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PREDICTING THE UPFRONTS · The Media Odyssey

• Marion Ranchet: [00:00:00] Tv, YouTube, to me, YouTube is, is not tv. But let's not start this debate right now. I don't wanna have this debate. Evan Shapiro: No, we should have this debate. Marion Ranchet: Welcome everyone to this week's episode of The Media Odyssey. This is Evan Shapiro Evan Shapiro: And that is Marion Ranchet. Marion Ranchet: This week on the pod, we're talking about the Upfronts, the season started. Evan Shapiro: I don't know, we should probably talk about that. We also have a special guest from LG Ads. Um, but let's dive in. There are a lot of divisions of the upfront season, so you have the New Fronts, which are the more digital players, then you have the Upfronts. Um, but yeah, I agree. I actually think the upfront season always starts at CES. Marion Ranchet: In Jan? Evan Shapiro: Yeah. [00:01:00] Okay. 'cause that's a big advertiser platform meetup. Um, there's a huge section of CES. I go, you don't. Marion Ranchet: I will next year. Evan Shapiro: You're gonna go next year? All right. We'll have a great time. Yeah. I have a great time there. I hate Vegas, but I have, I'll have a great time there. Now I've said that, I'll get hate mail from Vegas. But, I think it officially starts out, there's a lot of ad meetups with platforms there. I think South by Southwest is the official start of it. So I think technically you're right, but you're referring to this spotter event, right? Marion Ranchet: Absolutely that took place on March 27. And what's fascinating is we've been talking about, you know, the divide between big media and the creator economy. And so Spotter, it's a US company, actually backed, uh, in part by Amazon. And so they decided to do their own Upfront-like event where they gathered their network of content creators and they invited [00:02:00] brands and agencies to come here to pitch like, you know, they would in a few weeks time to listen to a Netflix and ABC et cetera. Evan Shapiro: What I find fascinating about this, so Spotter is a company focused on creators. Marion Ranchet: Yeah, absolutely. Evan Shapiro: And some might say influencers, but that's not, you know, when you look at the talent that they had at this event. So, Kinigra Deon, who has 5 million subscribers, she does a scripted and a very interesting entertainment. Marion Ranchet: I love it. Evan Shapiro: For 5 million subscribers. You know, she, they call her the Tyler Perry of YouTube. And she gets 75% of her views on television. Uh, Colin and Tamir, who hosted it, they have 2 million subs. Jordan Matter was there, he's got 29 million sub. Mr. Beast was there. Yeah. So you're talking about the interesting thing is I've often made the analogy that YouTube is the new Comcast, right? These folks showed up as channels. They presented [00:03:00] themselves in an upfront as different channels on this new distribution platform. Marion Ranchet: Yeah. And Spotter they're actually investing in creators. They're really known for writing, you know, big checks in exchange for creators to come onto their platform, their ecosystem. And then they essentially manage the YouTube ad revenues for those creators. And they have, Evan Shapiro: well, it's a large ad network at this point. Marion Ranchet: Yeah, and they, they have eligibility criteria, right? So they're really looking for, you know, premium content, a certain number of, minimum subs. So they say 50 K YouTube, followers or subscribers. But, they're actually working with, you know, way bigger, way bigger creators. They're looking for folks who have been publishing constantly content for the last 20 months, et cetera. So, YouTube is this massive thing. And let's be clear, this is [00:04:00] the top, this is like creme de la creme of YouTube. Evan Shapiro: Yeah. These are the, these are the top of the top, without question. The key element though here is, uh, that more and more of their inventory, is being watched and, and merchandised and monetized through ad sales on tv. The big message of this event from Spotter was YouTube is TV. What I find fascinating is so that, so they, they went out before the New Fronts, which is the digital part of the upfronts, right? And they did their own channel upfront in this, in this event that they called Spotter Showcase. When YouTube has their upfront, not during the New Fronts, during the digital portion, but during the proper Upfronts. On May 14th, in May at Lincoln Center, with Lady Gaga and Mr. Beast and a whole bunch of other creators there. They will also have big publishers there as well, as part of their message, again, putting themselves as television as opposed to digital distribution. Marion Ranchet: What's interesting [00:05:00] is YouTube is, I, I'd be, I'd like to know how YouTube, you know, felt about that event, but I think it's interesting they went their own way, because at the end of the day, you don't wanna be over reliant on one platform. So