Latest / Leading Local Insights / Bigger Thinking, Better Outcomes: Locality’s Ann Hailer on Making CTV and Broadcast Work Together

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Bigger Thinking, Better Outcomes: Locality’s Ann Hailer on Making CTV and Broadcast Work Together · Leading Local Insights

• 0:34
  Rick Ducey: Hello, I'm Rick Ducey, Managing Director of BIA Advisory Services, and welcome to our Leading and Local Podcast Series.
• 0:41
  Rick Ducey: Today we're gonna have um a great time speaking with um Ann Hailer from Locality, which is a company that specializes in cross-platform video, both linear video over the air as well as CTV streaming video.
• 0:56
  Rick Ducey: And that is uh the front edge of what's happening in video these days.
• 1:01
  Rick Ducey: And there's been a lot of energy, technology, business models, capital invested, um, and advertising and media uh activity trying to make this kind of front line work really well.
• 1:14
  Rick Ducey: And it has in many ways.
• 1:16
  Rick Ducey: So BIA, when we look at our forecast for CTV spending, uh we see that continuing an increase off a much smaller basin over the air, which we still see as foundational local TV stations.
• 1:28
  Rick Ducey: But the mix of the two is pretty volatile in a good way, especially uh for political and some other categories.
• 1:34
  Rick Ducey: So those are the kind of things I want to talk about with um with you today, Ann.
• 1:38
  Rick Ducey: And some of the themes that as good as CTV is and as powerful it is in combination with local uh broadcast TV, a few things kind of pop up, uh, measurement, uh consistent measurement across these platforms.
• 1:53
  Rick Ducey: And these days, uh, with budgets getting tight and dollars getting dear, um, okay, I'll make that investment in advertising, but I really want to know what happens.
• 2:03
  Rick Ducey: So, campaign performance, attribution, performance, things like that are really critical to see more evolution happen there.
• 2:09
  Rick Ducey: There's some good things happening, but we need to see more improvement.
• 2:13
  Rick Ducey: What might that look like and what's the timetable?
• 2:16
  Rick Ducey: And then, of course, um AI, artificial intelligence, gen AI, and uh Gentec AI are becoming huge.
• 2:23
  Rick Ducey: I was trying to remember if I read this right.
• 2:26
  Rick Ducey: But something like uh in some part of the advertising world, two-thirds of that campaigns now um leverage somehow AI.
• 2:32
  Rick Ducey: So it's it's it'll be AI talking to AI, the buy side and sell side at some point, with people hopefully in the mix somewhere supervising things.
• 2:40
  Rick Ducey: So uh we don't go too far awry.
• 2:42
  Rick Ducey: But uh the the role of AI is um good.
• 2:46
  Rick Ducey: I mean, a lot of good things will happen from it, but we'll need guard rules, we need oversight, and people are still making smart moves, but also kind of fumbling a bit with that, trying to figure out what's what.
• 2:56
  Rick Ducey: And then we hear these dire predictions of AI will end the world anyway, so maybe there's not too much to worry about.
• 3:02
  Rick Ducey: And then um the other thing, too, is the um when I meet with people and talk about what they're seeing in the marketplace, what they're doing, it's very clear that there's a lot of technology, there's a lot of business models, um, there's a lot of options.
• 3:16
  Rick Ducey: Some of them are uh I'll say this somewhat tongue-in-cheek, somewhat uh uh duplicative, and some are even duplicitous to make the distinction there.
• 3:26
  Rick Ducey: So having a good partnership, it's a complicated environment to navigate.
• 3:29
  Rick Ducey: And that's one of the things that you do for your day job is to help clients uh come together with uh media to execute their campaigns, see what happens, um, optimize them, have some confidence in what they get, and so on and so forth.
• 3:42
  Rick Ducey: So that's you know, um that may take up to two or three minutes to cover that landscape.
• 3:47
  Rick Ducey: I mean, I don't think it's very complicated.
• 3:50
  Ann Hailer: We can do it quick.
• 3:50
  Ann Hailer: It's great.
• 3:51
  Rick Ducey: I think that's right.
• 3:51
  Rick Ducey: Anyway, yeah, welcome so much to our uh podcast.
• 3:55
  Rick Ducey: And if you would, if you don't mind, just tell us a bit about yourself and a bit about locality before we jump into the to the meat of things here.
