Making Addressable Accessible: ViacomCBS, Dish Execs Explain An Advertising Innovation

with the right messages. Addressable TV is fast becoming a part of the discussion in the upfront marketplace, which is why I'm excited to dig into its implications for advertising with my guests seem A Patel, vice President of Partnership Development at Viacom CBS, and Tim Meyer's GM of Strategic

Partnerships and Products at Dish Media. Their collaboration in the space is just one of the many facets will be exploring in this series, so look for more upcoming dates from us in July and August for future webinar editions of Making Addressable Accessible. Welcome back to the Strictly Business podcast. I'm looking forward to getting into what addressable TV is all about today with my guests Seema Patel and Tim myers. Thanks to both of you for taking part in this conversation.

Thanks for having us, yep, thanks for having us. So first, I just want to get very basic for the uninitiated. Let's spend some time just defining what addressable TV is, you know, the one oh one definition. Who wants to take that? I'll take it. Go ahead, Tim, do you want to go or should I? I'll let you? And all adds in color? How's that? That's perfect? So hopefully you'll like my example. Um, it's it's all about personalizing ads. Uh.

You know. Addressable is the ability to serve relevant ads to consumers regardless of what or when they are watching. So if Tim and I are both Dish customers, and we're both watching the Daily Show, and let's say we're both in the market for an auto, I, as a mom with two kids who I'm constantly driving around, might get an ad for an SUV, and Tim, whose kids are older and have left the nest, might get an

ad for a sports car. Now, more broadly speaking, the goal of addressable advertising is really to use technology and data to deliver the best advertising experience for our clients and our viewers, and so this is important for two

key reasons. For viewers, addressable targeting provides the most relevant and engaging AD experience, which represents a valuable exchange of their time and attention for our premium content, and for advertisers and agencies, the best AD experience is not only one that's the most relevant, engaging, and effective, but it's also one that provides scale and operational efficiency and transactional ease. And I would just add, you know, some other benefits

to the fundamental technology. Here is a shift from what we would traditionally call a spot based approach, where an AD is inserted into a particular piece of programming a TV show at a very specific time, and then it's broadcast out to everybody who's watching that show at that time.

With the addressable technology that we're using, we're switching over to what I would call an impression based model, more similar to how it works in a digital environment, where an AD is served uniquely to the household or the device that is watching the content, and not the entire population, and that allows those different ads to be essentially presented

to different viewers. That has other benefits above just targeting. Um. For instance, it does allow an advertiser to find the viewer whenever and wherever they're watching, and that allows them to uh get in front of more viewers. And it also allows them to control how often of your will see that ad, which we would call control of both reach and frequency. So those are also big benefits of

this technology. So it's clear to me how what you're doing with addressable differs from sort of the traditional spray and prey approaches they used to say in in in linear television. But this also isn't a new marketplace. I've been hearing about addressable TV now for nearly a decade. I believe the market are recently estimated this is sort of like a three point four billion dollar business. So

where are we in the evolu of addressable TV? Where we're we're Are we at a place where this is finally ready to sort of make the leap into being a more accepted technology used in the business. Yeah, we're certainly getting there. I mean look, satellite providers like Dish and Direct TV were the first to enable addressability UM and others. Other cable operators and m v p s

have followed. UM. You know, in a former life, actually helped launch s live when you're addressable a direct TV back in it was a coveted capability that at the time was only available to m v PD sales channels, and more recently, thanks to continued partnership from collaboration, programmers have collaborated with m v PD s tech partners, data vendors to enable our own avails to offer our clients, you know, our premium video inventory that is addressable capable.

