Webinar Recap: The State of Play on CTV

Last month, executives from across the advertising industry shared their insights during the virtual Connected TV Advertising Summit, presented by VideoNuze.

In our session, Chief Product Officer Jackie Swansburg Paulino joined Trevor Buchmayr (Head of U.S. Programmatic, PHD), Jen Soch (Executive Director, Channel Solutions, GroupM), and Anthony Susi (Director, Marketplace Development, Xandr) for a fascinating discussion on how the Connected TV advertising space is evolving.

Moderated by Jon Watts (Managing Director, CIMM), the panel discussed what opportunities exist across platforms for advertisers, predictions on where the industry will continue to innovate, and how CTV usage accelerated in recent years.

Some notable takeaways from the discussion included:
– While advertisers don’t always think of YouTube as CTV, the platform is already a major player in the Connected TV space, with roughly 50% of YouTube impressions appearing on CTV screens
– Advertisers are incredibly excited about the emerging capabilities of Connected TV that will distinguish it from linear TV, including tools, decisioning capabilities, and data signals that advertisers can use to forecast and measure the incrementality of CTV compared to linear PIs
– Advertisrs are increasingly taking a step back and looking to have greater transparency and reporting capabilities, with respondents hoping to soon solve challenges around brand safety, brand suitability, and consistent measurement across platforms

Check out the full recording and transcript of the session below, and contact us if you’d like to learn more about driving impact on Connected TV.

TRANSCRIPT
Jon Watts:
Welcome to the CTV State of Play panel. I’m super delighted to be here with a fantastic set of executives, with many decades of experience between them in and around the Connected TV space to try and provide a really deep set of insights into what’s happening in this fast changing ecosystem. My name’s Jon Watts. I’m a managing director of CIMM, the coalition for Innovative Media Measurement. Connected TV, surprisingly has been a huge part of our activities during the last few months and years, in fact. So I’m delighted to be here with this panel to really try and understand and unpack what’s happening. So without further ado, let’s dive in. I’m going to start by asking each of our panelists to introduce themselves, and then just asking each of them what they see as the most exciting opportunity in the CTV space at this point in time. I love to start to the panel with an assignment. So let’s jump straight in.

Jon Watts:
Anthony, do you want to introduce yourself and give us a sense of what’s exciting to you in the CTV [space] at present?

Anthony Susi:
Sure. I’m Anthony Susi. I’m director of marketplace development at Xandr. For those that don’t know, Xandr is a full service programmatic marketplace handling both ends of the buying and selling process with our invest DSP and our monetized SSP. One of the things that’s exciting me the most is that CTV is still in its infancy or its toddler years, where we’re seeing data transform itself within CTV streaming wars, shift away from SVOD into AVOD, new products and new user experiences being created. So with that comes more growth and more ways to advertise and reach consumers. So I’m just excited about where the CT environment can go.

Jon Watts:
Great stuff. And I love your comment about it still being relatively early in the evolution of the ecosystem. Jackie, let’s jump on. Jackie, tell us a bit about who you are and what you do, and give us a flavor of what’s exciting you in the market at present.

Jackie Paulino:
Sure. I’m the chief product officer at Pixability. And if you’re not familiar with Pixability, we’ve built a platform that helps brands and advertisers plan by, report and measure their campaigns on YouTube and CTV. So I’m totally biased here, but what’s exciting me is YouTube taking over the CTV space. 50% of impressions served on YouTube are on CTV and advertisers are starting to catch up and realize that YouTube’s a real CTV player. So super exciting to us.

Jon Watts:
That’s a great point. And definitely someone will come back to it as this panel progresses. Trevor, welcome. Tell us a bit about yourself and tell us what’s exciting you have a moment in the CTV ecosystem?

Trevor Buchmayr:
Yeah. So I oversee programmatic activation for the US at PHD, which is an Omnicom agency. So a lot of what I do is around best practices, go to market strategies for programmatic executions, including Connected TV. And so, one of the things that’s really exciting me, at least in this moment, and I’m going to get pretty specific here is actually the emergence of eCommerce formats into this space. And I think that’s really going to be like a game changer for advertisers who are looking to really drive that seamless shopping experience across CTV formats.