• 4:02
  Ann Hailer: Absolutely.
• 4:02
  Ann Hailer: Well, Rick, thank you so much for having me.
• 4:05
  Ann Hailer: You and and BIA have been partners for a long time with locality and and our former nameplates.
• 4:11
  Ann Hailer: Most of the universe knew locality as gamut or cox reps.
• 4:16
  Ann Hailer: And a number of years ago uh we combined the company, named it Locality.
• 4:22
  Ann Hailer: The the name itself should tell you what you you need to know.
• 4:27
  Ann Hailer: We focus on local advertisers, mostly national brands who take advantage of advertising locally, and we work with premium broadcasters, premium streaming publishers to bring audiences to those advertisers across any market in the country.
• 4:49
  Ann Hailer: Um, I've been with the company for a number of years.
• 4:53
  Ann Hailer: I joke I've had probably every job along the way, but it helps me, I think, get a good understanding of advertisers and agencies and our partners and those long-standing relationships that bring those complexities together in a way that hopefully gives advertisers and agencies the outcomes that they're looking for.
• 5:18
  Rick Ducey: So I have to say, I I uh um if we're looking at this in video, you can see my demographic.
• 5:24
  Rick Ducey: But I think the experience um across the different parts of what's happening in the industry, uh the buy side, sell side, of course, but also the technology and the relationships, the ability to understand the role of each of those moving parts and pieces and to orchestrate them effectively for the client is is really critical.
• 5:43
  Rick Ducey: And you have some people that are very smart on parts of it, but they don't really see the overall picture and how to integrate it and orchestrate it to uh have all these different forces come together to a really good outcome.
• 5:56
  Rick Ducey: So I really appreciate what you just said, and it's um I think it's really important to see that.
• 6:00
  Rick Ducey: So, in some discussions, uh Fation, um there's a number of challenges, of course.
• 6:05
  Rick Ducey: Uh it may actually take more than two or three minutes to cover this.
• 6:08
  Rick Ducey: Um so one of the things um is inventory.
• 6:12
  Rick Ducey: So for for local broadcasters, particularly um with whom I know you work a lot, uh they've got the over-the-air inventory, and um they're all moving, of course, into connected TV.
• 6:23
  Rick Ducey: Um so with the broadcast is fixed.
• 6:25
  Rick Ducey: I mean, it's 168 hours a week, that's it, and there's so many adminutes per day.
• 6:29
  Rick Ducey: And CTV, um, the ad load traditionally has been much lower, maybe a quarter, but that's creeping up.
• 6:36
  Rick Ducey: Even Netflix has thrown more admines in there, maybe to approach the over-the-air experience.
• 6:41
  Rick Ducey: So, I mean, the for CTV, there's on the one hand, there's a you know, a lot of inventory, um, but then if you go local, how much inventory is there actually in a particular market when you start to localize it?
• 6:52
  Rick Ducey: Uh, that becomes a challenge.
• 6:54
  Rick Ducey: Um but it's one of your one of your kind of um takeaways is it's not so much about inventory, the the amount of inventory, the fill rate, things like that.
• 7:05
  Rick Ducey: One of the things that really needs to happen is understanding that relationship uh at an empirical level measurement between the over-the-air and the streaming.
• 7:13
  Rick Ducey: So creating consistent measurement across broadcasting streaming is a challenge that the industry is working on, making some headway.
• 7:20
  Rick Ducey: But where are we with that?
• 7:22
  Rick Ducey: What do you expect will happen in the near term?
• 7:24
  Ann Hailer: Yeah, I I and all good position points there, you know, um, and thank you for recognizing the streaming and the broadcast, because that's how a consumer consumes it now.
• 7:38
  Ann Hailer: They they don't think about, oh, I'm going to watch a streaming program or I'm going to watch a broadcast program.
• 7:46
  Ann Hailer: They turn on their TVs, they've got different access points, and they consume and watch what they want to watch, when they want to watch it.
• 7:54
  Ann Hailer: On the broadcast side, that is that is strongly based on live programming.
• 8:01
  Ann Hailer: So live news, local news, sports, uh, on the streaming side.
• 8:07
  Ann Hailer: There's there's live and local, but there's also you know on demand.