I'm looking at Spotter. They're really focused on YouTube creators, YouTube ad revenues, et cetera. They should expand their horizon, and I think this event is a way of doing that. Also, I've never been to YouTube's events, but what I'm hearing is that they're really taking the platform angle, the technology angle, et cetera. This, this was very much content. Right. And Evan Shapiro: No, they, I think I think YouTube is thrilled by, but I, I don't know. I have no idea how they thought about it. But this very much, if you, if you think back to the interview I did with Pedro Pena at MIP London, where he said, we're not in the content business. Yeah. And then you look at Neil Mohan, the CEO of YouTube. His comments on creators are the new Hollywood. I think they're very [00:06:00] happy with some of their bigger channels going out there and setting that bar higher so that the expectation here is if you're gonna buy into these premium channels, you're gonna pay a premium CPM over what you would normally buy from YouTube. And in YouTube's case, they're unable, they can't sell Mr. Beast's channel. They can't sell Colin and Samir's channels. They can sell YouTube. And so the, the higher CPMs that these premium channels get, YouTube rides along with that success. So that is a win for them. What I think is a larger issue here is that you have this massive channel presentation. Channels that are larger than most of the cable universe individually. If you look at the individual, one of those videos from one of those creators that I just mentioned, Jordan Matters latest video, which he put up a couple of days ago now has 6 million views. Yeah, it's, it's like a 20 minute takeover video by his daughter. [00:07:00] It's like a reality show thing, and that's bigger than a lot of television shows out there. So you have the biggest channels from YouTube out there presenting before the new fronts. Then you've got YouTube presenting at the Upfronts. And what does this say about the Upfront environment writ large. And then frankly, what does this say about the advertising economy writ large for 2025? February, very famously, very recently, the gauge had YouTube as the number one publisher on television in the United States. YouTube by itself. Marion Ranchet: It's their highest right? They're trending close to 12. Remember my prediction? Evan Shapiro: Yes. 11.6%. Marion Ranchet: At 15. It's only February and they're close to 12. I think I should have bet something with you to gain something. I really regret that. Evan Shapiro: You'll win my adoration. Marion Ranchet: Your respect Evan Shapiro: Your respect. Yes. Marion Ranchet: Cool. I'll take it. Evan Shapiro: I'll won't make one of your accent anymore. Marion Ranchet: But what's interesting about what you're saying, right, is [00:08:00] what does it say? It says that, you know, audiences are fragmented, and so the advertising business is fragmented. Right? And so, you know, all of those brands that were at that event, apparently the CEO was saying that they had a very long lists, a very wait, long wait lists of folks who wanted to attend. You know, they will be across all of those events and they will allocate where they think they can have the best performing campaign. The most impact. Evan Shapiro: Exactly right. Marion Ranchet: So which says one thing. It's not just a size or a quality thing or quantity thing. It's a quality thing. And one of the things Evan Shapiro: Without question. Yeah. Marion Ranchet: Yeah, but it's quality of content, but it's also quality of the audience and the intention that it brings, right? Because one of the things that, where we're comparing everything together, TV, YouTube, I. To me, [00:09:00] YouTube is, is not TV. But let's not start this debate right now that I don't wanna have this debate. I think it's moot. Evan Shapiro: Shots fired. No, we should have this debate when the biggest channels are out there. And by the way, most of their, most of their content is long form and most of their content, of those, of those Spotter creators, I would argue that they would tell you that most of their content is being seen on tv. Marion Ranchet: They are. And. I'll stop you right there. Spotter is actually making the case that almost 70% of the impressions from their, you know, portfolio of creators is on CTV. So, no, there's no doubt of that about that, but I think it's just, it's a wording thing to me Evan Shapiro: I completely disagree. And that's, I think that's the danger that the traditional publishers face in this Upfront. I was with a major publisher, a broadcaster in the US earlier this week, and uh, the conversation I had with them, it and I showed using their own data, [00:10:00] the difference in audiences between broadcast and YouTube, just of their own content. And their abandonment of YouTube and TikTok and other social video is an abandonment of an audience. So when, Marion Ranchet: Of course, I agree. Evan Shapiro: When traditional publishers, say we don't, you