Trevor Buchmayr:
But one thing I will say is definitely with these, I can’t stress the importance enough of contextual relevancy when activating these kinds of strategies, because I mean, let’s face it, if somebody’s watching like a reality TV show that’s all about glamor and fashion, you don’t want to be showing them an ad for a vacuum cleaner or something like that. So I think as long as brands and agencies are very deliberate and strategic with their approaches here, I think this could really end up driving a lot of business outcomes that are really going to help the advertisers that are deploying them.

Jon Watts:
It’s a great point. I love that thought. There’s a lot of noise at the upfront issue about shot put formats, so definitely something to dive into a bit more detail. And now I’m delighted to welcome my good friend, Jen Soch. Jen, welcome. I know lots of things excite you, but give us a sense of what’s exciting you in the CTV space at present.

Jen Soch:
Absolutely. And Jon, thank you for having me. So I’m Jen Soch with Group M. I run our channel solutions group, which encompasses everything from local television to audio, to advanced TV, DR and publishing. I am so excited about the data behind what we’re doing here, the ability to slice and dice for all the different departments. There are so many hands in the CTV bucket that I think there’s a lot of opportunities for clients to use it in many different ways. And the core of that is the targeting abilities and the measurement on the back end.

Jon Watts:
Brilliant. Well, thank you all for those perspectives. So let’s just start by trying to unpack what’s really distinct about the CTV advertising ecosystem. So obviously, CTV is part of a bigger, broader TV market. We have lots of different types of TV households in the US. Most households have more than one television. And CTVs do something very distinctive with their software platforms. They’re internet connected. They have different functionalities and features. Trevor, why don’t we start with you? When you think about CTVs versus the wider TV market, what really stands out about the functionalities and the capabilities they enable and support?

Trevor Buchmayr:
Yeah. So I think the real distinction with CTV in the larger TV space is probably just, I mean, to Jen’s point earlier, the decisioning capabilities. So there’s a ton of tools and data signals that we can use and leverage to help forecast and measure the incrementality of CTV compared to linear PIs. And I mean, that’s a huge first step right there. And obviously it’s a work in progress, and I think everyone here would agree that fragmentation within the space is definitely holding it back from its true potential. But that said, I think we’re in a better position than ever when it comes to decisioning on holistic TV strategies across both linear and digital.

Jon Watts:
Okay. So Jackie, you’ve got a product background. What’s your perspective on this? What really stands out about the capabilities of the platforms in the ecosystem?

Jackie Paulino:
Yeah. I mean I would piggyback on what both Trevor and Jen said with data and contextual targeting capabilities. I guess what I would add is something that you said too, Jon around interactive ad units and really just taking all the things that are great about digital and bringing it to a TV screen. So I feel like we’re on the cusp of seeing a lot of these things become used more often and we’re going to start to see really interesting things, particularly around ad units. And it won’t be just like watching linear TV.

Jon Watts:
And part of it, the piece about ad units is that these are software platforms. They can be upgraded. It’s easier to build new application layers on top of those platforms than, say traditional, old fashioned cable set tops, for example.

Jackie Paulino:
Yeah, exactly. And how the ads are bought via DSP and all this bought programmatically. It just opens up a completely different set of ad units as possible. And I won’t even move into measurement yet, but obviously then it also allows for better targeting as well as better measurement on the back end too.

Jon Watts:
We’re definitely going to get onto measurement, everyone’s favorite topic. So Jen, you work across different platforms and channels. What stands out about your CTV work in terms of the capabilities of the platform? What can you do there with clients that are hard to do anywhere else?

