Linda Harrison:

I’m Linda Harrison and I am the Data Guru for Acxiom. At Acxiom you get to name yourself, so I came up with a fun one.

Nick Carpino:

Hi everyone and I’m Nick Carpino, Senior Partner Manager at Acxiom, we’re covering all things TV.

Lorel Wilhelm-Volpi:

With an intro like that this question is perfect for you, Nick. Let’s start with some definitions around what advertisers need to know about TV. It seems like alphabet soup anymore.

Nick Carpino:

Yep and the acronyms just keep coming. So, I think when we think about TV, linear TV has been the traditional form of television advertising. It’s a schedule that’s already preset so viewers are turning into a particular time, a particular channel at a particular time and we’re seeing the use of data evolve the TV landscape. So, with data-driven linear TV, you give advertisers the ability to use data to inform that linear TV schedules, same national TV approach but you’re using data to help derive which networks and day parts to better reach your advertiser’s audience.

For addressable TV, that’s when you’re leaning into that one-to-one targeting approach. So, think your MVPDs like Comcast, DirecTV and Dish so you’re leveraging that set top box data that one-to-one household match to laser focus on your audience. OTT, CTV and FEP, they cover the gamut it’s an umbrella term for all things streaming so this is just an approach where things are tied to the internet versus a hardwired cable like your cable box.

Lorel Wilhelm-Volpi:

Yeah, you’re going to have to dive into some of those acronyms for us so let’s go back to CTV and OTT. Are they the same thing? Can we use those interchangeably and can you tell us what they stand for?

Nick Carpino:

Yeah, so I’d say from an advertiser standpoint they’re pretty much viewed as an interchangeable term, CTV, OTT, et cetera. But when you’re looking at CTV, this is specifically connected to a television so it’s an internet-connected TV so your smart TVs of the world. OTT could refer to any type of streaming content, whether you’re watching on your tablet or through an OTT device such as a Roku.

Lorel Wilhelm-Volpi:

So, what does OTT stand for?

Nick Carpino:

Over the top-

Linda Harrison:

Over the top, baby.

Lorel Wilhelm-Volpi:

That could be its own podcast right there but we’re not going to go down that road but maybe a future episode. So, for another little acronym, few acronyms that I hear about sometimes are AVOD and SVOD, so what’s that?

Nick Carpino:

Yeah, so these ultimately just come down to ad-supported channels or subscription services. When you think of subscriptions you think of Netflix, they’re starting to roll out ad-supported tiers as well but you’re pretty much paying a cost to subscribe to this content ad-free. But when you look at some of these ad-supported platforms like a Tubi TV, the ads are what pays for the content so you’re ultimately still seeing your traditional 30-second or a pre-roll ad before you tune into the content across these ad-supported channels.

Linda Harrison:

Yeah, think of Hulu, Hulu has two tiers today where you could see ads or not see ads.

Lorel Wilhelm-Volpi:

Yeah, that makes sense. Thank you for clarifying that. And so, I’m curious with so many options, what challenges are advertisers seeing when they want to have a successful TV campaign?

Nick Carpino:

Yeah, so similar to the viewers’ myriad of choices, this does create challenges for advertisers. So, I would say fragmentation and limited standardization are the biggest factors impacting advertisers’ trust when they look at CTV as a channel. And while it remains one of the fastest growing media types I think, Magna quoted around 30% year over year. Because of this intersection between TV and digital advertiser, expectations don’t always align with the current state. So, you may have expectations that you can do anything in digital that you can in CTV or that CTV is a complete replacement for linear TV, but you’re ultimately needing to bounce a lot of things from cost-effectiveness, reach, understanding your historical benchmarks.

So, when you’re looking at the landscape and you’re seeing Hulu, Roku, Tubi, Paramount, how do you consolidate your media spend to effectively reach your target audience? And I think that’s the biggest challenge advertisers are facing today, especially as CTV continues to evolve to meet digital standards. This is where those challenges hit full front. But I think when we look at audiences, that’s where advertisers continue to have control and remains that workaround solution in the interim as CTV reaches its digital prime.