know, ride on that wave, they're avoiding big audiences that they could be getting better CPMs for if they could consistently rely on them. Marion Ranchet: I agree, even, but. It's not, so the thing is that it's becoming this thing where, at the end of the day, what matters is what you do. It not the name, the label. I don't care if YouTube is TV or not. Evan Shapiro: I think this advertising economy, and this gets to a larger topic, this Upfront, the gravitational pull of the reliable delivery of eyeballs from [00:11:00] social media in a transactional continuum with your advertising is going to disproportionately move money out of traditional television and even the growth of connected television back to these large digital walled gardens because YouTube is also the number one television channel, and Amazon has basketball and, and, and. I think you're gonna, there is a retraction of dollars happening in the ad market right now, at least in the US Marion Ranchet: Yeah, for sure. Evan Shapiro: But I'm getting to hear that it's happening globally because of a fear, recessionary fears in the US. In particular, driven by interesting moves by people in power with regards to the free market in the United States. Marion Ranchet: Yeah, absolutely. No, but I think we agree Evan Shapiro: There is going to be money moved around as a result of that, and I think money will be moved into platforms where there is more [00:12:00] predictable outcome from the money spent and that a lot of powder will remain dry in this upfront as a result. So when you don't see YouTube as TV, I think, one of the reasons why money will safely move to Google and Meta and Amazon is, YouTube is television now. Amazon is TV now. So you can get both of those things from these platforms where you already know you're gonna be spending a shit ton. The majority, 60% of your budget is gonna go to those three players. So to put even more money there is very easy. Marion Ranchet: No, but I think we agree on that. It's just, it's becoming a discussion on semantics. I'm not saying that audiences are not spending time there, I'm just, I'm just saying not all things are equal. They bring different things to different people, and yes, you need to have a strategy where you do both. Just going back on the, you know, let's talk money Evan Shapiro: As an [00:13:00] advertiser, you mean? Marion Ranchet: Yeah. But even to the point you were making, a broadcaster cannot really afford not to be part of this, right? No. There's no doubt about that. Evan Shapiro: From a pure audience survival standpoint. Marion Ranchet: Yeah. You don't wanna, so I'll finish on this, which to say why I don't like this comparison is because to me, it's a platform and what's important, and it matters, you know, it's not regulated. We need to compare apples to apples. Evan Shapiro: Yeah, no, that is, that. Marion Ranchet: Let's be careful with that. Evan Shapiro: It's not regulated. It is a platform. They don't make and distribute content. You're right. Marion Ranchet: Yeah, exactly. They are doing all of this risk free. So that's why I don't like that comparison. I that saying that is. Evan Shapiro: And I also think there is a, there is a reality by which you need to buy both universes in order to truly get the full audience out there. If you're not buying the apps of the traditional publishers who are also publishing on YouTube, you're leaving, you know, a huge chunk, if not half of the audience on the table there. I also agree that better regulation of big tech is [00:14:00] absolutely needed. If you're an advertiser though right now, and you have $1 to spend. And you have three choices to make. Where are you spending your $1 right now? Marion Ranchet: Well, so let's, let's stop. Evan Shapiro: I'm asking you that. Where would you spend, where would you spend your $1. Marion Ranchet: Again, it depends on the objectives that I'm trying to achieve, the audiences that I'm looking to target. So I think it's too easy to say, I have $1, I'll put everything in here. Evan Shapiro: Damnit Marion Shapiro: It's more complicated than that. I'll put some money on TV and in digital, I'll do both. Now within digital, let's just spend a minute on that, right? Speaking about. You know, one big spender, someone like Unilever, they said they would be spending 50% of their global marketing spend to social media and the creator economy. Right? Evan Shapiro: 80%. Marion Ranchet: I think that's a great Evan Shapiro: One of the top 10 advertisers on the planet. Planet Earth. [00:15:00] Yeah. Marion Ranchet: And it's likely last year, those, you know, big digital spenders, the Amazon, Airbnb, booking, Expedia of the world, Uber, all of these guys, they've spent a bit more last year. But they're not gonna keep spending. Right. They're really much Evan Shapiro: You mean increase in budgets? Marion Ranchet: Yeah. They've spent a little more, the direction of travel is not necessarily spending more, so that takes us to the Upfront, right? How