Jen Soch:
CTV is a great extender for us and the things that we’re doing. So I can take a linear campaign and I can find ways to extend it that marries and matches, so that we can get a higher reach and a higher goal for the most basics of campaigns. If I look into some of our addressable worlds and our abilities there, then I could go a step further and take a straight linear campaign and really dive deep into a target, work the way the programmatic teams work with retargeting and really hit people where we want to hit them.
So I think there’s either an ability for CTV to be a branding extender, or I think there’s a way for it to go a little bit further down the funnel to almost closer to a performance area. The shoppable point term is great. I think there’s something really there for the right brands, but I think we’ll use it in different ways for everyone. The nice thing is, I think it’s the ability for every type of brand to use it. No matter what their goals are, there’s a way to bring CTV into your plan that makes it an omnipresent channel in so many of our pushes this year.

Jon Watts:
I feel like this question gets harder to answer as we go on, but Anthony, anything to add from a Xandr point of view? What stands out to you about the capabilities of this marketplace?

Anthony Susi:
Yeah. I mean, I agree with everyone here. I will offer a different answer, so I don’t piggy back off, but I do agree with what everybody else had said. But I think along the same lines, I think it’s the unique ways in which we can serve an add. Different UIs allow for different ways to reach an audience. There’s fast channel recommendations, there’s home screens now where you can actually buy an ad, which is great for the entertainment category. So you can deep link and things like that. So I think those advanced units on top of obviously the shoppable and things like that are exciting and definitely something that’s going to see a lot of value, and what you can track and measure and target against. So again, to not answer the same as the rest of the panel, that would be my answer.

Jon Watts:
Good point. Let’s talk about the money. And particularly, if we’re trying to unpack the state of play, where is that money going? So I’m going to start with the buyers first to give us a first insight into this. Jen, when you think about the CTV ecosystem, where are your ad dollars really going? When you think about share, what’s the big bucket that you’re putting money into at the moment?

Jen Soch:
In CTV or in the whole media?

Jon Watts:
Yeah. CTV, in CTV.

Jen Soch:
CTV. I think that the broadest, it’s coming from all different formats, to answer that question. I think the way that it’s fastest to bring it in is a compliment to the television buy. We’re trying to get reach. There’s less impressions to buy. We need to supplement that somewhere. So CTV is an excellent add on, and it’s clearly understood by consumers to find it and brands to be interested in buying it. So I think that’s the fastest dollar that’s going to come in, but right on its heels is this data side. So the fact that I can take a video unit and know so much about it, and know so much about the person that’s looked at it, I think that’s fast on as heels to be part of this equation.

Jon Watts:
Jen, when you think about market share, where are the bucks really going? Are you spending with the platform operators, the Rokus and the Samsungs? Is it money going to the major TV networks who will have streaming service across these devices? Are you going to the long tail of smaller streamers, who in aggregate take up a lot of volume? Is it the programmatic platforms who are capturing spend? Give us a sense of where the dollars are really heading?

Jen Soch:
I mean, all the above. Every campaign is going towards CTV in a different way. And I have different people that are buying a Peacock or a Hulu for different reasons and coming at it at different budget. So certainly those with the biggest budgets, which can often be in the broadcast world will probably throw more money at it originally, but I think as a percentage to budget, it starts to even out a little bit more, depending on where you’re coming in. I’m fascinated as I sit with it that no matter what campaign we’re in, a programmatic person, a traditional linear buy, a DR buy, a local buy, everyone’s starting to put CTV more and more in their plans. Now we really need to sit back and make sure we’re all using it the right way. Are we putting the money in, and so we’re really maximizing the dollar? I think that’s what we’re getting a little bit better at.

Jen Soch:
But of course, I think it becomes a percentage of the budget. So the largest money coming in probably has a percentage there. But I’m sure Trevor has something better to say from his world.

Jon Watts:
Let’s find out. So Trevor, you look at programmatic at PHD. You cover the whole of the US. Where are you the money in CTV going?

