts happening in brand advertising budgets is the reemergence of TV as a major player, specifically connected TV, or some call it advanced TV. We’re seeing crazy growth projections for connected TV in comparison to other advertising channels over the next few years. A May 2022 article written by Broadcasting & Cable, they state that connected TV is expected to feel strong growth in digital video advertising spend this year, according to a new outlook from the IAB. And while digital video ad spending is seen growing 26% to somewhere around 50 billion in 2022, CTV is expected to increase 39% to 21.1 billion. Kyle, what are your thoughts?

Kyle Hollaway:

Well, yeah, if you think about it, it makes perfect sense. With the acceleration of digital commerce brought on by the pandemic not only were more consumers forced to buy things on their devices, but they’re also spending more time consuming content on their smart TVs. If I’m an advertiser, the connected TV becomes another addressable screen that I can add to my digital toolbox. Used to target high propensity customers with precision, I no longer have to view TV as the old spray and pray channel. So the way people are consuming content has also changed. Rather than millions of people watching the same sitcom or sporting event at the same exact time, people now have complete control of that, streaming whatever content they want to watch, whenever they want to watch it, on whatever device they want to watch it, and sometimes flipping between devices. And so I can’t think about connected TV and streaming devices without thinking about Roku. So with that said, I’m super excited to introduce today’s guest, Ziggy Zografakis, Director of Partnerships at Roku. So Ziggy, welcome to the podcast.

Ziggy Zografakis:

Thanks for having me guys.

Kyle Hollaway:

Thanks for being here. So how about you give us a quick snapshot of your background and your role at Roku?

Ziggy Zografakis:

Sure, that sounds great. So quick background on me is I joined the AdTech world roughly eight or nine years ago. In 2014, I joined a mobile ad exchange. Many people listening may have heard of, called Nexage at the time, actually joined as the director of legal for the company when it was a Series B startup. I had gone to law school and practiced in New York for many years prior to moving up to Boston and then making the shift to the startup world, and sort of fell into AdTech as a result of that. But it made sense. I had been working in commodities and some other corporate functions as a lawyer, and joining the AdTech ecosystem and learning about the supply and demand, forces, and really working on the commercial side of that gave me that entry into it. And then from there was part of a few acquisitions, from Millennial Media to a AOL, and then eventually landed at Data Zoo where I led the partnerships team.

Fast-forward many years, or backwards about two and a half years from now, the acquisition by Roku brought me to Roku, where I’m a Director of Partnerships handling primarily our data infrastructure, our data vendor, and our measurement partnerships across the entire ad platform. So the experience with the acquisitions and the prior experience as a lawyer has been really instructive. In part because of being able to deal with the complexity of a growing channel, a growing new space in CTV, and having the experience with mobile.

Which many people sort of forget, that in 2013/2014, the mobile ecosystem was going through a similar thing with a fragmentation of operating systems, and signals, and identity, all of the different things that we’re talking about now. There’s a lot of sort of parallels and a lot of lessons that you can learn from that and so it’s really important. And from my perspective, I’m happy being at Roku. I’ve always been a huge fan of TV. I used to do my homework in front of the TV when I was a kid and get yelled at by my mom. And so it makes a lot of sense and I’m psyched to be here, so thank you for having me again.

Kyle Hollaway:

Yeah, no, thank you. And I think a new precedent for us, having an actual lawyer on the podcast.

Ziggy Zografakis:

Former.

Dustin Raney:

Yeah, that’s a first.

Ziggy Zografakis:

People say recovering and I’m like, “Well, I’m pretty recovered.” But yeah, for…

Kyle Hollaway:

There you go.

Ziggy Zografakis:

No, it lends a good perspective. It’s interesting, yeah.

Kyle Hollaway:

Yeah, it is interesting. So just leaning into that side of things as we dive in here, let’s talk about privacy as a key for Roku, because you are, interestingly enough, in people’s living room. That’s one of these differences that we’re seeing, is that you’re in their living rooms, you’re able to understand who they are because of the addressable nature of it. So what’s the philosophy underpinning Roku’s view of privacy and consent?

Ziggy Zografakis:

Yeah, I think it’s really important to really think about the history of Roku, because it’s really easy to look at where we are today and not really appreciate where Roku came from, and what brought us to this point, in a leadership position in the industry. And really Roku started in the early 2000s, as a platform for consumption of streaming and streaming television. And that platform is what drives us today, and so that relationship with the consumer, and with the customers that we have, was always the North Star. So when I joined Roku and learned about the culture and the history, that’s actually one thing that stuck out at me more than I anticipated, which is the platform itself and the company has been very intentional in the development of features, and the development of the platform itself.