much money are we talking about? Evan Shapiro: In the Upfront. Marion Ranchet: Yeah. So the concept of the upfront is that they're pre-selling, right? Yeah. The advertising, this is something that does not exist in France. You can buy maybe a few months ahead. Evan Shapiro: So it is primarily, it's primarily a television US budget, right? Yeah. So if you're talking about, let's call it 130, $140 billion, um, and it varies from year to year, so you're, you're not spending a hundred percent of your money and that's part of the calculation. [00:16:00] Okay, so remember here you are spending money between the official kickoff of the Upfront, which is early May through the end of closing deals. Marion Ranchet: Okay. Which is what? Which Evan Shapiro: Can stretch out. Well that's it. Like there is no timer on it, Like pencils down everybody. Yeah, sometimes it stretches out. The complaint is sometimes it stretches out forever and it never ends, and the negotiations and so the big players get in front. What's odd is in the last couple of years, the fancy shiny objects like the Netflixes of the world have gotten their deals done first 'cause they're sexy. And the big buyers. The big buyers, like that kind of stuff. I don't know. Marion Ranchet: They do. Evan Shapiro: A recession-afraid, a recession looming marketplace has you spending $65 CPMs on fancy-schmancy shiny objects. As opposed to Amazon where I can click through and sell something, in basketball, by the way, or [00:17:00] YouTube from one of those channels. Again, you're, there's so much data there compared to a Netflix whose data stack is just not comparable to the walled gardens. You know, you look at Disney, Disney is gonna be, it is gonna be fine relative to the whole, probably either way, because they have broadcast ABC they have sports, ESPN. They have Hulu, which is by far and away the single best premium ad sales environment on television. Which, by the way some would argue is not a good thing 'cause they have a heavier ad load than anybody else, which is annoying to the consumer. But they have such all these various wheels and arms to their legs and they're very good at selling digital, which not everybody else in traditional media is. Disco brothers is not good at it. Very, very bad. Paramount, better than most because they have Tubi. I mean, so Pluto and Fox has Tubi, so there are different talents in there. But generally [00:18:00] speaking, you know, you're gonna wanna have lots of digital arms and other legs to you going into this Upfront, I believe. Marion Ranchet: And so, one thing, the reason the concept, for those of us who are not from the US is that because you are buying early, are you buying cheaper? Evan Shapiro: Yeah. So, no, again, thank you for finishing that thought. So it, the, one of the big variables in every Upfront is how much of my spend will I spend? And that goes up and down every year. So is it 70%? Is it 30%? It's somewhere between those two. It used to be a heavier, heavier dose of Upfront, that's being paired back on an ongoing basis in big reason because I'd rather adapt my spend across the year than be locked into prices. Now, if you lock in, you're spending money on fourth quarter of this year through third quarter of 26. [00:19:00] Marion Ranchet: A lot can happen, Evan Shapiro: Right? And you're locking in prices to your question. Marion Ranchet: Yeah. Okay. Evan Shapiro: You're locking in. Marion Ranchet: It's a super price. Evan Shapiro: Guaranteed, well, guaranteed prices and guaranteed deliveries. You're also getting tent pole programming like the Olympics. Yeah, if, yeah, there is an Olympics in 26. You're getting other big, the Super Bowl to a certain extent, so you can, you lock in massive tent pole programming depending on who the programmer is. But simultaneous, nothing happens in a vacuum. You're not just going and locking up your television money. You're also spending digital money simultaneously, and I think that's why people are pulling money out of big, chunky, Upfront commitments in favor of scatter and or the adaptability of digital based on ROAs. Marion Ranchet: Yeah. So keep it lean. Right. And flexible. Which it feels like, 'cause historically, especially in Evan Shapiro: The recessionary economy. Yes. Marion Ranchet: Yeah. This thing is from the sixties I read, and the idea [00:20:00] being that that money was meant to help fund the programming. Right? Evan Shapiro: Well, do you want, do you want me to show you how back far back the Upfront concept goes? So the Upfront concept actually ties back to agricultural revolution. The television season, if you think about it, is wrapped around the school season. The school season is wrapped around farming. When is the harvest? Right? The upfront matches that calendar. We are still using the cycle of the sun to sell our advertising on television. That's how antiquated this process is. It's really mind boggling, old fashioned. But I will say this, there is a useful planning