Trevor Buchmayr:
Yeah. So I mean, what we’re seeing a lot is the premium content providers and networks are definitely taking a larger share of the pie. And mostly, we’re seeing this secured through those guaranteed pipes, especially if it’s running programmatically as advertisers seek to lock in that inventory to reflect upfront commitment dollars, those kinds of things. But that being said, we are seeing scenarios play out where there’s a bit of a trend towards allocating more and more dollars towards syndicated content. And this really helps address some of the lingering issues that are continuing on within the CTV space. So things like under delivery, for instance. As more and more advertisers start to plug in a lot of those targeting restrictions to these deals, it becomes harder and harder for some of these networks to really deliver against that in a way that’s meeting expectations.
And so having this fluid approach has really been beneficial to advertisers to give them that flexibility back within the programmatic space to say, okay, well, we have options and where we allocate our dollars. And it doesn’t just need to be all stacked into a handful of different places. We can actually move dollars around to really reflect what’s going on in a realtime environment.

Jon Watts:
That’s fascinating. So Anthony, I’m guessing you’ll have a perspective on this. How are you seeing the flow of money into the ecosystem?

Anthony Susi:
Yeah. I think to be a little more broader, I think we’re still in this area of trying to figure things out. And as I mentioned before, CTVs still being relatively newer, there’s a lot. You have fast channels, watch free streaming apps, big player apps, the smaller scale apps. And each one is trying to buy for direct iOS as much as possible while the programmatic companies are saying, “Let us take some of the workload off of you and you can buy across the landscape with data and scale.” And then you have to layer on how much you should still be spending in linear. So I think there’s going to be a continuous shift in dollars as we talk about CTV and where those will go. I don’t think there’s one definitive answer yet that I’ve seen. There’s seasonal things to take into account, but I think there’s still more testing to be done. But I do think programmatic buying is going to continue to increase as it becomes more targetable in building better marketplaces and building more self-service UIs, like Xandrs, Curate and things like that, that control and ease the buying process for the buyers.
So nothing directly definitive on where we see them. Obviously, the big player apps are obviously where the eyes go, but I think that there’s going to be this continuous shift for a while as CTV grows.

Jon Watts:
So Jackie, you mentioned YouTube and the volumes you are seeing there. Can you give us some insights into how YouTube is staying up with business and how you see it sitting in the wider ecosystem from a money point of view?

Jackie Paulino:
Yeah, definitely. I think one thing, just to draw on what everybody already answered is so interesting, that the CTV buys are still coming from all different places. And so it’s funny that also, no one’s mentioned YouTube by name other than me, but it is the biggest player. And I think where most of the dollars are going from an ad supported standpoint, reaches 135 million households. 35% of people that use YouTube on TV screens aren’t using another streaming service. And so it is the biggest player, but I think the budgets aren’t necessarily coming from the TV teams. And you know how Jen said, it’s an add on, I think that’s how people advertisers are thinking about CTV, where YouTube’s sometimes coming from the video team or programmatic teams. So it’s thought of differently, but really in actuality, it is the biggest, where most of the money is going.

Jon Watts:
And that is an interesting thing that the budgets that are being allocated towards CTV spend are coming from different directions. They’re coming from digital budgets. They’re coming from total TV teams. They’re reach extension campaigns. They’re self-service platforms. And that’s both one of the exciting things about the marketplace, but also the challenging one if you’re trying to count it, I guess.

Jackie Paulino:
Yeah. I mean, it’s definitely a challenge. I’m sure others have things to say about that too. But from our point of view, it’s definitely a challenge measuring all those things in one place. We have a product that where you can measure YouTube in all different connected TV devices, but it may be disparate teams, and people may be looking for different metrics, different KPIs, depending on who you’re talking to.

Jon Watts:
So Anthony, let’s talk quickly about the role of DSPs and SSPs, and supporting the development of the market. Obviously, people often comment that it’s a pretty fragmented ecosystem. So buying through aggregation platforms, whether they’re supply side or demand side does offer certain advantages. Tell us a bit about how Xandr and your peers across the industry are helping to develop the marketplace.