• 8:11
  Ann Hailer: And so why and how consumers are consuming that is the same place that advertisers need to be able to meet those potential consumers.
• 8:24
  Ann Hailer: So today we have different measurements for some good reasons and some bad reasons, but we have different measurements.
• 8:33
  Ann Hailer: It's bought differently for the most part.
• 8:37
  Ann Hailer: It is planned differently for the most part.
• 8:40
  Ann Hailer: So when you call to question the measurement, it's really that whole cycle of pre-plan, pre-analysis, measurement, and outcomes.
• 8:51
  Ann Hailer: And we're we are fortunate as data has improved, especially first-party data has improved, and speed to getting that information has allowed us to really think about how are those campaigns performing together.
• 9:10
  Ann Hailer: The only way that happens is if there is understanding about the measurement.
• 9:17
  Ann Hailer: We are not going to solve for streaming is one-to-one, broadcast is one to many.
• 9:25
  Ann Hailer: That is fundamentally what is different about streaming and broadcast.
• 9:30
  Ann Hailer: And one gives you tremendous reach, one has you know uh deeply embedded in community and programming and trust.
• 9:41
  Ann Hailer: But together, it's about audience.
• 9:44
  Ann Hailer: It's about who are my potential customers, how can I reach them?
• 9:48
  Ann Hailer: What's the best way to reach them?
• 9:50
  Ann Hailer: And and what are we doing together?
• 9:52
  Ann Hailer: So, you know, Nielsen's made some advancements.
• 9:56
  Ann Hailer: We just we just converted to the one-minute qualifier that gives a little bit of equity on streaming.
• 10:03
  Ann Hailer: So I'm encouraged by the early results we've seen on that.
• 10:08
  Ann Hailer: ComScore has some unique audience and indexing profiles that make broadcast a way of understanding how to get those audiences.
• 10:21
  Ann Hailer: Um, locality, we have we have an audience engine.
• 10:26
  Ann Hailer: It helps us understand how we are taking first and third party data and maximizing what an advertiser can can uh expect from a purchase.
• 10:39
  Ann Hailer: But that whole cycle needs to be more transparent, quicker, and uh give advertisers some actionable outcome on the other side.
• 10:51
  Ann Hailer: And we're getting there, which is which is good to see.
• 10:55
  Rick Ducey: Exactly.
• 10:55
  Rick Ducey: Yeah, I mean, that's not an easy row uh to hoe, and a lot of different groups, industry groups, individual companies, different partnerships, uh collaborations.
• 11:04
  Rick Ducey: Um yeah, I mean, um it's a huge order, but it's encouraging to see the kind of progress that's being made.
• 11:10
  Rick Ducey: I want to pick up on some of the last things you were just talking about, transparency, deduplication, and so on.
• 11:15
  Rick Ducey: So, one of the things um you're talking about audience and finding the audience across linear and digital, CTV, um, how we can target them and so on.
• 11:24
  Rick Ducey: But uh, what um clients want, marketers and agencies, is performance.
• 11:28
  Rick Ducey: They want some performance metrics, and they want to have a quality campaign that that can get into things like frequency capping.
• 11:36
  Rick Ducey: Um, where exactly um is my is my impression coming from?
• 11:40
  Rick Ducey: What kind of transparency do I have in terms of the inventory it's actually running in?
• 11:45
  Rick Ducey: Um and then the deduplication that you mentioned.
• 11:48
  Rick Ducey: And yeah, CTV and OTA, the broadcast, have different jobs to do and different capabilities, but ultimately we want to see that cross-platform measurement.
• 11:58
  Rick Ducey: Uh so if I have a um a target audience and I've delivered messages either with broadcast or with CTV, what did they actually get?
• 12:07
  Rick Ducey: I mean, did I when I look at the campaign, did I have an average frequency of 100 uh to a small segment to get to my you know gross impressions?
• 12:17
  Rick Ducey: Or you know, am I actually managing within uh frequency cap expectations and and deduplication and so on?
• 12:24
  Rick Ducey: Where so you mentioned you're you know, those are important issues and making some progress.
• 12:28
  Rick Ducey: Let me go back to where where are we in that and and what can we expect in near term?
• 12:32
  Ann Hailer: Yeah, I think that uh speaking for the streaming side of our business, the uniqueness of what the scale that's pulled together across multiple publishers and across um multiple inventory providers, is you can get that frequency for that streaming purchase across all of those um various inventory sources.