Advertising came into the fold, I think about seven or so eight years ago. Seven or eight years ago at this point, but there was about a 10, 12, 14 year history prior. And so recognizing that the advertising came second and that what we built, or had been building towards, was all focused on the experience for the consumer, is really important to understand where we are, as an overall company, but from an advertising perspective, as we continue to grow and build our offerings for advertisers and agencies. But to understand that that’s what drives us and that always has been the North Star, particularly when you consider all of the changing regulations and all of the things that are happening with the industry on the side as we move along.

Dustin Raney:

For me, I’m just hearing that and it’s like, “Man, talk about being at the right place at the right time.” It kind of reminds me of the QR code thing. It’s like all of a sudden a pandemic hits and people are leveraging a technology that’s been around a while in a different way. For you all, it’s like you’ve had this direct relationship with customers, you’ve had access to talk to them, and walk them through the experience, which is now, as you hear the overarching terms in the industry, it’s so important. Because if cookies are going to go away and that’s been holding this ecosystem together, how do you now connect? And I’m an advertiser and I want to connect with you as a publisher, how do I do that? Well, that’s going to be through first-party connections. You all have that advantage.

But with that being said, and you have in your legal background and legal prowess, and you talked about consent a little bit, if you don’t mind, let’s dive into that just a little bit more. So you have a relationship with the customer, they’re buying your devices and have been since the early 2000s. So what do you consider consent? And how does it really play in as it relates to advertising?

Ziggy Zografakis:

Yeah, it’s a good question. So as part of the onboarding process and the activation process, we go through a variety of different levels of consent. And one of the things just to mention, as we’ve looked towards the future, a huge component of our continued growth is our international expansion. And so as we move into those international markets, that activation process is something that changes to some extent, depending on the market and depending on the regulations. But we’ve erred towards the side of providing as much information as to how your data will be used, et cetera. A lot of the things that have developed over time in the industry, and I think that’s a key and core component of what the activation and the, let’s say, entry into the Roku world is. One of the things, going back a little bit to the relationship and how this all developed, is the belief has always been at Roku, all television will be streamed.

And as we’ve gone along, we also started to believe all television advertising will be streamed. And so if you think about what relationship you have with a consumer who’s streaming content, and making sure that you disclose the uses, and receive the right consents, et cetera, it goes from not only the consumption of media in the form of accessing your favorite channel, or whatever the case may be, to understanding how the advertising that you see, depending on the channel that you have, is going to be delivered to you. And one of the funny things that I’ve started to appreciate, I should say even more so being at the platform, rather than at the DSP level, is just how technically complex this project is, to stream all television advertising.

I talk to a lot of my friends and try to explain to my parents, and my family, and things like that, I try to explain what exactly I do. And taking a step back, people are like, “Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, I have a Roku.” Or, “Yeah, I watch that. I watch streaming TV all the time.” And they don’t realize and understand just the interplay of all of the different channels, and publishers, and the platform, and all of the different things that play into it. And to get that right, and to provide the right customer experience, is something that we’ve been so focused on for so long, that it makes sense that we’re in the position that we’re in. Because we work on all of those different things, like latency, sound issues, et cetera, et cetera, across the board, so that the future that we’ve envisioned, that all television and television advertising will be streamed, comes to fruition in a way that makes people want to engage with it. So it’s an interesting evolution over the course of time.

Kyle Hollaway:

That is interesting. So obviously the consumer is at the center, the way you guys have approached it even as all TV will stream and the advertising will follow that streaming, and ultimately that’s to who, to somebody. It’s streaming to them. So talk a little bit about how identity, A, is viewed within Roku and how you instantiate it, individuals versus households, versus however you view the world. Talk a little bit about that.

Ziggy Zografakis:

Yeah, it’s a great question. We have I think over 60 million active accounts now. And so over the course of time and that growth, the way we think about it has evolved, but really to some extent we’ve been on a similar path. Which is we have the consumer relationship and we have information on those consumers. It’s the number one most protected thing within the company, because we need to maintain that trust being in people’s living rooms. That’s one of the call-outs where I’ve mentioned that before to you guys, and we talked a little bit about it at the top of this, in comparison to a mobile device where yes, mobile devices are omnipresent and we’re with them all the time, probably too much, depending on the day or whose perspective, but it’s always something you can put away and it’s not necessarily front and center, whereas the TV in your living room, or whatever the case may be, is there.