Anthony Susi:
Sure. Yeah. I mean, you hit the nail on the head. It is a fragmented environment. And the programmatic ads has reached an all time high last year. Forecasts show it’s expected to increase by more than 50% now. And where the roles of DSPs and SSPs are playing, it’s easing that buying and selling experience in a large fragmented and difficult buying environment. They take away the guessing game of which publishers accept certain ads, lengths, creatives, and just reducing that workload on a buyer from going to so many one-to-one deals while being able to layer in targeting and data and give transparency where they might not get it elsewhere. So I think Xandr has a premium video catalog that’s a great example of this where buyers can filter by content category, by ad format, by sensitive brand category acceptance. Again, easing that buyer experience in one aggregated place to get them more informed and create more transparency into their buys.

Jon Watts:
Trevor, you obviously interact with the programmatic system, obviously on a daily basis. Give us your sense of the role that the DSPs and SSPs are playing and helping to aggregate, supply and supporting you and your clients.

Trevor Buchmayr:
Yeah. I mean, the DSPs and SSPs have definitely done a great job in developing those tools and capabilities to really understand everything from audience overlap to incremental reach versus linear bias, for instance, using, a lot of them have their own proprietary device graphs, for instance, which come into play for these kinds of scenarios. But I would say, I think advertisers themselves really win in this space when they consolidate their buys. And really, it’s not just among the list of publishers or the DSPs, but it’s everything. So having that select group of publishers, SSPs and DSP partners that you work with, it really puts a lot of the pricing and buying power back in the hands of the advertisers. And it also leaves room for those deeper partnership integrations. So fewer partners means fewer pipes to connect. So it also really allows advertisers to be more nimble in the space as they’re coming up with real time solutions to their CTV strategies and to reflect those real time business needs as well.

Anthony Susi:
Yeah. And I think one of the things that Trevor just mentioned is actually really great, because there is this common misconception that going through an SSP as an aggregator of the publisher sets, the old school mentality of it is, “Oh, I have to go one to one in order to get these better pricing within the publisher sets.” As the SSPs and DSPs grow and create these strong relationships, there’s not a necessity for that anymore. We’re doing that work for you already and putting it in an environment where you can buy an aggregated sense of this and not have to worry that I’m not getting the best CPM or best bang for my buck with having an aggregated source of publishers.

Jon Watts:
Jen, do you want to weigh in on this particular topic? Obviously, you and your teams across group interact with DSPs, SSPs pretty regularly. How do you see them helping you and your clients live against your campaign objectives?

Jen Soch:
I think it’s about the reporting. I’m going to go on the backside. I mean, I get that and I understand the idea of the aggregation, Anthony, that you’re mentioning. And I’d rather go direct to the source, and get it out and try to find the best way there. And I know Jackie said something about YouTube, which I think would be contrary to what you just said, but let me throw it this way. The ultimate goal of this for me is be able to optimize the campaigns when I see the results. So I run the DR group. It’s the linear television and taking the mentality of weekly and having the flexibility to move it around based on the results you see. I find a very serious match in programmatic. And so when we look at CTV and its abilities, it can move on a dime, whether I’m going to YouTube today, or whether I’m going to Hulu tomorrow, whether I’m going to the next seven people that are on the list.

Jen Soch:
The advantage of what I have in programmatic is I can go even faster than I can in my DR group, because the DR group is an IO to a television station. So there’s a commonality there of this enabling us to take day by day results or weekly or however often you want to do it, and find new ways to enter the stream with the best CTV partners that are out there. And I think Anthony, what you were saying too, correct me if I’m wrong, the advantage of the DSP/SSP relationship is that it opens up more conversations without me having to do direct deals at all times. So there’s that advantage to being able to go in quickly and being able to see exactly what’s going on, that we can’t always have as quickly with an IO process.

Jon Watts:
Okay. Another quick question then, just trying to tease out the state of play, what are the differences between the big smart TV platforms? Obviously, Visio, Roku, Samsung, LG are all very different businesses. They have slightly different strategies underpinning the advertising offerings on their platforms in terms of things like data licensing or direct cell and so on. Jackie, you work across all of these different platforms. How big are the differences between them? What are the differences that really matter?

