Bridging The World Of TV And Ad Tech

0:04Alyssa Boyle: Welcome to The Big Story, a roundtable featuring members of the Ad Exchanger editorial team. Every week we bring you an in-depth discussion of key developments in digital marketing and media.

0:21Victoria McNally: This episode is sponsored by Verve, an ad solution that helps brands activate consumer intent in real time across platforms. As AI reshapes how people plan vacations, Verve helps travel brands show up when it counts.

0:39Victoria McNally: Hello, and welcome to the Big Story Podcast at AdExchanger. I'm Senior Editor Victoria McNally, and joining me is my CTV reporting comrade in arms, Alyssa Boyle. Alyssa, how you doing today? I am feeling fantastic. It's not the cold brew, it's everything else. yeah it's your whole nerdy background i'm very exciting we get to share nerdy backgrounds today yeah if you're if you're not um if you're only listening and you're not watching you're missing out on the amazing one piece uh banner behind alissa anyway it is just the two of us today uh and we're gonna talk about how the sausage that you might not know we're making is getting made a few weeks ago i believe we mentioned on the podcast our ctv roundup newsletter has undergone some changes.

1:22Victoria McNally: It's now twice a week and it's got a new name, Streamlined. If you're already subscribed, you probably also noticed that there's a lot more news about the TV business included as well. That's because we've also recently joined forces with Synopsys, which is one of our sister brands at the Chief Marketer Network. So Alyssa and I are both writing and curating Streamlined, which is Tuesday and Thursday, and Synopsys, which is now Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. So obviously we're biased, but we feel that reading both will give you a really great understanding of both the digital advertising side and the production and business side of the TV and media industries, which is important to have.

1:57Victoria McNally: Anytime first, before we start talking about that, it wouldn't be a podcast without a Plunk session. Our programmatic IO event is taking place September 28th and 29th at the New York Marriott Marquis. And we've got an amazing lineup featuring people from OpenAI, Goop, Horizon Media, Yum Brands, which I have to say like that because there's an exclamation mark uh there's also dentsu there's the brand tech group there's razor fish there's all kinds of really cool agencies and brands and people in the space that are going to be talking so uh our podcast listeners get 10 off with the promo code pod 10 so use that to get your ticket and we will see you there i will just say i love the idea of

2:35Alyssa Boyle: pronouncing company names the way that they're written like yum brands or for dentsu lowercase the D I want to say that's right yeah be thinking about that when you're putting your word mark

2:46Victoria McNally: together all right anyway let's get back to talking about synopsis and why our ad tech side of our readership should care um Alyssa you'd already started writing about ad tech under the synopsis branding earlier this year so I'm curious for you what is taking over the whole newsletter and getting more into the tv side been like for you as a reporter uh okay so I will I have two

3:08Alyssa Boyle: answers for this, a business answer and a personal answer. We'll start with the business answer, because that's why we're here. So I would say that the business of media and entertainment, specifically TV, and streaming TV advertising are kind of the like two sides of the same coin, because whether we like it or not, everything in media and entertainment is kind of subsidized by ads in some sense. So that's kind of just the way the world works. And also advertising can't grow as an industry if there's nothing good on TV to put ads in. So they're kind of, they might sound like two disparate worlds at the surface, but really they're kind of codependent.

3:49Alyssa Boyle: I don't know if I'm making this sound like a healthy relationship, but it is. So I would say that it's for readers in either or both communities, knowing what's going on in both realms is kind of really important to understand, you know, the context behind what's going on in our day-to-day lives at work and also, you know, how to maybe even based on understanding the trends of media and entertainment, how to predict what might happen in the future as it pertains to, you know, advertising. Because, of course, as advertisers know very well, the better you can predict things, the better you can make money off of them.