And so from an identity perspective, we really tend to look more at the household level and continue to develop our targeting capabilities, but really based on that consent and who’s in the signals that we have from that relationship. So that’s really the underpinning and the backbone of all of what we do from a targeting and a measurement perspective. And Kyle, you mentioned the evolution of streaming TV and the shift from the, let’s say, linear pray and spray model to some extent to the ability to target on a more granular basis, and measure on a more granular basis, so you know the effects of your dollars.

That’s where I think it’s very interesting to me, having been part of the industry and continue to go along. It makes a lot of sense. We know that from a marketer’s perspective, or from an advertiser’s or agency’s perspective, we want to be as efficient with dollars as possible. It just makes sense. And so to the extent that you can continue that evolution and push forward, that’s where we need to go, because it’ll make everything more efficient. But the other flip side of that and thinking more about the consumer from that lens, is you also want to have more relevant content from an advertising perspective delivered to you.

I always think, having been in the industry for a while, it’s funny talking to people who are not in the industry about not only privacy, but that concept of targeted advertising, even putting aside measurement. Where if you talked to my mom, right back in the day, she’s like… I’m not going to do the Greek accent, but it’s a very thick one, trust me, she is curious as to why she’s getting specific advertisements, and I’m like, “I get it.” But to some extent, wouldn’t you want to see something that’s more relevant to you, rather than, if you’re consuming media, than something that’s not. And then that sort of plays. I’ll stop there, but there’s another thread that we can continue on, there’s many threads that we can continue on, but one of them is the value proposition of advertising in television, and why that existed. And it’s similar to the internet as well, but that value exchange between the consumer and the content providers or the platform is a really interesting one as well.

Dustin Raney:

Yeah, I like to view it as a premium screen. If it’s coming down to a screen to screen, and everything’s connected, so your TV’s connected to your phone, connected to… It’s like the bigger the screen and the more people or more eyes are on it, the more valuable it can become in a way. And just the emotive aspect of what you’re doing together around that screen can play into effectiveness. Like my parents, I tell them now, it’s like, “Hey, it’s crazy. That TV you have in your living room, you are probably getting ads that are completely different than your neighbor next door.” And it blows their minds. That’s where we are. And the ability for a brand to now drop a precision ad that does strike the cord emotively, that’s the goal.

I remember when Facebook and social media first started hitting, they started leveraging as an advertising platform, and I would get ads from brands, these boutique brands, whether it’s a pair of shoes or whatever, that otherwise I never would’ve known about, I wouldn’t even known to search for it. So for that to come now to my living room potentially, I actually welcome it. I want to see things that maybe I wouldn’t otherwise know about, however, I want it to be relevant to me. So I think there’s a lot of opportunity for brands to leverage CTV in a whole new way, think about it completely differently, in the way it’s been used in the past.

Kyle Hollaway:

I’m going to jump in on a little bit of a rabbit trail here, and that is, along this line of the screen and essentially the personalized view of that, even at the household level, but being able to target and personalize advertisement. I saw a deal the other day, I forgot who it was, probably it was IAB or somebody, was showing it, but essentially it was a European soccer match and the border wall, that’s usually digital at this point, that goes around the edge of the soccer field-

Dustin Raney:

The pitch.

Kyle Hollaway:

The advertisements shown… Yeah, around the pitch, thank you.

Dustin Raney:

There you go Ziggy.

Kyle Hollaway:

You can tell I’m an old American guy here. Obvious. The pitch. The advertisement that was streaming on those screens was actually dynamically changed on the actual consumer screen, based on the location of the consumer, and some sense of personalization. So now we’re even looking at some of those actually multi-layered. Not only is it personalizing the actual standard advertisement of the show that you’re watching, that you’re streaming, but even the content within the streaming was being adjusted based on where it was airing and who was actually watching it. And actually even as a practitioner, that actually kind of blew my mind, because I’m like, “Holy cow, they’re overlaying a different advertisement onto a digital, basically green screen on the edge of the pitch, that was then personalized based on where I was watching, because there’s also a device there, a Roku, in between me and them, that actually has some context of who I am. So it’s really getting complex.