Jackie Paulino:
I mean, they each have strengths and weaknesses, more from which platform you want to buy on. I mean, each has, again, strengths and weaknesses. If you’re buying through Amazon, for example, they have incredible first party data. I think Amazon probably has the best data only rivaled by Google and YouTube, probably. If you’re buying Roku, they also have a great first party data set, really interesting ACR technology, as well as access to the Roku channel. So you have to look in silos and decide what’s most important for your specific campaign and say, “Here’s the strengths and weaknesses of this DSP, this platform, this app,” and weight those, and then come up with a media plan because there are really strong strengths. And maybe we’ll get later into the walled garden discussion about this, but I think the data is going to continue to stay within those walls because that is why you go to Amazon, for example. That’s their strength is they can tell you when someone’s put something in a cart. And that’s incredibly powerful for an ad served on a TV screen.

Jon Watts:
Trevor, how would you see the differences between platforms?

Trevor Buchmayr:
Yeah. I mean, I would echo a lot of what Jackie had just said. I think where we’re going to start to see the real delineation and the real differences start to emerge is in who’s sharing this data out the most. And to piggyback on what Jen said earlier, reporting is going to be very, very critical in this space. So even if it’s just a matter of partners sharing out show level reporting to their buyers, all of this makes a huge difference in the way that we go to market and the way that we optimize and evaluate campaigns moving forward. So these are the distinctions that really matter to buyers, and these are the things that are really going to move the needle for this marketplace moving forward.

Jon Watts:
So Jen, I’m keen to hear that Trevor spoke about data and measurement, a subject that you and have spoken about on multiple occasions. Measurement is an interesting issue, isn’t it, in the CTV landscape? On the one hand, we have certain providers who either can give incredible insights into what’s happening on their platforms or are licensing data to measurement providers, which support better measurement across the industry. But there are also concerns about wall gardens. How do you see the measurement landscape in CTV at the moment? Is the concern about wall gardens a very valid one, or is it overstated?

Jen Soch:
No, I think it’s valid. I mean, the ultimate goal of measurement and how we can measure things in CTV is so different than linear. And there’s this cross screen measurement issue that we have that we really need to find a way to solve. I know if I serve something on linear TV, that it’s a whole bucket of people at one time. I can find out about it in a certain amount of time to tell the clients what happened. CTV is like a boulder rolling down a hill. When is it going to come in? When am I going to hit those impressions? How long will I take it? And it’s very hard for me to take something on linear and CTV, same exact program and do any comparisons on it. What’s the people that watched it? It’s not one unit that happens right at a time.

Jen Soch:
So this cross measurement idea of how we’re going to get here is really, I think the key to me and bringing in some third party sources to say, “Oh yeah, wait, we can get this to you, and in this timeframe, so that we can start to move even more money down this path.” Programmatic has got a great way in. You can figure out the targeting, you figure out the measurement, we can check brand safety on it, we know what we’re doing. It’s when you start mixing all the budgets that we start to run into a little bit more of apples to apples comparisons.

Jen Soch:
And I’m not a dreamer. We’re not going to get there, but we need to get something. It’s not going to be one source of measurement forever. But we do need to somehow get to an alignment and say, “Okay, yes, this is how we’re going to be reporting out, and this is how we feel comfortable.” Right now we have so many different measurement types and various ways of counting things. And people look at CTV and all count it differently, and by client, not even by agency. So I think that’s a piece we’ve got to start rolling our heads around of how do we do this in the future?

Jon Watts:
Anthony, I’m guessing from a Xandr point of view, you would broadly agree with that. Do you have concerns about wall gardens or measurements, asymmetries which make it easy to see what’s happening in some parts of the ecosystem, but very hard in others?

Anthony Susi:
Yeah. I mean, I think there’s a, I want to be the first in the space competition right now. I think everybody’s vying for, what can I do first? What could I bring to the market? Samsung just released their total media solution that goes after the unexposed or that de-duplication between linear and CTV. So I think you’re going to start seeing those start to come out. And then, who’s using ACR this way and versus that way? Who’s leveraging their interactive ads as data pieces now, which gets really interesting when you layer in that interactive data.