mechanism that everybody still finds relevant. The timing of it all. And you can see that by Google embracing the Upfront, there is a very useful timing mechanism from a planning standpoint, both from a seller side and a buy side. Um, [00:21:00] and if you think that Google isn't tying larger deals together as a result of that, you're kidding yourself. Yeah. So, and by the way, if you don't think that's US based calendar thing isn't affecting worldwide ad economy. You're kidding yourself. It absolutely is. Marion Ranchet: Speaking of I think you shared with us a few days ago, predictions. What are your predictions? So let's not do 10. Let's do just a couple. You know, in the interest of time, you gotta be snappy. Tell me. Evan Shapiro: Wow. That feel, I feel like really under lot pressure right now. For those people who are listening, I put up a slide, which shows the monthly ad spend increases going back to January of 2024 and then towards 2025, or just a couple months ago. And you can see that [00:22:00] generally speaking, ad spend in the US has been on a good trajectory. Each month it is up above the same month, a year prior. And that's happened month after month after month for a year now. And prior to this, or a little bit prior to this period, we were mired in what I call an impression-recession. Where each of these numbers were red and negative month after month, down from the previous year. There is this one interesting area. So, if you look at the fourth quarter of 2024, it should have been up into the right. The economy was in good shape. Inflation in particular had come down by then and employment had also stayed solid. But what happened was there was this uncertainty around a lot of elections. 40% of the world's population was having an election this past fall. Right? The US election in particular created a lot of uncertainty and growth during fourth quarter, which should have been up into the [00:23:00] right very heavily really flattened out. Then the election settled and business thought it was great for them. And in December and January the growth continued again. What you see now happening, at least by word of mouth around the ad economy that, with conversations I'm having is that there is this uncertainty hovering over everything. Given the, I think, somewhat erratic behavior of the person in the White House here in the US. We can see that it's just the stock market today on, Liberty or Liberation Day, tanked. And so there is money that is being pulled back, a across, you know, the Atlantic in the ad economy. I had a conversation with one of the larger ad platforms on the planet today, and they're very worried about what they're seeing from a spend standpoint. So that's my major prediction is it's going to be at at least a hover around safety [00:24:00] Upfront. And so what would normally would've been a, I think, a down year anyway for the Upfront is gonna be further down in part because people are gonna wanna spend less, but in part because they're gonna keep their powder dry and keep it out of up big, chunky Upfront deals and flexible for later in the year. But overall, that entirely plays into the hands of the big walled guardens. Meta will sell more advertising this year than all of television, and no one's gonna get fired for buying more Instagram. If TikTok survives, no one's gonna get fired for buying more TikTok. We can prove that these outlets work. So I think the shift to pure play digital and to the walled gardens in a recessionary, feared year is gonna be even heavier. Marion Ranchet: The thing is, is digital still very much a safe bet? I've actually read a survey saying that 75% of digital marketers were actually seeing the return on investment on their campaigns that it was going down. So maybe the safe [00:25:00] bet is TV. Evan Shapiro: Yeah, you're absolutely right. I think there is some measurement showing that not everything is returning on that ad spend, but I also think buyers want safety. So I guess we'll see. We will see. Marion Ranchet: We will see. So let's welcome our guests 'cause we have someone amazing today. Evan Shapiro: So today on the Media Odyssey Podcast, we have Ioanna Protogiannis. Did I say that correctly? Ioanna Protogiannis: Yes. Evan Shapiro: And you are the Senior Director of Measurement and Reporting Solutions at LG Ad Solutions. Is that correct? Ioanna Protogiannis:Yes. Evan Shapiro: So my next question is, what the heck does that mean? What do you do on a daily basis, weekly basis, monthly basis, uh, at, at your office? Ioanna Protogiannis: That's a great question. So, my team focuses on all first party data deliverables, so post-campaign wrap deck, sales strategy, and then we also focus on partnerships. So third party partnerships between data, creative, and measurement. So we have a pretty big ecosystem of, we're able to reach the client from a first party and third party side. [00:26:00] Marion Ranchet: So you are breathing data day in day out. Is the data any good in