Ziggy Zografakis:

No, there’s a lot. There’s a lot of new innovative ad formats and a lot of stuff that’s coming out. And if you think about gaming and the ability to insert ads into those, ad units, into those experiences, it’s really interesting where that’s going to continue to go. One of the things that excites me most recently about what we’ve been doing is, and we’ve made an announcement around this in the NewFronts just a few weeks ago, is dynamic linear advertising, what we’re calling DLA. Which is really furthering the concept of all television advertising will be streamed, which allows us to dynamically insert a targeted ad over a linear broadcast and really change that experience, and that’s reliant on some of our ACR technology and things like that.

But it goes to show you that we as a company continue to push forward into that future that we believe will happen, and really create the best experience for our consumers at the end of the day, so that you’re seeing more relevant advertising that makes sense for you. And so it’s an interesting corollary to those types of innovative ad units that you’re referencing on the side of the pitch.

Dustin Raney:

The fact that you all have the device gives you more leverage in a way to make some of these changes and have more innovation, bring more innovation, to the user experience. If you were just an advertising platform, there’s some limitations there. If you’re just a software company, there’s limita… But to have more control with devices that consumers are using and the ability to leverage some of the mechanics there I think has got to be a pretty powerful advantage.

Ziggy Zografakis:

Owning the platform really changes, and bringing it back to the privacy component, it really changes a lot of the conversations that I have, with our data partners like Acxiom and others, and even on the other side from our conversations with advertisers. But really that’s the core, it’s that relationship with the consumer and respecting that privacy, because we own the platform, and we have a lot of different growth areas, but that always comes down to what drives us as a company and really the mission.

I think over the last several years we’ve developed The Roku Channel. And The Roku Channel is now a top five channel on the platform, when you consider reach and engagement in the United States. Which is both an unbelievable feat and tremendous, but it also is a really interesting way to enter the concept of value exchange as well, from the perspective of seeing advertising and being able to see content without paying for it, and where that changes, and where the industry is going to continue to evolve, with Netflix’s recent discussion of potentially bringing in advertising, and seeing that type of conversation happen is really, really interesting. And I would argue to some extent the validation of the approach that we’ve had over the course of time.

But like I said, owning that platform and being where people come to trust that their channels are going to work, and the content is just going to work, and it’s going to be easy and it’s going to be relevant to them, is a really, really interesting place to be in. It’s a cool time to be in the industry, I think in general, and particularly to be at Roku.

Kyle Hollaway:

You’re talking there about partnerships and data, and it is a data-driven world tied together by these identities, and so that leads us to these, I’d say resurgent, but some would say emergent topic of clean rooms, and the ability to do data exchange in this privacy-compliant fashion. I know Roku is doing some work in that space. Give us a little background on where Roku is with the clean room concept and how you’re leveraging that.

Ziggy Zografakis:

Yeah, absolutely. So I think it is a furtherance of our position and focus on privacy. So as we’ve seen the developments in the industry, both around the cookiepocalypse for one thing, but also with the regulations, CCPA, GDPR, and the coming wave of additional state regulations that we’re expecting and we’ll see, one of the concepts is making sure that not only are we getting the right consents, having that relationship which we talked about with the consumer, but that we’re also protecting that relationship as much as possible. And so with some of the technologies that are developing from a clean room perspective, or data collaboration, however you want to phrase it, will allow that value exchange to occur with less risk. I think there’s a concept of how we want to share data with our advertisers and agencies for purposes of measurement and analysis, and even for planning purposes, and to allow them to have additional buying capabilities on our platform within Roku in OneView. There’s that component of it, which will allow that to occur without exchanging that data, a less risky transaction.

And the same thing goes with other parties within the ecosystem, whether they be measurement companies or data vendors and things like that, where we have the ability to say, “Hey, look, this is our strength, this is our identity, this is our relationship with the consumer. We’re going to protect it, but we want to work with everyone and have the ability to run those analyses, and bring in those data sets for whichever use case we’re talking about. But all the while utilizing new and emerging, or evolving technologies rather, to be able to do that while respecting the continued evolution of privacy regulation.”

Dustin Raney:

Yeah, one of the clean room use cases that we’re starting to see talked about is direct activation, in the way that you just mentioned. So a brand, they have a relationship with their customers and they have their data, but they want to keep that data safe. You have a relationship with your customers and you have the ability to talk to customers that the brand also has. So the ability to do a direct data share in a way, without moving data, but informing your system of who the brand wants to talk to and advertise to. Do you see that as a viable cookie list option in the future? What do you believe are some of the maybe pitfalls and how do you see that happening?