• 13:01
  Ann Hailer: The real opportunity then comes with understanding that combined frequency and reach across the broadcast purchase and the streaming purchase.
• 13:14
  Ann Hailer: And there's modeling, and it's it's not always going to be perfect, but the counting.
• 13:20
  Ann Hailer: So I think what we're seeing from ACR and that measurement on the glass is probably where we're going to go to better understand where um you know that cross-platform performance comes from.
• 13:35
  Ann Hailer: But I think what's what's more important is the action ability from that.
• 13:42
  Ann Hailer: So you have you know attribution modeling, you have actual attribution, you can get a lot of targeting data from your your streaming campaigns.
• 13:54
  Ann Hailer: But really, when you're when you're working with a partner that can give you insights across both, you can take action across both, even if you're using that extreme targeting that you you got from the streaming side.
• 14:11
  Ann Hailer: Together, then take some sort of action based on those outcomes.
• 14:18
  Ann Hailer: What's the next thing you're going to do?
• 14:20
  Ann Hailer: What's the next pivot you need to make based on that reportability?
• 14:26
  Ann Hailer: Um, one of the things that we we spent a lot of time and energy doing was we incorporated Nielsen's media data engine into how we report on the broadcast side.
• 14:39
  Ann Hailer: The uh application for that is real-time demo reporting within a few days.
• 14:49
  Ann Hailer: So we've got an expectation now because of streaming, because of the reporting you get so quickly on the streaming side, broadcast needs to do what it can do to be equitable or comparable as best as we can.
• 15:10
  Ann Hailer: So that data engine, that it's based on NLTV, has been game-changing for us.
• 15:17
  Ann Hailer: We can react it within a few-week campaign and make changes, optimize it just like you can on the streaming side.
• 15:28
  Ann Hailer: And together, um, when you talk about transparency and you talk about you know predictability, that's that's true cross-platform reportability and outcomes, and that's pretty exciting.
• 15:43
  Rick Ducey: It is.
• 15:44
  Rick Ducey: Um, still hard work to be done, but people are doing it, which is good to see.
• 15:48
  Rick Ducey: And yeah, I guess um if it wasn't hard, it wouldn't be fun or something like that.
• 15:53
  Ann Hailer: We're having so much fun.
• 15:55
  Rick Ducey: Exactly, I'm sure.
• 15:56
  Rick Ducey: Um, so let me uh for for data, let's dig into that, uh, an element of that that you've been talking about.
• 16:02
  Rick Ducey: Um there's a lot of um new capabilities that AI platforms and tools and MCP models and so on um are allowing to happen and um you know come forth and multiply uh different ways to look at data, evaluate data.
• 16:17
  Rick Ducey: Um so we get into a couple of different directions here.
• 16:20
  Rick Ducey: One is um the actual data itself, and you're mentioning this like glass level data.
• 16:26
  Rick Ducey: In some cases, we have, I guess you might call um deterministic data.
• 16:30
  Rick Ducey: It's it's like real data as best as we can make it real.
• 16:33
  Rick Ducey: This is what was delivered to the class, um, you know, we hope.
• 16:37
  Rick Ducey: Um in some cases that's not always true, but basically it is.
• 16:40
  Rick Ducey: And then the um probabilistic data where we do um this is probably what happened, we model it out, and you know, we build look-like audiences to extend um the segmentation we're targeting, things like that.
• 16:51
  Rick Ducey: So all of those are good tools, and they have you know strong capabilities and some limitations, or at least um, if you don't want to think of as limitation, um, you know, stronger ways to use it and some expectations if you use uh one technique versus another.
• 17:06
  Rick Ducey: But coming back to um, I guess trusted data, explainable AI, and accountability and measurement, I mean, those are core concepts for faith in the whole system.
• 17:18
  Rick Ducey: Media sellers want to bring that to buyers uh in a way that's credible and you know validated, and the the buyers want to trust it.
• 17:27
  Rick Ducey: And so the um, you know, how how does this all shake out?
• 17:32
  Rick Ducey: Um automation is bringing together a lot of these different things.
• 17:35
  Rick Ducey: Linear TV kind of has a reputation of um it's hard to buy, you know.