4:24Alyssa Boyle: And then the personal answer as for why I'm having a good time with this is because I kind of I kind of have a pop culture knowledge gap and I'm filling it now because now I know like what's on TV besides like, you know, besides my little adult swim stuff and like, you know, smiling friends and all the weird stuff that I like. I know more about actual like actors and actresses and like more about the politics that kind of sometimes shape what happens in the world. I don't we don't have to go there, but we we will. And we still we say objective as much as anyone can. But, you know, it's it's it's important to acknowledge that, you know, politics, AI, all these sticky but also trendy subjects have a very real impact on media and entertainment.

5:05Alyssa Boyle: And yeah, so I would ultimately say I'm becoming a smarter person in ways that are as directly and explicitly tied to ad tech, which kind of makes me more interesting in my day-to-day life. So those are my two answers. And then Victoria, of course, we co-own both of these newsletters. So I really want to throw that question back at you and kind of just ask what your take is on this because, you know, you've, you know, we've also kind of shared the connected TV beat at Ad Exchanger. But then as far as the synopsis and the immediate entertainment side, you know, you're just more informed about that world than I am.

5:40Alyssa Boyle: So I'm also curious what your, you know, business and personal answer might be. Oh, thank you. I'm glad you asked.

5:45Victoria McNally: Cool. Yeah, I'll bring it down to personal business as well. I'll start with personal, you know, alluding to what you just said. I got my start in reporting on the entertainment side of things, not necessarily doing the same type of coverage that we do at Synopsys, but more of the consumer facing like, oh, the new Flash show is on CW. Here's where you should care. And here's who all the superheroes are. And that sort of thing where it's like talking about the actual content itself. So it's funny when we talk about, you know, looking to the trades in both industries. I feel like for you who got your start in ad tech, trades means Digiday, Adweek, us, obviously.

6:25Victoria McNally: And when I say trades, I mean like Hollywood Reporter and Deadline and Friday. So we've kind of had to come together on that because now we have to cover both. So yeah, that's really fun because it's, you know, it's something that I care about in my personal life a lot. Again, if you watched the video version of this podcast, you can see I've had all kinds of pop culture nonsense. Not as much today because we're moving, but a lot of pop culture nerd stuff in my background as well. And then on the business side, I do think it is important, especially for ad tech people, to be thinking about the content in as much as like, that's the thing that the consumers they're reaching actually care about.

7:01Victoria McNally: You know, like, it's a very common thing that I hear a lot at conferences, which is like, you can get really invested in the statistics and the measurement and the cool technological capabilities. And you can start to forget that there's people on the other end at the end of the day, you know, they're not just consumers, they're like, they have interests and hobbies and TV shows that they like. And the reason that you're trying to reach them with a product is you want them to buy something that will benefit their life. Theoretically, I mean, you also want growth and sales and all of that. But like that, you know, it's it's a means to an end for the person on the other end of it.

7:34Victoria McNally: So I think it's, it's useful to sort of think about where that side of the industry is going. And obviously, there's a lot that overlaps, which we're going to get into in a second, like some of the stories that we cover on the synopsis side of things, we do also allude to or cover on the ad changer side of things. just with different sort of goals or different focuses. But, you know, for example, the Paramount Warner Brothers merger, we talked about a lot on both sides. Obviously, that's going to affect the way that ad sales are put together. And it's also going to affect the way that the industry operates.

8:12Victoria McNally: So moving ahead to my next question there, for our listeners who are just tuned into the streamlined side of the relationship, what do you think they're missing out on by not reading Synepsis as well, other than like the answers to a bunch of TV questions. Okay.

8:26Alyssa Boyle: Yeah. I have a few thoughts on this. I'm also going to start by everything that you just said just now. I feel like I would summarize that with my favorite Attic Stager comic, which is a couple sitting on the couch with a remote and the, presumably the husband says to the wife, you know, what are we watching tonight, honey? S-Vod or A-Vod? And the joke, obviously I tend to overexplain, but the joke is that like we're so out of, as an advertising industry, We are so out of touch with reality that sometimes it can be hard to think. It can be hard to remember that real people don't think that way.