this space? You know, CTV is supposed, this supposed to be this big new thing. Everything is perfect and dandy, is that the case? Ioanna Protogiannis: I wouldn't say it's perfect in dandy, but data is key, right? Data is knowledge. It's kind of the best part. I love it. It's the fa- most favorite part of my job. So, our first party data is pretty strong. We've got ACR. You've got other capabilities, whether you're a media and entertainment client, you also have app level data. And then when we work with our third party clients, you can get into other parts of data to compliment it. So you've got sales lift data, brand lift data, some survey base, and everybody's got a bunch of methodologies, but still at the end of the day helps tell a holistic story together. Evan Shapiro: What do you think is the key driver of effectiveness? Meaning, you know what? When the client is coming in and looking for the efficacy of [00:27:00] their campaign on CTV, and that is supposed to be. One of the highlights of the data that you can provide, what are they looking for? Are they looking for awareness? Are they looking for click-through rates? Are they looking for lift, to your point, lift in sales? What? What are the key metrics that they're looking to measure these days? Ioanna Protogiannis: Usually there's a couple KPIs, right? So CTR will always show you engagement, but it's not enough to take you over the line to really get that budget unlocked. So it depends what vertical you're on and where we sit in the funnel. So if you're media and entertainment, we have the lower level conversion on the TV, how you utilize the apps on the TV. So in their case, CTR is just, you know, a preliminary, but they wanna see more what are people, you know, how often are they clicking on the app? How long are they spending in the app? That's the beauty of the OEM with the app partners. Then when you think of general market, yes, CTR and VC are important, incremental reach is definitely one. You know, where are you getting audiences beyond linear? And then [00:28:00] on top of that, you brought up a great point of awareness and ad recall, they compliment each other. So if you're looking to go internally to unlock budgets, you kind of wanna know what's the strategy, the KPI, and the outcome to unlock that budget with your finance team, most likely. So, if you need to have sales lift because you need some kind of tieback to transaction, then you need that regardless and incremental reach helps compliment that. And if it's understanding the brand awareness or the ad recall, and that's something for a newer brand. That's also important. So you use the two together. Evan Shapiro: How do you use, you mentioned third party partnerships, you know, how do you utilize, I mean, what's the importance of a third party provider in these types of campaigns that you're running and what kind of role do they typically play or when do you employ them? Ioanna Protogiannis: Yeah, so great question. I think for us, we have strong data of ACR data, and we know user behavior, but we don't know all of the survey-based [00:29:00] data that say a brand lift capability could have, or we don't have transaction data. And if you are a part of A QSR or a CPG and that is really important to you, then you do need that data as well to help drive that strategy. And it's really to show to your point, the effectiveness. Right? Overall, it's hard, you know. When you're not necessarily the website or the lowest point of the conversion, you have to prove the value of it. And that is the beauty of CTV is by doing this, you can prove it in multiple parts of the funnel, whereas traditionally in linear, you might have been a little bit more blind. So we work together. We are agnostic. That's one thing that we stand by because we like to align with what the client feels most comfortable with and strongest about. We're very client first centric, so that's kind of how we work with the partners, we give them a multitude of options and we can say what the pros and cons are, but it's really up to them who they feel most comfortable with. Evan Shapiro: Well, and I've been saying this, you [00:30:00] know, we debated this on the measurement episode. Marion, which is, are there gonna be multiple providers of currencies, multiple providers of data around that? And I said, it's gonna be kind of deal by deal. Ioanna is that, I mean, are you seeing either agency wide, big HoldCo wide, or brand, you know, a P and G, Unilever, they're so massive in and of themselves. They can pretty much dictate what third party they bring to the table. And you have to be, as a platform, as a supply sider, you have to be flexible enough to work with whomever they're bringing to the table. Correct. 