Live From Advertising Week Day - 2

A CYNOPSIS MESSAGE FROM HULU

Live From Advertising Week – Day 2

After a first bustling day inside the AMC Loews Lincoln Square theater, Advertising Week New York 2019 settled into a routine of informative panels, long split-level lines and snacks and coffee everywhere. Here’s a wrap-up on a few panels we stopped into, people we spoke to and displays we checked out!

PANEL SNAPSHOTS

On the one hand, the Wild West was an exciting place to be. On the other hand, survival was never guaranteed, which is what makes trying to make it through this new disruptive stage in TV so accurately described as the Wild West. On a late Monday panel, Jeremy Helfand, VP, Head of Advertising Platforms, Hulu; Tanya Dua, Senior Advertising Reporter, Business Insider; Cara Lewis, SVP US Head of Investment, Carat Media; and Christina Beaumier, VP Product, TV Platform, Xander gathered to discuss What it Takes to Win in the Next Era of TV and the answers were … well, mixed. Helfand noted that he can see plenty of opportunities ahead, “because audiences are rushing into streaming television because of the promise of the experience.” But, he noted, “While there’s been a fundamental change in the consumption of content, TV advertising hasn’t really changed.” In order to change with TV, Lewis noted that they’re “trying to get [ad] people away from, ‘I need to be on this show, this night’ because that’s not how people are viewing. They may be viewing seven days later.” Hulu, meanwhile, has been experimenting with “pause” advertising – the sort of ad that runs when a viewer has paused the program. “We found there was a 68 percent lift in recall when we did pause advertising,” said Helfand. Next up: trying to find a way to do a nondisruptive transactional ad. “Those will be coming available next year,” he added.

Digital toolboxes were the buzzy takeaway from The Future of TV Is Now: How Brands are Scaling Success in Connected TV, a Tuesday morning panel featuring Beth-Ann Eason, President, Innovid; Allyson Witherspoon, Vice President, Marketing Communications and Media, Nissan North America, Inc.; Laurent Faracci, EVP, Global Category Health, Reckitt Benckiser; and Alexandra Bruell, Advertising Reporter, The Wall Street Journal. “It’s so great to put your digital toolbox on TV at last,” noted Faracci, who added that TV advertising has been left behind as display and Facebook were considered the new shiny places for a long while. “TV is at the heart of the home, so it’s great to see it coming through now,” he said. The question is, where is money for interactive or dynamic advertising coming from? Witherspoon said Nissan is allocating from areas like traditional linear TV, but also display. “There’s a lot of waste,” she said. But ultimately, it’s about getting the upfronts to evolve. “We went to the upfronts this year,” she said. “We’re starting to see them evolve. I think dollars will become less linear-based and more about audience.”

Andrea Zapata, VP Data Innovation and Insights for Comcast Spotlight chatted with Cynopsis following her panel Seeing Your Customer in 3-D: A MUST For Any Media Strategy, in which she moderated a conversation with Betsy Rella, VP Data & Research, New York Interconnect, Bryson Gordon Executive Vice President, Advanced Advertising, Viacom, Justin Evans Global Head of Analytics & Insights, Samsung Ads, and Parker Burgess, Head of Client Strategy & Insights, eBay about how exponentially-growing data points is making it challenging to really target consumers. “Essentially we’re trying to change the conversation across linear, but not just about content,” she said. “We want to make it much more interesting … we can find your customer in a much more granular way than just saying, ‘I want to buy Wednesday night prime time on these networks.’ I always joke, ‘Hey, you think you know where your customer is watching? You want to put them in a box called 8 to 10 p.m. on a handful of networks – when you really have no idea what they’re watching. We can deliver your customer without putting them in a box.'” Coffee update: She was on her fifth cup when we spoke around 12:30pm. “That’s why I’m speaking so fast!”

If you’re not always able to follow every new platform or way to reach customers, take heart: you’re not alone. Several of the panelists on The Streaming Wars Paved the Way for An Ad-Supported OTT World admitted that they still are in the middle of teaching brands and advertisers how to deal with the fragmentation of OTT and streaming. “Fragmentation is an issue; a lot of brands are not sure what’s out there beyond linear, noted Marc Bourget, GM of Connected TV Platforms, Samba; he was joined on the panel by Maggie Mesa, VP, Mobile Business Development, OpenX; Megan Graham Technology Reporter, CNBC; Jason Demarco, VP, Programmatic and Audio Solutions, A+E Networks; and Jason White, SVP & GM, Global Programmatic Revenue, CBS Interactive. “The spectrum is very wide; you have some marketers who think premium TV is Hulu, Netflix and cat videos,” he continued. “We play a role in educating marketers about reaching households in a much more efficient manner.” Added Mesa, “The consumers have already shifted there, which is exciting and relevant to all of us and the education is key now.” Exciting in a different way is how federal regulation might affect the industry. “We should just block the content from any state that passes the law,” deadpanned Demarco. “I’m joking – it’s a necessary content.” But as he noted, the handful of people on stage were able to discuss it – but the nuance and inconsistency of this kind of marketing and ads will make it hard for legislators to know how to throw a rope around it. “It’s going to be a tough road ahead,” he said.

A CYNOPSIS MESSAGE FROM HULU

ELSEWHERE….