8:57Alyssa Boyle: That's the whole joke that nobody would say.

8:59Victoria McNally: Not to interrupt. I think a lot about when I first moved from pop culture to more like tech startup type of stuff before I got into ad tech. I had a friend who was my editor at MTV News and is really great and smart and covers a lot of this stuff. And he saw the word B2B and was like, I don't know what that means.

9:17Alyssa Boyle: I've gotten that before too. And I forget that like, that's just not what people say. And you know, what's funny is I forget if it was, I think it was new fronts maybe a year ago or two years ago, but I remember seeing some taxi cab and I, I forget the brand. It may have been LinkedIn. Don't quote me on that, but it really is sort of right. It was some sort of branded taxi cab and it said CTV on it. And I thought like real people don't know what that means. Like, who is this for? It's for everybody outside the lines for the upfront shore, but still it just felt odd. So anyways, to answer your question for real, when you're so, you know, when you're so subsumed by the land of streaming or just ad tech overall, you know, you miss a couple things in life, you know, and in business.

9:57Alyssa Boyle: So I think I would say, you know, if you're coming from the streamlined side or the artist formerly known as CTV Roundup, then there are a lot of things that you can get context wise about the broader industry when you read some of what's on synopsis. So, for example, I would say, you know, the actual Hollywood and creator talent that comprises these shows that advertisers and publishers want so badly to monetize, you know, the actual newer programming itself and licensing deals that ultimately shape these platforms that Adland talks about all the time. And just many other trends, world events, politics, like I mentioned, that really have an active impact on this realm of advertising.

10:34Alyssa Boyle: and also your weekly Friday fun fact which we always put together because like anything else it's it's it's you know I try really hard to remember that real life happens outside of a screen so I like the Friday fun fact because it kind of brings me back to my real life you know for example I would say if I were to make one right now I would say did you know that only one in three thousand calico cats are male isn't that wild I forget why but that's not important

10:57Victoria McNally: I think it's a genetic thing I think it's like the same the same chromosome that the calico gene is on is also the gen like it's it's the x as opposed to the y and like i don't know but i've heard that before about like most calicos are female so yeah anyway yeah taking back off of that like you mentioned trends i think that's something that's really important to think about as well because there's a lot of cases where um there's you know innovation in a particular content format or field or interest you see that a lot with like short form and micro drama there's a lot of interest in those right now and the monetization is not quite so ad focused at least on like a programmatic ad tech uh sort of vibe um but it's still important to know about those trends because like eventually they will become ad trends especially now that all of these different streaming companies are incorporating short form into their mobile apps and it's like okay well then are they incorporating ad breaks like are they doing sponsorships like Like they're going to figure out a way to make money off of it, whether or not it works in the long term, you know, or we have another Quibi situation.

12:05Victoria McNally: It's kind of anybody's catches the point. But it's still useful to know about those before they're fully monetized because, you know, you kind of have to be thinking about what's coming down the pike. So that's something we cover a lot. Yeah. Creator economy stuff, to your point. I mentioned, you know, political and financial business related news about mergers. we cover a lot of people complaining about the FCC right now and then the FCC complaining about people in turn or I guess I should say ABC more specifically there's a lot of production news in as much as like where things are getting actually filmed so obviously there's there's a lot of that going around with respect to California which used to be a big hub for filming and isn't anymore and obviously a lot of you know labor unions and and smaller like crews and industry players who aren't necessarily management but like still are able to kind of coalesce into like the wga or iatze or the dga um aren't you excited to learn more three-letter acronyms at tech people oh man wga is the writers guild i have like crew and and like um crack people and then dga is the guild um which is more movies than tv but like it still applies so like you know they all have interests and you know opinions about things uh as trade organizations and it's important to kind of see what they're talking about as well um and then also like a lot of what we do on synopsis on a day-to-day basis is just what shows are getting picked up what shows are coming out um that could be helpful for advertisers for you know planning ahead you know again going back to trends like there's a lot of ya series that are being picked up right now there's a lot of true crime um every streamer has a romantic show in development they just haven't gotten around to actually making it yet um they're trying so hard to crack that nut uh so yeah like knowing knowing that those trends are coming is important for figuring out your strategy not just in terms of the audience you're trying to reach but like creative you know a lot of these companies now have um creative that is specific to the shows i know netflix offers that a lot with their ad tier like oh you want to do a Wednesday ad Toyota you know stuff like that I don't know if that's a real example I just know that's that's the type of thing that they've sort of been promoting it up front and sort of talking to advertisers about so it's a very symbiotic relationship definitely