• 17:39
  Rick Ducey: Um Frank Friedman years ago said that there's 36 steps in a workflow to buy linear TV.
• 17:46
  Rick Ducey: And he's you know, that takes a lot of work, a lot of time.
• 17:48
  Rick Ducey: And he's back in those days, this is one quote I love.
• 17:51
  Rick Ducey: Um it's been a few years, but he said, but a summer intern could buy a million dollars on Facebook in like 30 seconds.
• 17:57
  Rick Ducey: So there's been a lot of initiatives to make it easier, more powerful, more accurate, and more attributable to buy linear TV, which is critical as we joined the linear broadcast TV with uh with this ETV.
• 18:09
  Rick Ducey: So, what what do you where your what's your thinking now on trusted data?
• 18:12
  Rick Ducey: How do we know if it's trustable?
• 18:13
  Rick Ducey: What is what do you mean by explainable AI and accountable measurement?
• 18:19
  Ann Hailer: Sure, sure.
• 18:19
  Ann Hailer: That's a lot to unpack in in one question.
• 18:23
  Ann Hailer: So from a let's do the first part on on the the platforms and the technology of the execution.
• 18:32
  Ann Hailer: Uh you are absolutely right.
• 18:34
  Ann Hailer: There are there are lots of technologies that are helping to get broadcast inventory closer to the buyer's hands in a more efficient way.
• 18:46
  Ann Hailer: There's there's you mentioned TDB's working on one, we're working on one, there's a couple other technology companies out there.
• 18:55
  Ann Hailer: Um in today's world, so it isn't just about the inventory, and this is the same thing on the on the streaming side.
• 19:06
  Ann Hailer: There's lots of access to inventory.
• 19:09
  Ann Hailer: It's the the quality of that inventory, the the reportability on that inventory, the the measurement of that inventory, and then the actions or data that you're getting from exposure in that inventory to an audience and then doing something with it.
• 19:31
  Ann Hailer: So that adds more complexity, but adds so much opportunity to the process.
• 19:40
  Ann Hailer: And that is where trusted sort sellers and and trusted data comes into it.
• 19:47
  Ann Hailer: You can have all the automation in the world, but you're going to need sales and you're going to need service.
• 19:54
  Ann Hailer: And on the agency side, you are going to need the intelligence and the sort of institutional knowledge that takes all of that automation and takes all of that data and makes action out of it.
• 20:13
  Ann Hailer: And that is the part that as AI is doing wonderful things for us, and automation's doing wonderful things for us, allows us to have the time to make better outcomes for all of that.
• 20:28
  Ann Hailer: So there will be multiple technologies, there will be multiple ways that we are able to access the inventory and deliver it to an advertiser.
• 20:39
  Ann Hailer: That's great.
• 20:41
  Ann Hailer: The next part of it, the data piece.
• 20:44
  Ann Hailer: So again, there is a lot of inventory out there.
• 20:49
  Ann Hailer: There's a lot of programming out there.
• 20:51
  Ann Hailer: It's it's multiplying.
• 20:53
  Ann Hailer: So what streaming has done is it hasn't actually diminished viewership on broadcast.
• 21:00
  Ann Hailer: Broadcast has actually stayed relatively steady, but consumption and fragmentation across the consumption makes it even more complex.
• 21:11
  Ann Hailer: So your question about where does data come into it, how are you seeking the audiences, your potential customers across all of that fragmentation?
• 21:21
  Ann Hailer: You need trusted data.
• 21:24
  Ann Hailer: You need third-party data, you need first-party data, you need safe places to share and process and take action on both of those things.
• 21:36
  Ann Hailer: And I think that what you will see, streaming's been there for a long time.
• 21:40
  Ann Hailer: And I mentioned our audience engine, we've done a lot of work to take multiple sources of intelligence and data and used it to give those actions to an advertiser.
• 21:55
  Ann Hailer: What I think you will see from the broadcast side, um, and and part of this, you you might have seen we we purchased a company called Devon, which helps us understand broadcast audiences and take action on those audiences.
• 22:11
  Ann Hailer: Broadcast is going to get there too.
• 22:14
  Ann Hailer: Um, we know it works, we know what the reach is, we know where the programming is, but to to intellectually approach an advertiser and say, This programming, these markets, this opportunity, use that with streaming, that's the part I think.