Anthony Susi:
So I do think for now there’s going to be a walled garden approach. I almost put this on the buyers in the market that are going to shape the way that this is going to go, because they are going to have these needs. They are going to need more transparency into their buys. They’re going to need more confined data layering into this, and they’re going to be asking these questions as CTV continues to grow. So I’m with you, Jen, in the sense of I’m not a dreamer, that this is going to happen next year. But I do think in a few years, there’s going to be a need for this shift and there’s going to be more of this collaborative ecosystem across even the OEMs in terms of data that can be provided and brought on a programmatic level. That is eventually going to happen.

Jackie Paulino:
Yeah. I’ll just jump in and just plus one to what Anthony said on it starts with the buyer. There needs to be demand for this level of transparency, and then it will be a snowball effect. I think like Anthony said earlier, we’re in this infancy stage of CTV and everybody was just so excited to get there, so excited to be on the big screen that we weren’t too worried about transparency and reporting. But now we’re taking a step back and we’re saying, “Okay, these are the things that we demand out of all of our other platforms. Why wouldn’t we demand it across the board? And how can we weight these against other advertising tactics?” And so I think as a buyer, start to demand it and start to shift to people that offer it, that will be a snowball effect in the industry.

Jon Watts:
Before we move on, I just want to ask everyone about this topic. Do you think the buy side should be pushing greater consistency and collaboration across the different platforms to make it easier to buy across different streaming services and across different OEMs, if that’s what an advertiser is looking to do?

Trevor Buchmayr:
Yeah. I mean, the thing is it’s a multi-step process. So in order to even get this transparency first, you’ve got to basically put up the money for it. And that’s where that whole conversation around consolidation, and consolidation throughout the entire each stage of the buying process is really critical, because it’s by doing that, that you can really unlock and really push for this level of transparency that we need from partners. And it’s worked in the past for advertisers within the PHD portfolio. And it really is the best way, at least currently for buyers to use that cloud and leverage to get what they need out of the CTV space.

Jon Watts:
So jumping on then, to finish our round up of the State of Play, Jen, what’s working really well and what’s still work in progress? If you had to pick out a couple of things in each bucket from an advertiser point of view, where do you see great opportunities that excite your clients? And where are there things which are still a cause of frustration?

Jen Soch:
Great opportunities in the ability to get increased reach with targeting, and some data on the back end that could help us to understand too what we’re doing in the linear television side. So if you’re buying similar type program with your audiences, what else could you do? So there’s a real look at this as a great way forward to help inform more of the industry video dollars and the right way to placement, and how do we get through it?

Jon Watts:
And in terms of what’s still work in progress or areas that the industry should really be focusing on improving?

Jen Soch:
Cross screen measurement. How do we get there? I mean, you teed that up well for me, thank you. I appreciate that. We’re still not there. And we walked into a world as we were going into this upfront that doesn’t have anything that’s accredited. So we’re in this interesting world where we’ve got a lot of possibilities. We’ve got a lot of things to work out over the next couple years. I wasn’t sure I would even see this in my advertising lifetime, but it’s good to still be here. I’m part of this idea that we really can look at these systems again and see what as a collective unit, we can do to make this better. And that’s exciting to me. So it’s scary and it’s not moving as fast as a freight train, but at least it’s started. It’s taken off.

Jon Watts:
Anthony, from your point of view, what’s still work in progress? Where do you see scope for improvement?

Anthony Susi:
Yeah. I think we said it a bunch of times, but I think there’s a lot of fragmentation. And I think there’s a lot of places to buy and a lot of ways to buy it. You have your smart TVs, OTT devices, gaming consoles, et cetera. But I think going along with that, the greatest opportunity is CTV, and I favor and lean towards this within the programmatic marketplace. What advancements and capabilities can we improve to bring a better ad experience? How can we layer on targeting to inform buys and reach the consumer that they’re looking for? Easier buying UIs, more control and transparency for the buyer, and where they feel less compelled to have to do one to one deals for better pricing and things like that.