14:34Alyssa Boyle: and if you are an advertiser listening to this who's considering you know maybe an advertisement tied to a popular show like Wednesday you might want to hire me as Jenna Ortega's stunt double which is my side gig

14:46Victoria McNally: not really yeah you could be spooky we're both wearing white shirts today

14:55Alyssa Boyle: but yeah to your point i think when you actually know what's going on in the real world um you know and what that looks like on screens there's fewer surprises down the road and you know advertisers don't love surprises so it kind of works out in everyone's favor so be a little

15:11Victoria McNally: little more important i mean that's the whole point of up fronts right like they tell you in advance what they're going to do and then you decide whether you're going to buy ads in the moment and that it's still a really important part i mean obviously programmatic allows for more on-demand reactive kind of buying but like you still kind of want to know what's coming well uh we're going to take a quick break when we come back we're going to talk about a more ad ad tech focused topic excuse me that appears in the most recent edition of streamlined find home screen ads. So we'll cover that a little bit when we're back.

15:48Victoria McNally: Hello, listeners. I'm Sarah Sluice, Editorial Director of Ad Exchanger. And I have with me today, Anna Slater, VP of Global Brand Partnerships at Verve. Welcome, Anna. Thanks so much, Sarah. It's great to be here. So we know that AI is changing how people plan trips. I've heard the anecdotes from my my friends. I've done it myself. So can you give some insight into traveler behavior right now? Yeah, absolutely. I really don't want to date myself, but I've been in the travel industry now for almost 20 years. And having worked so long in one particular industry, it's been amazing to see the overall progression.

16:26Victoria McNally: And I really feel now that the adoption of AI and this trip planning process is the most impactful transformation we've seen over that time. And looking at our own LLM data here at Verve, consumers are using it for general discovery. Around 28 % of the prompts that we're seeing relate to these types of inquiries. And this is growing. And AI use for travel inspiration has doubled in the past year, especially amongst the 25 to 34 year old audience, which it's grown to around 18 % adoption. And we're also noticing there's a shift away from keyword searches like cheap flights to Spain and treating AI now more like a travel agent, which is adapting in real time.

17:05Victoria McNally: However, there's still an element of nervousness around utilizing AI to book, you know, since the prompts that we're seeing here are certainly dominated by that discovery, the timing, the itinerary building. But I'm sure if we're going to have this conversation this time next year, that will have all changed. So if I'm a brand and I know that AI is owning discovery, people are using it as a travel agent, but not for the booking part of the equation, where does that leave brands who are trying to reach travelers? Good question. Travelers are using AI to navigate every stage of their holiday planning.

17:38Victoria McNally: But the biggest challenge with this new way of researching is having on brands is the pace at which it takes consumers from dreaming to consideration. Prompts get incredibly specific and in a very fast way. Someone can go from give me trip ideas straight to a shortlist without ever touching a brand's website. And we're also seeing really heavy vendor comparison with the travellers using AI to sort of audit those travel providers and then benchmark prices. So by the time the brand actually shows up in the conversation, the shortlist may already be set. So it is a very difficult moment for travel brands at this time.