Lorel Wilhelm-Volpi:

So, that’s really interesting and it makes me think about all of the campaigns. Linda, that you work with our clients every day and I know that you give a lot of data advice and audience strategies. So how does, and is there a play for third party data here or what advice would you give advertisers who are looking to find the right audiences for TV campaigns?

Linda Harrison:

When you think about what’s in linear TV, everyone sees the same ad regardless of where they are. I have zero interest in seeing baby diaper ads. But through the process of MVPDs through OTT, CTV, you can in data-driven linear, you can find pockets of the population that are interested in your product and service. And that’s where data comes into play so that we can reach the right people for the right things, so I can see ad for in-market for a vehicle instead of a national campaign for baby diapers.

Lorel Wilhelm-Volpi:

That makes a lot of sense. And leveraging or reaching rather the same audience across all media touchpoints is the holy grail. What does that mean to you Linda in terms of increased efficiencies, effectiveness and also balancing that reach and frequency?

Linda Harrison:

Well, that’s key, right? So, we’re finding the same audience across all of the media channels. So, I’m reaching the same people that are in-market for a vehicle on TV, email, direct mail, digital display. I can use that same audience, the same capabilities are available across the marketplace so I’m consistently seeing the same ad. And that way you can also think about your attribution easier as well because I’m not just somebody who came in from one channel, I’ve hit all the channels. And that way you just know that I’m in-market and I’m the person you really want to find the holy grail of in-market for a car.

Lorel Wilhelm-Volpi:

And not in-market for diapers.

Linda Harrison:

But Nick, how big do you think this advantage is to cohesively market and determine insights to inform future campaigns? Do you see it as big as I do?

Nick Carpino:

Definitely. I think it goes back to the fragmentation we’re seeing across the media landscape. Putting your audience at the forefront and the control that it can provide across all of your various media touchpoints truly enables that success and allows you to bring measurement into the fold to truly understand what is driving your brand’s KPIs. I think when you have the same audience running across the board and you’re cohesively measuring your campaigns, not only are you garnering a better understanding of your target audience, but you can define what works, what doesn’t work and enable more sound optimization from planning to activation into even how you approach your measurement framework in the future. With these learnings, you’re truly able to utilize media dollars more effectively and efficiently and drive better results for your clients.

Lorel Wilhelm-Volpi:

In a similar vein, with the challenges around a lack of standardization across all of these channels, are there things on the horizon to help improve measurement, especially in terms of CTV effectiveness?

Nick Carpino:

Definitely, and I think as a data provider that’s what we’re constantly tasked with of just bringing more data into the fold. So, as data becomes more standardized across CTV, you’re seeing less of a loss of rich data that’s [inaudible 00:09:55] measurement to planning, et cetera. So, in turn, with receipt of more exposure data, the opportunity to achieve significant results and standardize with other digital channels only continues to improve.

And beyond that, when we look at what’s happening within CTV, the ACR partners across the board are ultimately enabling an open ecosystem, unlike some of the walled gardens, while there is some exclusivity occurring you are seeing a lot of collaboration across the marketplace from partners like OpenAP and VideoAmp and ultimately, in conjunction with that consumer data that Acxiom has in-house, you are able to link these disparage datasets to create and establish that inline comparison to other media channels.

Lorel Wilhelm-Volpi:

And ACR stands for?

Nick Carpino:

Automated content recognition. So, your TVs are tracking everything you do, just check the settings.

Lorel Wilhelm-Volpi:

That’s good to know.

Linda Harrison:

They know what you’re watching and when you’re watching it.

Lorel Wilhelm-Volpi:

So, changing vein a little bit and yes Linda, I’m sorry I’m stuck on diapers. You mentioned it and now you’ve got me going down that path. So, I’m thinking about audiences and we have a segmentation system that we use for audiences called for Personicx, I just want to bring it up. How do you see things like life stage determining TV strategies for advertisers?

