While new measurement tools and AI are changing the ad market, buyers and sellers say it is an evolution — not a revolution.
On the measurement front, Nielsen Holdings PLC and others are releasing new ways to measure viewing across platforms and glean more information about viewers, especially about local content. As for AI, executives say too many buying and planning processes remain manual.
But while new tools such as Nielsen's upcoming Big Data + Panel are offering to move the industry in the right direction, more time and work are needed, according to panelists speaking at the 2024 NAB Show New York this week.
"We need at least a year of data before we can really see the impact," said Joe Cerone, executive vice president of local investment at IPG Mediabrands. "I am optimistic at what I have seen to date, and I don't think we're going to see that change in 2025 as much as we will in 2026."
Big Data + Panel
Combining data from set-top boxes, smart TVs and viewer panels, Nielsen's Big Data + Panel tool will become available to all US TV markets in January 2025, to supply more robust information for local stations, notably their newscasts.
Early results have been encouraging in terms of bringing greater insight to local market viewing, though panelists noted it will take some time before it emerges as a significant currency for transactions.
The new product found many more users than Nielsen's current panel, said Heather Gundry, executive vice president and head of local audio and video investment at Dentsu Group Inc. Gundry said that Big Data could grow local audience impressions in the 15% to 30% range.
"The fact that we can get more impressions to buy in locally speaks to the audience because that way we can find that audience within our audience-based buying. There's so much more out there. What we have found with a number of our clients is at some point they're maxing out, and they need more impressions to buy," said Gundry.
Patrick Paolini, executive vice president of ad sales at Fox Corp.'s Fox Television Stations, was more measured in his assessment of the new product.
"I think it's a good step but I don't think it will solve much," Paolini said at the NAB Show New York. "I think we need advanced audiences. It seems a little late to me — we should have advanced more at this point in the way we buy and sell."
Paolini said whether it is a new product or not, Nielsen is not the only currency for local buying and selling. He noted that in the past, 99 cents of every dollar was transacted off Nielsen measurement bases. Today, the executive put that number in the 60% to 70% range, and that level will continue to decline.
"We 100% need outcome-based data so we can target advanced audiences," he said.
New ways of transacting
Ahead of Big Data + Panel's official market entry, Dentsu continues to move away from age- and gender-based deals. The agency is conducting audience-based buying-off metrics combining clients' audience and its own data that matches with ComScore and set-top box info. Working within this closed loop, Dentsu buyers are working with station groups as the parties can update the data on a weekly or bimonthly basis and adjust schedules to match client goals.
Gundry said Dentsu is currently working with a pair of station groups to identify where linear messages are running in a particular market. It then seeks to match where a customer visited a client's website or made a purchase.
On the sell side, Fox is using automatic content recognition (ACR) data to generate reach reports between linear and digital campaigns. ACR is a technology that allows a smart TV to identify what is playing on the screen directly. Paolini notes that linear has a way to go before it catches up with the analytics and attribution info that is available from streaming.
"We are contracting with other vendors to provide us with some of that data, but there's a long road ahead on the linear side to provide that," Paolini said.
More streaming news
Fox is also tapping Nielsen's over-the-top data to provide a directional understanding of what is happening in the news space. Paolini said that in some Fox markets, between 20% and 25% of total news viewership is coming from the stations' streaming offerings.
"We have stations, some of them are stronger stations that are doing more viewership in the morning news on the stream than two or three network affiliates in their market," he said.
IPG Mediabrands' Cerone also sees more viewership heading to streaming, which means more integrated sales. However, agency technology, he said, is not totally ready yet. While sales teams are selling both linear and digital inventory, the agency is buying both, but separately.
"That has to stop," he said. "We are evolving. It's just slower than we'd like it."
Disney's local packaging
For its part, Walt Disney Co. continues to push full steam ahead for offering cross-platform packages. Jeremiah Tachna, vice president of sales for Disney Advertising, said the company is selling across linear, geo-linear, local, national, geo-targeted, streaming news and social, and is scaling those efforts.
Tachna also noted that programmatic and biddable inventory allow Disney's sales team to provide more value in terms of building audiences and making spots work harder for brands.
"All of that happens through automation," he said. "We hear from our brands that they're willing to pay more if the media works harder for them. Addressable advertising allows us to do that."
AI could make make-goods easier
While media companies, clients and agencies are in different phases of how they conduct business, automation is only going to become more prevalent in the ad world.
AI, which is already playing a role on the creative side and workflows, will play an increasing role from media buying and planning perspectives, said Brian Thoman, chief technology officer at WideOrbit Inc. In particular, Thoman said many tasks in the planning process continue to be done manually. Information is housed on spreadsheets, Microsoft Corp. Excel files and in staffers' email. Processes need to be put in place where that information can be collated in one place before opening to AI assistance.
Brad Epperson, CEO of TCB Media Advisors, noted there is so much information on both the sell and buy sides that is contained in Excel or on Outlook platforms. The buying circuitry, he said, must be moved to cohesive business systems before being migrated to AI applications.
Thoman said keeping better tabs on where inventory resides across myriad platforms is one place where AI could be of help.
Make-goods, the process by which media sellers compensate buyers for audience under-delivery through additional commercial airings, is another area that could benefit from AI.
The make-good process entails a lot of back and forth. Account executives have to look at source inventory to determine what is available and then assess whether it aligns with the brand's current campaign, Thoman said. Moreover, there are considerations around whether similar offerings of substitute spots were accepted or rejected by the advertiser in the past.
"Make-goods are something that could be done completely through automation and AI," Thoman said.
Epperson puts local TV make-goods at the top of the AI list, saying: "That is a really hard process."
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