Ziggy Zografakis:

It’s a really good question and I’ll give you my answer, and then I’m curious to hear what you guys have to say about it, being at Acxiom. But I think… Look, I think there is a degree of uncertainty in the ecosystem. I think this about pretty much everything in life anyway, not just data and identity, but anybody, trust, and what is it? The old adage, that my husband talks about a lot, which is “trust those who seek the truth and distrust those who found it” or something along those lines. So I think there’s a lot that’s unanswered at this point and there’s going to be a continued evolution, so nobody has a crystal ball at this point. That said, I think it’s clear that we’re moving in the direction of enabling different ways of exchanging data, or rather enabling different ways of making data sets available for these purposes, for these use cases.

But I don’t think it’s going to be an either/or, a clean break, where one day everything goes away in the cookie and MAID space, and then everything gets taken over by this. I do think the key driver for the future is first-party data and the relationship that people have with consumers. So from a Roku position that makes sense and aligns with what we’ve believed over the course of time. And if you’re a brand, or a marketer, or an agency, we see talked about that relationship and building that spine. And I know you guys talk about it a lot within Acxiom, and some of the conversations that we’ve had, around providing those services to brands and agencies. And so I think they’re going to play together. I think there’s going to be an opportunity for that identity. And I do think that for the most part there will be identity as we’ve known it, continue, and it may go down and it may change. I anticipate that changing and decreasing over time.

And to some extent there’ll be additional things we haven’t even talked about, contextual targeting, some of the stuff that people have talked about around cohorts and things of that nature, which have their own challenges to figure out. But it’s going to be an evolution and I feel like in five or 10 years we’re going to look back and be like, “Wow, we’re in a totally different world. We’ve made this huge change.” But there won’t necessarily be a point that happens like that, that everybody feels like, “Oh, the world is totally different today than it was yesterday.” But after that period of time you’re going to look back and be like, “I can’t believe we did it in that way.” Or if you were to try and take one and map it to the other, it wouldn’t work. What do you guys think? I don’t know, there’s obviously so much change, but I’m curious from your guys’ perspective, where you see it changing?

Dustin Raney:

Yeah, I think we’re starting to see more and more why maybe cookies weren’t all that great of an idea in the first place. All that it was… That’s what was available to enable some of these things and that’s where all the scale and reach is. So one of the problems that I think advertisers are looking at, their fear, is that when cookies go away, scale, their ability to actually talk to and reach wide audiences with precision, is going to go away. And our perspective is we absolutely want to make sure privacy and the customer is front and center in that exchange, and whatever technology is used and leveraged going forward, keeps that in mind front and center.

But I think ways that brands like Acxiom are going to come in and help is augmenting a data share. Really enhancing a brand and a publisher, or a platform’s ability, to connect data, because a lot of times there’s different signals on both sides that rolled up to the same person. So that’s where identity really comes into play, in those identity services from a first-party perspective, could really enhance those match rates to allow a brand to talk to their customer on your platform. So that’s one area where you really see stepping in and helping the brand, and the platform, achieve your goals.

Kyle Hollaway:

I think you’re both just spot on. I think the adage of the cookiepocalypse, it gives a sense of some… It’s again like this moment in time when suddenly everything happens and that’s not how it’s going to be. And that’s certainly proven out already, that it’s a big industry, there’s a lot of money at stake and there’s also a lot of players involved, and so it’s going to be something that’s going to be more evolutionary than apocalyptic. And now there may be moments in certain places where, whether it’s legislation or something specific to a platform, that does have a little bit of a cliff to it, but overall I think collectively we’re just going to evolve into a new way of doing business. And that’s exciting, because it’s great to see those innovations come and suddenly you look back and you go like, “Yeah, why were we so worried?”Or whatever. It’s like, “Look, we’re at this new place and it’s a new paradigm we’re operating in.”

I think the challenge is going to be partially more strategic, in the sense of things like prospecting. How do I go about prospecting when on first party? The challenge with first party is it’s the data you’ve collected, so it’s the people you’re already touching, how do you touch the people you don’t know? Where does that come in and the relationship in a privacy-compliant fashion, where I can be confident that I’m working, say with a partner like Roku, where it’s like, “Yeah, here’s my first party, now help me reach other people that aren’t here.” Because that’s the ultimate goal of advertising, is to drive conversion, drive new business.