So I think we're seeing this evolution and of just cross organizational collaboration UM that's allowing and opening up the road to broader scale of addressability. Yeah, and I would just add, I think this milestone that we're beginning to hit right now where UH programmers like viacom are starting to offer these capabilities in their inventory, which is the you know, the bulk of the available TV advertising inventory

in the marketplace is extremely important. Over the past eight or so years, as Dish has been selling addressable at

some version of scale. And I say at some version because as as you mentioned, it's it's been sort of this new technology that's been growing and and and as quietly been you know, growing at good rates sort of behind the scenes, but it's always carried with it a perception that UM it's in the what we call the local inventory, the inventory controlled by the distributor, and because of that, it's broken up by different distributors, which could

mean it has some geographic components. So we can't necessarily UM execute for all subscribers, all viewers across the entire nation. I mean, yes, it's a nice dish and direct TV our national products and we can get you exposure. But in certain markets where let's say Comcast is the dominant video provider, right you, you would still be missing a

number of folks there. So it it it's something that because it was tied into that sort of distributor controlled inventory, it just was perceived as not really having scale, and therefore it would end up in UM budgets that were not the mainstream budgets, and and because of that, there were all you know, they're also variability. There's more variability

in those budgets UM. And so, now, as I said, hitting these milestones where programmers will be bringing that inventory in, where this will become really just another mainstream TV AD product, that's that's that's gonna really I think take addressable to the next level. So I'm getting a feel for the Viacom, CBS, and dish perspectives, and we're certainly going to dig into how you guys relate to each other in making addressable

TV happen further into this conversation. But I think we also got to address the other major party in this room, which is the media buying community, which you know throw you know, the knock on Madison Avenue, and it's slow to move, it's slow to embrace change. Addressable TV sounds like a very significant change. So I know, you guys and many other companies recently commissioned a survey from forest Or to gauge the important perspectives of the media buyer

and community. What did you learn about what addressable TV has been for that critical component of the industry. I think the community is really starting to embrace it and see value in it. Um you know. Some of the findings that came out of the study. Media buyers that were surveyed said their organizations are focused on using addressable t V to improve the effectiveness of their TV campaign targeting.

Forty four percent said that delivering more personalized and relevant ads for their customers is one of the most important outcomes for addressable TV buys. So you know, I think they are really coming around. And and in addition, you know that study came out in March. We're currently in the thick of our upfront conversations and we're seeing those stats come to life. Where we've had a lot of

encouraging and positive discussions around addressable in general. Got it um, But were there areas tim where you felt or sorry the media buyers You started to get a sense from them of well, this is a pain point, this is something we need to fix in order to get more of an embrace from Madison Avenue of addressable TV. Yes, I mean those media companies said, you know, work to

promote simplicity, expand available addressable TV inventory. So again going back to the point I was raising earlier, where addressable was a bit fragmented, Right, If you wanted to uh a purchase a campaign that was going to reach as many possible viewers, you would have to make a purchase from Dish, you would have to make a purchase from Direct TV, you would have to make a purchase from Comcast or their representative Ampersand and you know, each of

those companies may have slightly different ways they do things, right and slightly different data partners and slightly different measurement capabilities, and someone has to stitch all that together, right, and and so that that complexity was really was really a barrier.

And so media companies are saying, hey, we need you to define and promote a single measurement standard for instance, we need in our operability across partners and technologies, and we need you to enable the buying of these national minutes, these these minutes within the programmers inventory. So those those were some of the major UH points that came out from the media company side when survey. And I guess

it's important to hear that feedback. I mean, were either of you surprised or learned things from this survey that you didn't even expect to learn, maybe things you hadn't anticipated. M I think for me it was a bit mixed, right. I think we knew that some of these issues were out there and and that they were creating some barriers. But I think when we when we heard how firmly rooted some of these issues and opinions around these issues

um are with with various constituencies. It's because it's the media buyers. But even when you talk to the to to the sellers like ourselves that dish or when you talk to the tech platforms that are UM you know, putting together offerings to try to help solve this these

these issues, they just rise to the top. And and so it is I think it's good that we now have this consolidated view in this survey that is really really UM sort of helping to set the roadmap in terms of what we what we need to do to take this to the next levels. From that perspective, it's it's it's very helpful, So not entirely surprising, but this

additional clarity really really important. Yeah, I agree. I would say I think it gave us an opportunity UM to better understand the buying communities POV and to validate the direction that we were all individually and collectively heading. And again, you know, it gives us, it gives us that push, It gives us UM, you know, further opportunity to advocate for positive change and evolution. I mean looks as partners UM.