18:16Victoria McNally: And then furthermore, that intent is scattered across more and more devices and platforms. But these conversations, they're carrying some of the richest signals that we have ever seen on intent. And AI is forcing the conversation to accelerate the decision making. And if they can tap in to use these signals to target, they're going to get better performance overall and have a chance at winning that conversion of the traveler's itinerary. So you just described a very complicated, complex, scattered and rapidly changing set of consumer behavior. So what steps do you recommend to brands who are trying to capture this consumer intent at this moment in time?

18:58Victoria McNally: Yeah, absolutely. And this is conversations that we're having with our clients daily at the moment. And the answer really is twofold. Firstly, travel brands need to see the intent and then also follow up and ensure that they show up in it. But there are a lot of brands that are still missing out on both right now. So on the seeing side, you know, that's LLM data, the conversational signals that we're pulling from AI chat tools. We layer them on top of actually search and zero party signals. And when you combine this, it provides a bigger, fuller picture of consumer intent. And importantly, you know, the LLM data shouldn't be seen as a replacement.

19:34Victoria McNally: It's a real complementary intent signal. So obviously, we're encouraging brands to sort of see what's out there in market. And then on the showing up side, it means being present inside the AI conversation itself and not just hoping that the LLM happens to mention you in the brand. Mm-hmm. Well, thank you, Anna, for those concrete steps and recommendations. And thank you to Verve for supporting AdExchange, your podcast. Thanks so much, Sarah.

20:06Victoria McNally: All right, we are back. So homescreen ads will be familiar if you listened to the podcast before. I think the last time we talked about it was when Samsung started making its homescreen ad inventory programmatically available on the trade desk. So our most recent story at Streamline is about Nexen. We started doing that a little bit earlier, but with a smaller subsection of TV OEMs. Like they've got Tebow ads, they've got V or Vita, which is part of Hisense. That naming does not work for me from an SEO purpose because if you Google VTV, you get that show about the aliens, which is the sort of thing you should probably know about, I guess, which is why you should read synopsis as well as Streamline.

20:44Victoria McNally: but anyway they're introducing sort of a standardization tool now so that rather than buying through each tv oem individually even if you're buying programmatically you still kind of had to do it individually now you're uploading creative one time and they're able to sort of resize it and reformat it and fit it to the specifications of each tv oem and they also told me that this is going to help with onboarding new OEMs as well. So with any luck, there'll be a wider variety of partners to sort of work within the future there. And I'm sure other DSPs and SSPs are going to follow suit as well. Obviously, this is kind of a big trend that's sort of on the rise.

21:26Victoria McNally: And like I said, we've talked about this on the show before, but just as a refresher, Alyssa, why is this topic, why is home screen ads such a big deal for both the TV OEMs and for advertisers? Okay.

21:36Alyssa Boyle: So my honest take is that we're trying to just turn everything into ad space and people just cannot help themselves. Now the business rationale is, you know, Hey, I'm going to get, I'm going to reach people before they get lost in a show. Maybe that viewer only watches ad free streaming because many of us do. So this, the, the rationale does make sense, but in practice, it, it consumers, if you look on Reddit or you're just a human being, you kind of think it's a little bit odd or off-putting sometimes when you're just flipping through content and, you know, the TV's like, hey, you want to buy from the farmer's dog?

22:11Alyssa Boyle: And you're like, I have a cat. Can I just leave me alone? You know? Well, that's more a problem of targeting than the home screen ads. That's not a real example, but, you know, just hypothetically, you know, I feel like they might always be relevant. Or, you know, sometimes it could just be something as innocuous as like or endemic as like McDonald's or Burger King. But what if I'm on a fast food break. You never really know. Anyway, you get the idea. It's just the consumers just don't love the experience and they're going to nitpick it. Again, look on Reddit. I promise you they're nitpicking.

22:38Alyssa Boyle: On Reddit? People are nitpicking things? Yeah. What a concept. Yeah. The idea of like, you know, why is my home screen just a giant advertisement or a digital billboard? You know, because I get it. You know, you forget that you're at work for a second and you just, you know, appreciate that you're just, you know, leaning back with your cup of coffee and seven o 'clock at night is your third cup of coffee and you just want to be left alone. And then all of a sudden, all of a sudden they're trying to sell you things before you even get to the commercial break. It's annoying. It really is. So that's my personal opinion.