100%. Ioanna Protogiannis: You don't wanna, if you force a client upon a big company who has their own goals, their, and working across multiple providers, it won't suit you well. So our best bet is just the more we know. So we learn, we educate, we know the different methodologies, be able to explain the pros and cons. We bring the partners to the calls so that they feel comfortable with it, but [00:31:00] everyone does have their own preference and it changes year over year. You don't have to want the same third party provider in Q1 that you do in Q4. Being agile Evan Shapiro: It might mean different, you know, bigger, bigger companies like P and G, they might have different third parties, for different brands, for very specific reasons. Ioanna Protogiannis: And especially with new players coming into the games and going to conferences and promoting their new product lines, they come back and it's, we're ready, hit the ground running, and we gotta kind of adapt quickly. And that is something that. Again, it kind of goes back to the more you know, but we learn a lot and we just pivot quickly and work together. That's like our main thing is just how to work best with clients to help them on their side. Marion Ranchet: You mentioned ACR data. Can we go back to that? Because I think we know what it is, but I'm not sure every listener on TMO knows what it is and I think that's very specific to the CTV space. Evan Shapiro: That's a good point there, Marion. Ioanna Protogiannis: So our ACR data is our automated content recognition data. So we're able to index linear ad [00:32:00] viewership and program viewership. So if you're running a campaign through linear, it's most common in the general market, and you wanna understand, am I hitting that audience with my CTV or am I getting beyond that? That's where our ACR data is a huge compliment of. And, you know, something that's really great to know is, we know more people are cutting the cord, right? So it's really great to understand that you wanna make your money matter and not duplicative. So with our ACR data, you can suppress the audience on a weekly basis, um, retarget the audience, however your strategy goes, and you're able to reach beyond with CTV. So this way you're not hitting the same household multiple times and saturating them. And then we know there's a lot of households, myself as one, that don't have linear, so you have to reach me in a different way. So by utilizing ACR, you can identify, I don't have linear. Therefore, reach me through CTV in your campaign, and this way you can make your money go a little further. Marion Ranchet: [00:33:00] Interesting. Evan Shapiro: You're also measuring usage beyond video too, right? So you're there, there's gameplay there and on ACR. And so, you know, I, one of the things I've said is gonna be an explosion is in-game advertising. Ultimately the gaming sphere, there's another, you know, these hours, long sessions, two, three hours long sessions opportunity there to measure reach and ad play as well. Ioanna Protogiannis: Yeah, the game gaming product is probably one of my most favorite because it's, we're able to identify through the gaming console plugged in. If you saw the ad and then you went in to play the ad versus those who saw, who didn't see the ad and played the ad. And you know, it's definitely big tent pole releases are big ones, but there's also smaller game companies that are now able to get insights that they might not have been able to get before. You also know estimated prices of games, right? You don't know exactly potentially whether what they bought, what specific package, but you know the lowest and [00:34:00] can estimate an upside on ROAs, which they couldn't do before. To be able to kind of go back and say, Hey, spending money on CTV or on Native, which is our big beautiful home screen unit, takes up about half the tv, you're able to see that now and kind of be able to go back to your finance team and say, Hey, this marketing money really mattered and here's why. Marion Ranchet: You are putting a lot of that data to work for advertisers and providers, but what about users? How do you use that data to, we were, in another episode talking about, you know, content discovery, we're seeing time spent going down. How do you make sure that you are bringing, you know, the best experience to consumers so that they wanna stay in beyond, you know, what Netflix wants to achieve, or, you know, Coca-Cola wants to achieve. Ioanna Protogiannis: I think that's a great question. I think, we've done a bunch of research before to see that there's a lot of options out there, like you're saying, and people don't really [00:35:00] know necessarily what to choose. So this is where I do think creative comes in handy. So we have multitude of creative where you can run a couple different, uh, content on a single creative banner. We've seen that to be super successful, to allow people to see. There's a breadth of content to kind of navigate them into the app a little bit. We've also been able, um, to grab people's attention with this home screen unit by running. So a brand new content release comes out. Say you're, you know, any specific app and you, on the fifth season, it's coming back out, you