You know, we had representation for the study across m vpd s, programmers, data companies, tech vendors, and we all tend to bring unique points of view, but to have an objective third party evaluate the current and future state of addressability really gives us the opportunity to further align on future state. But when you list out those partners, that's what I'm struck by, because it really takes all these different pieces of the puzzle to make addressable work.

And so I'm curious, because you've both been doing this for a while at various companies in different capacities, how was that collaboration evolved over the years. You know, it's it's much less siloed now, right, Um, As Tim mentioned, you know, there was there there was a lot of fragmentation, and now with collaboration, um, with programmers getting into the mix,

I think that the collaboration becomes deeper, it becomes more transparent. Um. I mean we're now working side by side, whereas before we were sort of, you know, on opposite sides of the table. And I think just the level of collaboration that we've seen happen even in the last five years is tremendous um, you know, and I'm hope that that's going to continue so that we can just continue to drive progress together. It is, it's it's it's an enormous

amount of effort across different lanes, UM. But the good news is is that you know, at every turn there is a lot of engagement, UM and just a lot of a lot of mutual uh, a lot of mutual collaboration to move towards making progress and shipping away at all the things that we know we need to continue to to work towards. Yeah, I would add, you know, I think distributors in particular have had a history of

working together, UH Dish and direct TV. We have a very strong example and something we've been doing in the political space that we branded as D two, where a political agency can buy Addressable from D two that will end up being transacted on direct TV, on Dish, on sling. So so you know, in some ways it's a it was a preview of how how this will work UM at larger scale across you know, more distributors and more

inventory types. But the this sort of shift of now a programmer and a distributor working together on this, this is something new, and this is something that's exciting and important because, um, you know, when addressable was first starting, it was a unique advantage for a distributor, right, and it was something that I think in the beginning, we would have we would have sort of said, hey, this is competitive to what programmers UM you know, have in

terms of overall ability to sell into the advertising market. Right, it was sort of a unique product for a distributor, especially a satellite company like Dish or direct TV. But we are now, as we said earlier, realizing to sort of drive the scale and to take this to the next level, we have to do it in partnership with the programmers. Again, that point was made very very clear

in that in that Forrester study. So so this new dynamic of working together with the programmers, to me UM is really really important and and it is very good, as Seema said, to now be uh not on different sides, but on the same side and working through all the

challenges to pull this off. The other you know, the other part of this too though, has been the technology and the ad tech companies and and you know we need them to also uh come along and to provide innovation to you know, fill gaps where they exist UM and then you know they need the capital to be able to do that. And so we are seeing um, I think a number of ad tech companies who are

stepping up UM. We are seeing some of them who are well capitalize, which is important and UM, you know, I think that that that's going to UM play a big part in terms of also making this UM a much more robust offering in the marketplace. I'm talking with Seema Patel of Viacom, CBS and Tim Myers Dish Media about addressable TV. Will be back in just a minute. Welcome back to the Strictly Business podcast. I'm talking the

Sema Patel and Tim Meyers about addressable television. Tim mentioned Seema the notion that the m v p d s aren't the only game in town in terms of you know where addressable happens. Your job is to get addressable avails going in as many places and as possible. So what is that like nowadays? What's the opportunity there or the challenges in getting that? It's the critical piece of

all this just getting as much inventory out there. Yeah. UM. So applying the power of data to our offerings allows clients to combine the scale of TV with the precision that's available today in digital media, where targeting is more accurate, measurements deeper media investments can be evaluated for their respective contributions to business goals. So really what we're doing is we're bringing all of that to TV. So the opportunity there is it's a much smarter value proposition for clients.

