The first reaction one may have to the name of this panel could be: “Does television even have a future?” As part of Advertising Week’s AdTech Track, panelists from a variety of sides of the TV advertising industry analyzed where TV has been and the potential of the future.
With Jeanine Poggi, Media Reporter with Advertising Age moderating the panel, Todd Gordon, Director at Adobe Advertising Cloud TV, David Cohen, President, North America at Magna, Peter Naylor, SVP & Head of Advertising Sales at Hulu, and Martin Blich, Managing Partner, Director of Implementation at MediaCom joined together to examine where the future of TV Advertising is heading.
To answer the opening question, Cohen explained that television will never truly leave, as at its core, TV is storytelling that simply cannot be replicated other places. The platforms or means we access TV may evolve, but great storytelling will never truly leave. TV can and will sustain changes, according to the experts.
One of the key takeaways was the opportunity for data in TV advertising, as much of the session’s discourse revolved around how the industry can use data available at our fingertips to improve the experience of TV advertising. Naylor and others believe that a huge and crucial opportunity is currently being missed by not embellish ad buy with data.
The change is pivotal, according to Naylor, because with so much viewer choice and control, viewers are empowered and completely in charge. Audiences are ever-mindful they have the power to switch platforms, channels, or devices at any given moment. Because of this power, it is impertinent that TV ads are as relevant and worthwhile as possible.
The main opportunity to improve the future of TV advertising involves using data and computers to optimize TV ads, as the panelists all agreed the time is ripe to drop old methods in favor of newer, better, smarter methods. These more optimized methods call for larger and more specific amounts of data applied,
When asked about the possibility of programmatic buying, Blich agreed that though programmatic may work for digital, that may be a strain that TV ads are not quite ready for. Technology may move fast nonstop, that does not mean that everything surrounding technology is ready for those changes.
The future of television is not certain, but as Gordon asserts, everyone concentrating efforts to revolutionize is the first step. However, the panelists certainly agreed that change is coming – for the better, and soon.