can do a companion carousel banner. So what that is, is you can play the video on the left hand side of this new ad unit to gravitate the user to seeing it. Then on the right hand side, let them know exactly where it is. So it helps bring awareness to what's coming out. As soon as you turn your TV on, before you go into any streaming apps, the first thing you see. So we've been trying to help work to that. And then you have multiple creatives, you kind of slice [00:36:00] in and out. And then based on CTR, app opens, how long they're spending in. You can gauge the success of it and then bring that feedback back to the client for future campaigns. Marion Ranchet: And so for you, for viewers, does that mean that, you know, the experience is highly personalized and then that would be one of the biggest draw of CTV versus traditional tv? Right? Ioanna Protogiannis: I think that's the ultimate end goal with AI, right? So as we start to, you know, integrate more of AI into our system, personalization definitely is something that we want to, at the moment, we use a lot of our data and tools to kind of figure out what, you know, segments certain households on what we know their behaviors are between linear, what apps they're using together, kind of grouping them on the TV, and serving content to them based on that. And then throughout the campaign, constantly making optimizations based on it. At the moment, we have a bit of AI and manual, and then the future, if you think about it, would [00:37:00] definitely be much more seamless built in and kind of just automate those personalizations on our home screen. And then also throughout the pods within CTV app placements. Evan Shapiro: So we're about to enter the New Fronts and the Upfronts and everybody we talk to who works in the ad game, uh, which is what you do. We ask them, you know, what's your perspective? What do you see? What are the trends you see coming? I mean, you talk to a lot of partners who are changing their expectations and changing their measurement goals and changing the way they weigh, uh, different aspects of the return on ad spend, as you said, ROAs. What do you see as the biggest trends coming up, this new front upfront period as far as measurement goes, or you know, which parts of the continuum of effectiveness are gonna be most concentrated? Ioanna Protogiannis: Yeah. I think measurement definitely matters the most, right? At the end of the day, it's key. So everything you spend money on, needs measurement that they can tie [00:38:00] back to a dollar. So, as new partners start coming to the game, as long as they're able to prove something over another partner in a more efficient manner or a more direct manner for a non ads team to understand, that's what I've seen be most successful. Because at the end of the day, finance teams unlock the budgets and finance teams don't necessarily, you know, are not sales or operations teams or products teams. So it has to be something that they can really tangibly see the value of. And then, I think as we learn more about AI in the system, something that we're super excited about is smart segments. So if you're looking to run a campaign and you wanna know what's another audience, you know, you could have run in the future, that would've been as effective from a measurement perspective to make sure they still achieve their goal. Lookalike smart segments from an AI standpoint should be able to help you do that faster. And that's probably my final point is: Agile and fast. Like both the points kind of seem the [00:39:00] same, but I keep reiterating it 'cause it's so important. You just have to be flexible and quick in this space. Things change all the time, so as long as you're constantly moving with it in the right direction, you will be successful and you'll also be learning as much as possible, which is probably the most key. Always keep learning. Evan Shapiro: That's great. Marion Ranchet: Awesome. I love it. I think this is a perfect ending to this agile and fast. I love it. Evan Shapiro: Thanks a lot, Ioanna. We'll put a link to your bio in the notes. Thanks so much for being our guest. Thanks for checking this out. Ioanna Protogiannis: Thanks for having me. Really appreciate it. Evan Shapiro: Well, that was a great interview. Uh, Ioanna's really super smart. I think this episode has really given us a lot to think about for this year's Upfront. Marion Ranchet: Absolutely. Evan Shapiro: Well, good to see you again. Great to hang out. What is your Substack called? Marion Ranchet: It's called Streaming Made Easy. How about yours? Evan Shapiro: Mine is called Media War and Peace. And Substack is having a moment, it seems right now. Marion Ranchet: It is, it is Evan Shapiro: increasingly in [00:40:00] New York magazine, which everybody should check out. So, I think we're leading that charge. Right. Marion Ranchet: Yeah, I'm sure. Evan Shapiro: Thanks everybody for listening. We'll see you next time. Marion Ranchet: See you next week.