Linda Harrison:

It’s huge, it’s really huge because so many products and services are based on age, income, presence and age of children, do you own a home? Are you single or married? I don’t go on as many singles cruises now that I’m married, the husband doesn’t like that. That’s my common joke for that one. But using life stage also allows you to tie it to syndicated survey data. So, Personicx is tied to MRI-Simmons and to Nielsen Scarborough. So, a lot of the advertisers use a persona like Jake, not from State Farm but just Jake and they’ll tell you all the things about Jake, key questions that are the syndicated survey questions like I want my technology to say, “Wow or I want a car that’s fun and active to drive.”

Well, Personicx can tie that back to those survey questions and then you can say, “Use persona’s clusters seven, eight, 11 and 13. They over-index for these questions and they look the most like Jake. So, that makes that data actionable and it uses life staging the background to find the right people for the right products so that now Jake isn’t seeing the ad for baby diapers, he’s seeing the ad for a car that’s fun and active to drive because that’s what’s important to Jake.

Lorel Wilhelm-Volpi:

So, thank you that’s really helpful. And certainly probably a lot, maybe even the majority of campaigns are two personas like Jake. But I’m sure that there are others that are very unique and that don’t have such large audiences readily available. Nick, let’s think just a second about custom audience recommendations, do you have any thoughts on how, oh, a data provider like say Acxiom might be able to help with that?

Nick Carpino:

Just a few. So yeah, I would say one of the, coming from the agency side, one of the biggest misses is not being aware that you can work directly with a data provider to figure out the ins and outs of any audience that you’re even contemplating. So, I think the first takeaway is just reach out to Acxiom and let our Data Guru team do the work. They were all trained by Linda so you’re in good hands. But yeah, ultimately depending on your KPI, we can ultimately build whatever you’re looking for when you think about what could possibly be available and you’re sending RFPs out to different CTV platforms.

There’s a lot of unknowns as you kind of await proposals but we’re able to slice and dice any situation, pull levers to generate increased scale for data-driven linear or if match rates are a concern across CTV, just providing more reach-based options that are going to scale for your campaign. So, I think working with the provider is key ’cause you can just explore and size audiences more efficiently and plan for your upcoming TV initiatives regardless of the tactic, just so you’re more prepared and you can just keep your planning process moving.

Linda Harrison:

Yeah, what I love about the Data Guru team is not only will they take what you requested, right? Here’s Jake and I also have Sydney as another option, they’ll come up with a third option for you. So, maybe another tactic you haven’t thought of yet or a twist on it, “Oh, people who buy X also buy Y like when I’m watching Prime and they tell me something else I should try,” they give you that little land gap, that little something extra to help you build up that scale or find another path to get to where you really want to go.

Lorel Wilhelm-Volpi:

Yeah, I love that. Thank you for mentioning that. Thank you both, I have learned a lot about the nuances of the different approaches we can take now with TV, with Connected TV, OTT and all of the other acronyms we have brought up. As our wrap-up question, what I really want to know is last TV show you have both binge-watched.

Linda Harrison:

Now, I’ll say Billions so I didn’t use to have Paramount Plus so now that I do, I’ve been watching Billions. I think I’m in season three or four so I’m still a little behind. But I’ve enjoyed it, it’s my go-to win. I can’t find anything else. I might will just watch it like three or four more episodes of this.

Nick Carpino:

For me, it’s the Fall of the House of Usher on Netflix so just in time for October.

Linda Harrison:

It looks scary.

Nick Carpino:

Yeah, it got some interesting components to it but it’s definitely a good watch and one that’s easy to binge.

Linda Harrison:

Oh, boy. Lorel?

Lorel Wilhelm-Volpi:

All right, like you Linda I’ve got a show of when I don’t know what else to watch then I watch another episode or two, it’s called The Midwives. Even though it’s not a new show, on season three there are 12 out there so I’ve got plenty of episodes before I run out.

Linda Harrison:

Always good to have a backup plan, right?

Lorel Wilhelm-Volpi:

All right, thank you both. This has been awesome.

Linda Harrison:

Thank you.

Nick Carpino:

Thank you.