It's also a way for brands to connect with their fragmented audiences. UM. You know, and that being said from a Viacom CBS perspective, there's a tremendous amount of complexity involved in enabling and managing multiple end points of inventory. We currently have a forty plus million household footprint across four major distributors, and we're very focused on working through the unification and streamlining of execution so we can get to a point where we can truly write once and

publish everywhere. UM. And the goal here is to help further simplify by sell side interactions, rendering that process as seamless as possible. So we want to continue to make it as easy as possible for our clients to engage with us, and so driving automation will continue to drive efficiency, which will ultimately help us to further scale the offerings. And you know, Seema, earlier, you talked about, you know,

being in the middle of the upfront marketplace. You know, how are you feeling right now about where addressable is going to stand once once we're done with the upfront period. You know, speaking broadly, are you getting the sense as you speak to marketers this time around, Hey, they get it in a way they maybe didn't a year or two ago. Yeah. I mean the feedback that I'm getting so far is all really positive from our sales team. UM. And I think marketers see the value. I think they

see that. You know, it's not even the future as data driven, it's it's where everyone has to be data driven now. UM. And I think you know, the last year with the pandemic, I think that further underscored the need for data driven solutions, UM, in order to you know, for brands to activate their campaigns in the most effective

and efficient, meaningful way. Got it? Um. You know, one of the things that emerged from the forest your survey, I think was a sense on the media buyer side that those in leadership positions at those organizations, you know, they didn't necessarily get addressable that you know, it was going to take a process for them to sort of

move from the traditional Uh. Do you think looking at your own companies, that there's been a learning curve for everyone to understand the value of addressable why it's worth investing and experimenting and spending time with it. I think there's always UM, there's always an education and an evangeli evangelization process UM. But but you know, for the most part, Vicount CBS, it's been embraced, and you know, I think everyone has been extremely supportive and forward looking when it

comes to addressability. I think everyone is on board and has made every effort to support our goal of really enabling as many addressable end points across our portfolio as possible. And I don't want to speak for Siema and and seem it's certainly you know, jump in if what I'm saying UM is not it's not accurate from your perspective.

But I think observing UM a little bit from the outside in terms of how it's working with programmers and with media agencies, this technology allows for much better yield optimization, which benefits not only the seller but but also brings more supply into the marketplace. So I think those are you know, really important UM changes that have been taking place, right with with what's been happening with with ratings and and sort of overall linear supply being very very tight

in the marketplace from the from the dish perspective. You know, as I mentioned earlier, this this was a unique capability we could bring to market. So we've been very very bullish unaddressable and continue to be very bullish unaddressable. So, um, it was not something we had to to really sell into our company because because again we knew that, you know, we had some some really important assets to bring to the table in terms of making address will happen at scale.

I wanted to dig a little deeper into something we just touched on earlier, the subject of measurement. Uh. It felt in reading the forest or survey, working towards a single measurement standard was identified as a big priority. So what progresses there uh that you know can be point to for those who are skeptics, maybe those in the media buying community who are still trying to get it in terms of how things stand with addressable and getting

towards a single measurement standard. I can start, you know, I think that that measurements an interesting topic when we are talking about addressable because the traditional measurement and television has been the Nielsen ratings based measurement, and it's in many ways that has held back the ability to do addressable because if you if you start to UH take impressions out of a Nielsen rated spot, then Nielsen will no longer validate the rating on that spot, and and

therefore that has been perceived in the past to be less valuable. There is now a significant UM A set of initiatives underway in the industry to resolve that. Nielsen has really embraced this in and has announced that they

will have solutions for this. There are there are also other companies like com Score who have been at this for a while and you know, have a very good understanding of how impression based measurement works on TV in addition to how it you know works in the digital environments. So I think those those two things alone, UH really really give us a good view of the path forward UM.