• 22:33
  Ann Hailer: Is on the forefront of where we're going with local media.
• 22:39
  Rick Ducey: For sure, for sure.
• 22:40
  Rick Ducey: Well, let me, and you've spoken to all of these things, but let me, as a last um topic, uh give you a chance to put a bow on it a little bit.
• 22:49
  Rick Ducey: So you've got advertisers, um, agencies and marketers in the wilds here trying to figure things out.
• 22:55
  Rick Ducey: They're they're making some decisions, they're getting some experience around data, um transparency, performance.
• 23:03
  Rick Ducey: Um and okay, who do I work with?
• 23:07
  Rick Ducey: W what are your thoughts on what agencies and marketers are looking for for good partnerships?
• 23:12
  Rick Ducey: And what are the more durable, successful ones looking like?
• 23:18
  Ann Hailer: So for my entirety of my career, I have worked in local.
• 23:22
  Ann Hailer: I am I am a firm believer that every advertiser given the choice would advertise locally.
• 23:31
  Ann Hailer: You would tailor your messaging based on seasonality, geography, availability of product, incentives, competitive set.
• 23:43
  Ann Hailer: That to me is the opportunity for any advertiser to maximize their spend.
• 23:53
  Ann Hailer: Network and national splash has its has its benefits, but if you're really going to get incrementality in what you're trying to do, you would do that locally.
• 24:04
  Ann Hailer: In order to do that locally, you need really good intelligence and really good data and access market by market to inventory that varies differently market by market.
• 24:20
  Ann Hailer: So selfishly, locality and the name, right?
• 24:24
  Ann Hailer: Like that that's an that's it, that's an easy thing to say, but it comes from do you trust that partner to show you those insights of how Detroit performs differently than Cincinnati, performs differently than Miami?
• 24:40
  Ann Hailer: And what mix do I need to do that?
• 24:43
  Ann Hailer: So that local audience intelligence, I think is is the first thing.
• 24:48
  Ann Hailer: I think the second thing is how are you accessing that inventory?
• 24:53
  Ann Hailer: I mentioned there's a ton of inventory.
• 24:55
  Ann Hailer: There is a lot of inventory.
• 24:58
  Ann Hailer: And so the direct relationships, that direct publisher relationship, that direct broadcaster relationship makes us closer to that access and delivering that back to an advertiser.
• 25:14
  Ann Hailer: The third piece, you you take all that technology, you take the automation we're putting it into it, we're all using AI, so we're all doing things quicker, but that human expertise still has to go on top of it.
• 25:33
  Ann Hailer: And so if you're working with a partner that can give you actionable insights off of that uh purchase, to me, that's that's the home run.
• 25:48
  Ann Hailer: And we'll find ways, like you know, we've talked about it first-party data, third-party data, putting that in a safe place, giving, you know, self-serve or dashboards.
• 26:01
  Ann Hailer: There's so much really great things coming.
• 26:04
  Ann Hailer: But behind that is that that institutional knowledge on both sides of it.
• 26:11
  Ann Hailer: And to me, that's a huge opportunity for all of us.
• 26:16
  Rick Ducey: Right.
• 26:16
  Rick Ducey: No question.
• 26:17
  Rick Ducey: Well, Ann, thank you so much for this discussion.
• 26:20
  Rick Ducey: It was really enlightening to learn more about what you're seeing, what you're doing, and and kind of how the industry overall is progressing.
• 26:26
  Rick Ducey: Um, probably some good marks can be awarded and uh some wait and see as we try to figure out some remaining things.
• 26:33
  Rick Ducey: But overall, um, pretty good positive progress, I think.
• 26:36
  Rick Ducey: So you're spending time with us today.
• 26:39
  Ann Hailer: I really appreciate it.
• 26:40
  Rick Ducey: Yeah, and for those listening, thank you for joining us.
• 26:42
  Rick Ducey: Uh, hope you've been with us in previous podcasts that will join us in future podcasts.
• 26:46
  Rick Ducey: Again, I'm Rick Ducey, Managing Director of BIA Advisory Services, and we look forward to having you joining us next time.
• 26:53
  Rick Ducey: Thanks everyone for being with us.
• 26:54
  Rick Ducey: And thank you again.
• 26:55
  Ann Hailer: Take care.
• 26:56
  Ann Hailer: Bye.