23:07Alyssa Boyle: These are not the opinions of ad exchanger or streamlining. But again, the business rationale, it makes sense to say, you know, hey, I really want to reach a consumer before they, you know, get lost in an ad-free show or, you know, get them while they're actually engaging with the remote control. And I have their attention because they're not in that lean back experience yet. So those are two real incentives to be, you know, pushing for the home screen ads. And then the technical aspect of why it matters is because, you know, you mentioned with Nexen and other SSPs to your point, like Magnite has already done this, but creating some level of standardization so that an advertiser could, you know, click a few buttons, have a plan and then end up buying, you know, like in this case, when I say Magnite, I mean like pause ads, for example, we're going to, you know, just giving an example with a different type of ad format.

23:51Alyssa Boyle: You know, so the idea is, hey, I can click a few buttons and I can have an ad that looks relatively similar on all of these distribution platforms and, you know, and just kind of have it work well and, you know, look good from a user experience perspective besides all the complaining I was talking about before, rather than piecemeal buying it from every distributor. Now, the reason why I bring up pause ads is because, and we can get to this. I'm going there. So the IAB Tech Lab is trying to create like wholesale standards and specs so that it just applies everywhere and not just like a subset of OEMs or distributors.

24:27Alyssa Boyle: And so I think they refer to this, you know, grouping of newer innovative ad formats as a CTV ad portfolio, two of which are home screen ads and pause ads. And they're harder to standardize because they're not your traditional 30 or 60 second spot. So it takes a lot of work from the technical backend to make it so that it's actually easy to, you know, just almost en masse buy a bunch of ads.

24:50Victoria McNally: And to your point, part of the reason why it's so technically annoying to standardize is because for a really long time, all of these different OEMs and streaming services and providers of these new formats have sort of kept them as proprietary direct buys. So, you know, charging a little more for them and making them try to feel more exclusive and telling advertisers it was like hey if you want to be in this part of the show where you're going to stand out more than a standard ad break like you're it's it's your thing and like we're buying direct and we're doing pmp deals from it and they haven't really had the opportunity to have it go programmatic although that's that's changing with pause ads i feel like pause ads are an interesting um i don't want to say foil because that implies the opposite i guess uh literal like from a literature perspective but like they're they're an interesting contrast to home screen ads because they both are sort of dealing with the similar tech issues and proprietary issues and people um on the publisher side being really protective of them because you know to your point like it can get really annoying really fast and so they have to make sure that like oh we're not doing like politics or like weird adult film ads in in the home screen where like families could see it stuff like that so they're they're like really much more strict about what kind of content goes in there as well.

26:10Victoria McNally: And, you know, over time, as those those technical aspects have started to get a little more standardized and as there's more advertiser interest, they're starting to open up programmatically.

26:20Alyssa Boyle: Right. And I think I mean, to your point, also, I think one major common denominator between like, let's say, home screen ads and pause ads is this in this desire to get in front of a consumer when they're like, not lean back on their phone on TikTok, you know, kind of trolling somebody because they really hate their political opinion, but instead lean forward, pausing something or clicking through the remote. You have you have my full attention. And that's seemingly a better opportunity to try and sell me something. So that makes sense. And I understand that. And then I would also say from a technical perspective, when it comes to standardization, you know, like you covered next in the latest streamlined edition, The idea is companies are not really satisfied to wait around until the IAB Tech Lab specs and updates are approved and implemented into GitHub.

27:13Alyssa Boyle: I mean, that's going to be great and all like everyone like buyers are waiting for that. There are don't get me wrong. Some buyers are literally waiting for that. They're holding out. But in the meantime, there are other advertisers and buyers who are interested. And there are companies and programmatic platforms who are in the meantime trying to, I guess, you know, take some matters into their own hands and create some level of consistency and standardization so that not everybody has to hold out if they don't want to.