So there’s some paradigm shifts we’re going to have to make as an industry of “what does that look like?” It used to be I could be like, “Oh, I’m going to just go buy more people essentially and go target them.” Well, now with privacy and these considerations, and the direct buys, there is more of a mutual agreement on how we’re going to do that, and some trust that has to be built. And I think there’s a general census that, “Okay, yes, we can trust each other, but with the right constraints.” Like a clean room, or through obfuscating certain parts of data, that maybe one party holds that the other doesn’t, there’s got to be trust there to do that. So I think there’s a lot of nuance that’s going to come out in the coming years on how we as the industry actually solve for these things. But yeah, I think it’s going to ease in overtime and we’re going to get there.

Ziggy Zografakis:

Yeah, I think one of the things that we’ve touched upon, but haven’t really mentioned directly, is the power of television. And Dustin, you talked about it, the emotions it evokes and that large screen experience. And if you think about it, it’s traditionally been used for branding. And so I think, Kyle, to that point, there are multiple use cases for the device itself, which is to say branding will still be there, so you’ll be able to reach a broader audience, not just necessarily those who are already part of your ecosystem from a first-party perspective, but there’s the component of branding. And then there’s also the components of taking different activations for those who are already customers, and feeding them the right message at the right time, like the old adage.

And so it’s going to be really interesting to your point, how you continue to explore potential new customers and reach them with the right message, while also trying to continue to give the right message to your consumers that you have already. And I think the TV is really interestingly positioned to do that because it’s much harder to… Though may be easier to get your message to tons of different devices in a mobile context or whatever, providing that brand lift so to speak, or really that brand presence, is I think a little bit more difficult. So it’s interesting how those two play together.

Kyle Hollaway:

Great. Hey, we’re getting close to time. I always hate how fast time does fly on these conversations, because they’re super interesting. And so as we’re kind of wrapping that up, let’s dive a little bit into Ziggy himself. You’ve been here, you’ve talked to us.

Ziggy Zografakis:

How much time do we have left?

Kyle Hollaway:

Yeah, exactly.

Dustin Raney:

Ziggy’s identity.

Kyle Hollaway:

Let’s learn a little bit here. So we’re talking TV, you’re on Roku Space, you talked about growing up with the TV there with you doing homework and Saturday mornings or whatnot. So what’s your favorite fictional character, whether it’s TV, movies, books, in particular that you’ve been seeing on the streaming service here in the last two plus years when we’ve had a lot of binge-watching opportunity?

Ziggy Zografakis:

It’s a tough question. I’ve been thinking about it a lot. One of the things we do at Roku that I actually really enjoy is in our signature lines we put “now streaming.” And it’s funny because it’s so relevant to our business, and I’m like, “Yes, this is awesome.” And you’d be surprised how many people respond to that line, in a signature line, that you don’t think people ever read and they’re like, “Oh my God, I’m watching X.” A show that I really, really enjoyed recently and that stuck out, and there are many characters within it, but one of them is great in particular, is Severance. Did you guys watch Severance on Apple Plus?

Severance is fantastic. So it has Adam Scott, is the lead, his character’s name is Mark S. And the concept is amazing, so it was sold as a… I’ll try and make sure I don’t provide any spoilers, but the concept was what would it be like if you go to work and you don’t know anything that happened outside of work? And when you’re at work, you don’t know anything that happened outside. And when you’re outside you don’t know anything that happened inside. And everyone’s like, “Yeah, that sounds great. That’d be so cool.” And it very quickly turns into something a little bit more philosophical, I’ll put it that way, this doesn’t give anything away, but conceptually, how are you alive if you are only alive in a particular part in the world. How do you ever know? And so I don’t know, it’s just fascinating and the evolution of his character has been really cool.

And then we started… We’re a bit behind, so don’t say anything, but Better Call Saul, and the last season of Better Call Saul, which we watched Breaking Bad during the Pandemic, in the early stages of the pandemic, and carried forward. And I do think that Saul Goodman across the board is one of the most interesting, if not the most interesting, character in recent times. And maybe I’m biased, because of his background, or rather my background, but his evolution of a character has been so interesting. But there’s so much good TV. There’s so much good stuff to watch and to consume these days that it’s really hard to pick. What about you guys?