But there's also you know, increasing efforts to bring even more UH competition and innovation into the measurement space, and you know, the industry is working in a collaborative fashion to help influence that and to help UM provide requirements and even work through ways that these newer measurement companies can have access to capital, etcetera. So UM it continues to it continues to be something where I think will will see major announcements coming forward. But we are on

the right path. Yeah, I would agree, I would. I would just add to that that I think, you know, we're as the evolution continues, I think the the interoperability of all of these data sets will will be key. UM. I think we're seeing as to mention, I think we're seeing a lot of great progress with a lot of these data companies, and you know, hopefully we just keep

keep chipping away at that. I'd love to hear from you guys in terms of what you see in the coming years, in terms of milestones or benchmarks that you guys have your eyes on in terms of moving addressable forward, or are there particular goals or ambitions you guys have in front of you that, uh, we need to keep an eye on in the coming year or so. I think i'd say, you know, extension from from our perspective,

extension of our footprint. So just continuing to grow our footprint, um, you know, beyond insertion on cable, extending it to broad to broadcast, um, and you know, including insertion and smart and the smart TV footprint, just extending out to as

many endpoints as possible um. And you know, our ultimate goal is to give our clients a rich, comprehensive set of addressable options that allows them to reach the right view or regardless oft endpoint UM and in parallel while driving standards across the industry for addressable to keep growing.

And that you know, that includes automation, as I mentioned, just automating as many aspects of the campaign life cycle as you know as possible, so that we make our uh M VPD integrations more seamless and thereby have a set of capabilities to you know, for our clients that are as seamless and easy as possible. Well said, I would I would add that you know, right now there's a sort of a bifurcation of what is now called CTV, which is um you know, executed in the digital space.

It's things like Slinging and Paramount Plus and you know, other sort of streaming type video products that are you know, delivered on smart TVs or on fire sticks or whatever the case may be. And in that for whatever reason, right it's it's sort of its own thing CTV. And then we have addressable or linear address ball as we sometimes call it, those are gonna converge and just become one.

Right there, that's an artificial distinction, and that that distinction will go away, So that that will be an important milestone when that happens. And UM, I do think that that you know is on the horizon. The other thing that will be important is when um, really you know, just more of the of the programmers inventory is made available for addressable. It's it's still a supset and it will probably be a subset for a bit of time.

But um, as it gains traction, and as these systems to become more mature, as it becomes easier for programmers like viacom to execute this in too and to move between a linear and an addressable execution, UM, that will that will drive more of that inventory into the marketplace. Yeah, go ahead, now, I was just gonna I was gonna underscore that by saying that really goes back to our

earlier conversation around measurement and interoperability. Right like being able to right now to Tim's point where we're only lighting up a certain amount of inventory. But as systems and measurement capabilities become more um sophisticated, we'll be able to toggle and you know, enable inventory as we see fit based on demand in the marketplace, so it will become

a much more dynamic environment. God, I agree. And then this the third point I was gonna make was just platforms and systems that will allow ease of execution for agencies, whether they're executing with a with a programmer or with a distributor that they can mix and match again, whether it has CTV components mixed in um and and being too uh seamlessly uh pull that off. To have the data work across all those different execution points, and to have the reporting be consistent, and to be able to

do attribution and and measure your kpies, etcetera. So so those are the three that I would call out, and I do see all of those on the horizon, which is great news. Thank you both, Tim Seema for this great tour of the addressable TV landscape. It's going to be an interesting part of the industry to watch. This has also been a great kickoff episode of our Making Addressable Accessible series. Will do more on that later this summer. Thanks again for both your time. Thank you so much.

This has been another episode of Strictly Business. Tune in next week for another helping of scintillating conversation with media movers and shakers, and please make sure you subscribe to the podcast to hear future episodes. Also leave a review in Apple Podcasts let us know how we're doing.