27:36Victoria McNally: the other thing i think that's interesting um with home screen ads is from talking not just in exon but a bunch of other players in the space um is they're becoming a lot more not popular but i want to say there's a lot more demand or interest from performance-based advertisers so obviously those formats have been in existence for a while as direct deals not as programmatic deals and a lot of them are media and entertainment brands to start you know because that's very endemic like you could see an ad for a tv show and not even necessarily know that it's an ad because it's just saying here's a tv show and like it's in the content discovery side of the the home screen so you're not really thinking about like you know oh this must be the thing the tv suggests for me you know like that kind of thing um and as ctv has become more popular from a performance angle those companies are now sort of trying to break into those emerging formats as well a bit more.

28:35Victoria McNally: And obviously there's still a push and pull with the OEMs about what kind of stuff is allowed there. I know with Nexen and with a lot of other places that sell home screens, they're very strict in following those guidelines that the OEMs put forth. But it's, I personally, I don't think I've seen too many ads yet. I have a Roku TV. I don't think I've seen any like CPG or non-media ads lately, personally. So I don't, I still don't know how ubiquitous it is on the consumer side of things. Um, but maybe that's just because it's Roku and they like, I know Samsung is working with a trade desk. Nexus is working with a bunch of places.

29:12Victoria McNally: Roku might just not have that capability yet. So like maybe once Fox buys it, they'll beef that up.

29:18Alyssa Boyle: And what kind of TV do you have? Yeah, I'm thinking about this too, because I think I have a fire TV. So when I turn on my screen, now I'm thinking, you know, like what ads have I even seen? But to be totally honest with you, like, even though I'm, I might be in this lean forward, type of experience where I might hypothetically be open to, you know, being served an ad. But I forget who I had this conversation with recently. But, you know, recently I had a conversation with somebody and they were describing how when of the consumers who sit down and turn on their their TV, their smart TV, there is a certain subsect of consumers who go straight to their show and they just look for that on the home screen.

29:55Alyssa Boyle: And then there's absolutely me. Yeah, it's me. That's me. I go I make a beeline for Love Island, USA, and I don't care what else anybody has to say about it. Like, I'm not looking at anything else. I don't see anything else. I couldn't tell you what color the screensaver is. I go right for Love Island. I'm rewatching all the shows, but you don't even like that's all I care about. So anyone who's trying to reach me with a McDonald's farmer's dog, I don't know what I don't know what's on there because I'm not looking. But I might be I'm going to make this up, but I might be I might represent you.

30:22Alyssa Boyle: And you and I might represent like a third of consumers. And again, making this up. But there's the idea is there there are people out there who don't know what they want to watch because the more shows and fragmentation that exists, you know, the longer it takes to find something to watch. So people who are less decisive, there is there is there is a market for that. So I just it's not me or you, but there is a market for it.

30:42Victoria McNally: well to i mean the the stat that gets quoted a lot and it's from 2023 so i would love to see if it's been updated at all especially as these um oems start like beefing up their content recommendation engines but the stat from nielsen is that it takes the average household 10 and a half minutes which feels like such a long time but also it does i'll admit like when it's me and my husband watching together it does take a little bit longer when we don't have an active show that we're watching like we'll sit down to watch like certain shows that come out at certain times obviously but if we don't have anything like we're you know we might we might take a little bit longer um whereas if i'm alone like yeah i have my ones that i'm just like watching through so maybe we're outliers because we're we're watching solo no that makes sense i'm trying

31:26Alyssa Boyle: to think like we were my girlfriend and i were we we wanted to watch light white lotus we had a whole discussion about it like we were very planned out with like the white lotus is happening and by the way it is such a good show so if you haven't seen it yet i am yeah i stayed up a little bit too late last night because it's actually really good um okay so clearly white lotus and love island usa if you haven't seen them just try it just trust me i'm having such a good time watching