Anthony Susi:
But I think Xandr is tackling all of these right now where we continue to make improvements to bring that best experience for the buyer. The seller, when you have that, it brings it to the consumer for a better ad experience. And I think that’s ultimately where that greatest opportunity of improvement lies alongside where the progress still needs to be.

Jon Watts:
Great. Jackie, where do you see scope for improvement?

Jackie Paulino:
I’ll keep mine simple, planning, optimization, reporting, reach and frequency, particularly being able to-

Jon Watts:
Everywhere.

Jackie Paulino:
Everywhere, each part of the understanding who you’re going to reach and optimize towards reach and frequency across your campaigns.

Jon Watts:
And you on the same page, Trevor, that these are big problems and we had to take step by step approach. Those are meaty issues you singled out there.

Jackie Paulino:
Yeah, for sure. I don’t think this is an overnight. And especially when you’re working within walled gardens, I think there’s privacy issues that need to be tackled and thought of. And it will take some time, but I think we’re working there. And again, it takes pressure from the buy side to get there.

Jon Watts:
Trevor, where do you see scope for improvement.

Trevor Buchmayr:
So I do have one other thing that I don’t think has been said, so yeah, I’m very happy to have some incremental input here. I would say what everybody has said so far is 100% right on the money and definitely needs to be addressed. I would also throw in just brand safety consistency, consistency within the space as well, because it’s just so vital. And we’ve seen cases where it’s gone the other way and it’s been pretty disastrous for certain brands and advertisers that have been caught up in those kinds of things.

Trevor Buchmayr:
And I think it also ties back to that uniformity that we need to see across the way we go to market. So even things like how this affects overall specs and what can be accepted versus what can’t. We need consistency across these different partners and across these different activation strategies. And that’s going to be really key to just lifting, rising tides lift all ships. This is the kind of thing that we need to address going forward to really unlock the true value of this space within the digital ecosystem.

Jon Watts:
So we are into our final round of questions and it can be a short, punchy answer too, if we can. It’s the end of 2026, middle of a decade, just a bit past. You’ve forwarded in time. You’re peering around of the CTV ecosystem. What looks most different from your point of view? What big changes are you anticipating? Anthony, do you want to kick us off? Quick answer and then we’ll jump on.

Anthony Susi:
Sure. I think it’s the way that we’re going to buy. How they’re going to buy CTV is going to be the biggest difference. Whether it’s going to be direct IL managed service, open market PMP, programmatic guaranteed, I think how buyers are approaching the market is what it’s going to look most different in mid 2020s.

Jon Watts:
Great. Jackie, 2026, what looks most different?

Jackie Paulino:
I think we’re going to solve all Trevor’s problems. We’re going to have good brand safety and suitability, settings, consistent measurement across the board.

Jon Watts:
Trevor, it’s 2026. Your problems have been solved. You’re heading towards retirement. Is there anything else that looks really different to you?

Trevor Buchmayr:
Yeah. I mean, cross screen measurement definitely stands out from my perspective as well. And sorry, Jen, if that’s the one you were going to say. But yeah, I think that’s definitely going to be critical and it’s something that I think the marketplace in general wants to address as well.

Jon Watts:
Jen, a final word. It’s the future. What looks better, different?

Jen Soch:
Yeah. Cross screen measurement, absolutely, Trevor. I remember years ago I used to plan mobile campaigns. I’d get client budgets that were like, “I would like this money to be on mobile.” Okay. I would like that not to be the case for CTV. I would just like to say, “Here’s a video budget,” And it is inclusive and automatically known that it’s inclusive of CTV the way we no longer call and said, like a mobile buy.

Jon Watts:
Trevor, Jackie, Jen, Anthony, thank you for being a fantastic panel. I think we’ve done a great getting under the bonnet and having a good hard look at the state of play across the CTV ecosystem. That is a wrap.