Kyle Hollaway:

Wow. Yeah, I’m a sci-fi guy. I’ve always loved… I grew up, Star Trek early on, and have always just enjoyed that genre, and honestly-

Ziggy Zografakis:

And Star Wars? Or were you only a Trekkie and you’re like, “No, I don’t mess with Star Wars.” Or both?

Kyle Hollaway:

No, I’ll do anything.

Ziggy Zografakis:

Okay. Yeah.

Kyle Hollaway:

Babylon 5. Whatever.

Ziggy Zografakis:

Battlestar Galactica is one of my favorites of all time, yeah.

Kyle Hollaway:

Oh My gosh, yes. Especially the reboot.

Ziggy Zografakis:

Another podcast episode.

Kyle Hollaway:

Going way down, yeah. So I like that space opera. I like the drama, but set in space, and I’ve always been amazed by that. So recently, I’ve just binged in the last couple of weeks, the new Halo.

Ziggy Zografakis:

Oh yeah.

Dustin Raney:

Oh, forgot about that.

Ziggy Zografakis:

[inaudible 00:36:49]

Kyle Hollaway:

Honestly. I went in very skeptical, just video game adaptation. I’m not a huge gamer, and so I didn’t have the context necessarily.

Ziggy Zografakis:

Oh, interesting.

Kyle Hollaway:

I’ve kind of seen it. So I’ve just absorbed it from a storytelling perspective, and it’s actually pretty interesting, and pretty well-made. So that’s been my latest, I’ve just been like, “Hey, I got to catch my halo.” I just want to see this thing play out. I have no idea where it’s going because I don’t play the game, so I don’t know what the ultimate end point was supposed to be, but it’s been very interesting.

Ziggy Zografakis:

I played Halo, I played a ton of Halo in law school.

Kyle Hollaway:

Oh did you?

Ziggy Zografakis:

But ironically… And I know the story, but I’m curious to watch the show, and it’s on my cue or whatever. But from a story perspective, I’d be like, “Oh right, I remember that level.” Or, “I remember playing that part of it.” But interesting. I’m glad hear It’s good.

Kyle Hollaway:

Yeah.

Dustin Raney:

Yeah, I-

Ziggy Zografakis:

Dustin, what about you?

Dustin Raney:

Yeah, I would say for me, and this is a really crazy one, it’s somewhat… Not super personal, but just locationally, there’s a three-part docuseries called The Invisible Pilot, I think it’s on maybe HBO Max, and it follows this cropduster from Hazen, Arkansas.

Ziggy Zografakis:

Oh really?

Dustin Raney:

So my family, they’re farmers from Des Arc, so really close. And this guy, it’s just this… I don’t want to give anything away, but he ends up working for, was it Escobar? He’s flying… He fakes his death, does all this stuff. You wouldn’t even believe it, you have to see it, but it’s real. So it’s like, “Man, this happened in my backyard.” But it was in the early seventies, during all of the… And he was involved in Iran-Contra. It’s just a fascinating story. So yeah, that’s what has gotten my interest lately. Other than that, yeah I’m like Kyle, I like the good old Star Wars. And of course Top Gun here recently has blew my mind.

Ziggy Zografakis:

There you go.

Dustin Raney:

Well-

Ziggy Zografakis:

It’s such good storytelling. The storytelling that occurs these days. The opportunity for storytelling to that point is so cool, it’s so incredible. And whatever, bringing it back, one of the reasons why I really love working at Roku is because we are helping build the future of consumption and media, and trying to bring those stories to more people, and make that accessible. Which, if you step back, when you work… So I give it a step back and think about philosophically the meaning and whatever. And it’s kind of funny when you do that, and it’s nice actually to take a step back and think about it, it can be great. So I appreciate the opportunity to talk to you guys about this stuff, but also take a step back and think about it a little bit more broadly,

Dustin Raney:

Man. Well, I will actually steal from that and say, so, so grateful Ziggy, for you jumping in this chapter of our story of a Real Identity. I think a lot of people are going to get a lot of incredible information. I think people are looking for this kind of value and understanding what’s happening out in the tech ecosystem, as all these crazy trends are happening these days. So thank you. We definitely want to have you back. For all of our listeners, you can find Real Identity podcast episodes, or other episodes out, on our website. So you can go to acxiom.com/realtalk and find us there. Hope you all have a great, great day, or evening, wherever you are or whenever you’re consuming this, and we’ll catch you next time.

Kyle Hollaway:

Yep, and enjoy your streaming.