Since not everybody can be anywhere, let’s include a short roundup of a few things you – and we – might have missed in the frenetic to-and-fro of panel attendance. AI-powered tech company Mirriad and applied neuroscience company SPARK Neuro released a neural and biometric study to time with the Driving Brand Value With Emotional Intelligence panel Monday. So, what did we learn? First, that sadness drove the highest valuation for the food and drink category (+17%); anticipation for the automotive category (+7%); and disgust for CPG/cleaning products (+22%). This explains so much….

Meanwhile, those wondering what the big hanging posters reading Ampersand meant yesterday got their reply: It’s the rebranding for the ad sales and tech company NCC Media, which announced the latest step in its evolution with a new name designed to reflect the company’s mission of unifying the TV advertising ecosystem across screens, inventory and audience. Ampersand (and we kind of just want to type “&”) also hosted the Future of TV Advertising panel Monday.

The second annual Madison Avenue Icon awards were handed out at the start of AWNY. And the big winners: Icons went to … McGruff the Crime Dog (National Crime Prevention Council) and Wienermobile/Hotdoggers (Oscar Mayer). Slogan winners were “Democracy Dies in Darkness” (The Washington Post) and “Let’s Go Places” (Toyota).]

If you were reading closely on Monday, you might recall that we’re in love with the AWLEARN Advertising Week Glossary, which not only has cleared up many of the scary acronyms that proliferate in the industry, but also serves as a wonderful mouse pad when your wireless mouse can’t find traction on a charging table. But we’d like to give extra applause to the WSJ’s Alexandra Bruell, who was unafraid to speak up during a panel she was moderating Tuesday and specifically asking for a definition of “DCO” – or Dynamic Content Optimization. Thank you for clarifying!

A CYNOPSIS MESSAGE FROM HULU

TOP OF THE MORNING (Q&A)

MillerCoors knows it has a brand and a product that people are constantly thirsty for, but that doesn’t mean the company doesn’t want to keep up with the latest trends in marketing, streaming or advertising. Brad Feinberg, VP of media and consumer engagement for MillerCoors, is appearing on a panel tomorrow called Beyond the :30: How to Reach the New Wave of Consumers, and spoke with Cynopsis ahead of time to discuss how they keep the fizz in their marketing dollars.

What makes AWNY important to MillerCoors?

Feinberg: Advertising Week is a north star moment in the year where the community points us on the path forward in the evolution of modern marketing. The output of the presentations and discussions from the stage to the informal over a beer conversations become the topics we bring back to our organization that help shape our future strategy.

Your panel is on reaching the new wave of consumers. What’s the “new wave,” exactly?
Feinberg: I disagree that this is about reaching the new wave of consumers – it is about reaching the majority of consumers. There is a reason why the networks are all investing significantly in their OTT offering. It is because this way of consuming content has already achieved critical mass. We’re not talking about this as an emerging platform. For many consumers, Hulu and the like are the first stop for consuming content. MillerCoors is here in a big way because we are recruiting the new 21+ generation of beer consumers to our diverse portfolio of brands.

What is MillerCoors doing to reach streaming audiences that others are not?

Feinberg: It is table stakes today for brands to invest more video dollars in pre-roll streaming advertising. We’re going beyond that with custom long and short form content that brings to life our brand purpose in entertaining environments. We are also shifting how we look at product integration investments and influencer partnerships in order to drive brand penetration with someone that is hard to reach with traditional forms of media.

How do you engage consumers with advertising, without turning them off?

Feinberg: That is easy … we only put marketing and content out in the world that consumers are going to give a s**t about.

On the flip side of beer, what’s your favorite flavor of ice cream?

Feinberg: One of my wife’s hobbies is to make ice cream, so we’ve invested in a top-of-the-line ice cream maker. Therefore, my favorite without a doubt is my wife’s homemade salted caramel ice cream.

A CYNOPSIS MESSAGE FROM HULU

ADVERTISING WEEK NEW YORK BY THE NUMBERS

* 4 days

* Over 100,000 attendees (up from 98,000 in 2018)

* 368 events, including workshops (up from 290 in 2018)

* 1,244 speakers (up from 1,216 in 2018)

* 396 registered press members

Source: Advertising Week New York

QUOTE OF THE DAY

“It’s not just about CPM. You have to really punch above your weight.” – Laurent Faracci, EVP, Global Category Health, Reckitt Benckiser, at The Future of TV Is Now: How Brands are Scaling Success in Connected TV panel

QUOTE OF THE DAY II

“Wait, the food trucks are giving free food outside? This is a land of wonders.” – Anonymous attendee, over lunch

TOMORROW AT AWNY

On Day 3 of the conference, panels include The Future of TV Is Now: How Brands are Scaling Success in Connected TV and Beyond the :30: How to Reach the New Wave of Consumers. Also look out for a Cynopsis chat with Kenshoo‘s VP for corporate development, Tom Affinito and Ekimetrics General Manager North America Adam Rogers, who explains that “Being technology-led can often limit adoption, overall value, executive support of long-term investment, and competitiveness.”

Got something you want to share? Insights after a panel? Advice on where to find the best place for lunch? Then track down Cynopsis at one of the panels listed above, or ping newsletter reporter Randee Dawn on Twitter @RandeeDawn !