31:48Victoria McNally: tv again oh yay um so no it's all good it's listen i would love you know pop culture background giant nerd would love to talk about the tv side of things forever um have to constantly stop myself and try to get back into the ad tech side um does it does it feel to you because you have technically been covering this longer than i have um does it feel to you like programmatic home screen activation um is starting to reach a tipping point like do you think within a year like everybody's going to be doing it because i've heard i've heard similar arguments about pause ads i'm not sure that they're there yet um is it just that like anybody who says something is going to happen within a year is like always wrong because that's how it works or do you think with both that there's there's been a lot more momentum lately i would say momentum in

32:40Alyssa Boyle: availability maybe less momentum in actual adoption um i'll speak for for pause ads at least because i've had conversations about that more recently uh at least when it comes to um i guess standardization still kind of pending from that uh you know more overall top level IAB tech lab updates. You know, I spoke with a couple of brands who mentioned, you know, like I, you know, I like, I like pause ads, but I would really only want to buy them programmatically when I could be certain that all the standards are in place. But even then, I question what I question that the adoption will reach the, I guess, the degree of the availability in part because sometimes advertisers often still say that pause ads are an upper funnel strategy for them more so.

33:26Alyssa Boyle: So it makes me wonder, I guess, how they would differentiate that between just a typical CTV spot if upper funnel still seems to be the main objective for pause ads, according to a couple advertisers that I spoke to recently. So I want to ask you why you think that is. And there's three options I can come up with. One, CTV or TV is always going to be upper funnel. Option number two, we just are accepting that people don't want to scan QR codes. or three what was the third option um there was a third um anyway uh oh nope i lost it but i'll just give you two thoughts and make it easy for you or free film if you remember the third um yeah i mean i the stuff that you're saying kind of reflects some of the stuff that i've heard

34:09Victoria McNally: um from advertisers about home screen ads as well um i was talking to brain labs which is an agency that just started experimenting with homescreen as through Nexon. And the guy was sort of telling me like, they, especially with their bigger clients who use media mix models, like there's definitely a sense that upper funnel has a much more pronounced impact on actual like sales and attribution than just to lower funnel, like a combination of upper and lower together, which is obviously harder to measure. in stuff that is not an MMM. But so that is part of why they were interested in trying home screen ads to begin with, because they kind of already saw proof that the upper funnel was working for them.

34:56Victoria McNally: So for them, it didn't necessarily matter if they weren't getting like clicks on the home screen ad or whatever. It was like, and they were also sort of telling me it's still kind of early days. So they haven't quite figured out yet, like what kind of an impact the home screen ads were going to have on them. But yeah, I think, yeah, they're they're inherently like hard to measure because they're upper funnel um if there are clickable elements like you know there might be some novelty in clicking for the first time but i'm sort of of the opinion that in the long term those types of ads might start to go the way of like display ads and banner ads online where like people don't actually really click them anymore um that maybe it might be more like mobile ads where like if it seems really compelling to click like if it's gamified you might but like um or if you have a very specific need like i've definitely heard from people that use prime video or fire tv or anything that has amazon plugins that like they're more likely to set up something that like oh add dishwasher or a dishwasher fluid to my cart or whatever like if they get an ad for it um so that model might already be there on the retail side of things for certain uh parties but yeah i don't know it's it's it's interesting um and i definitely think once it becomes a lot more programmatically available at least there will be a lot more of it for sure because it will be less of a um i don't want to say a conversation because like people are still gonna have conversations about whether they buy these things or not but like it will be more of a maybe more of a self-serve process in some respects um well because like you know you don't have to like talk to a sales rep about them anymore or you can talk to the sales rep that you're talking to for everything else rather than going to like nbcu specifically to be like i want to be on your home screen or whatever you know like although i don't know that their home screens count in terms of programmatic i know nbcu in particular is trying to add more like doodads and stuff to peacock um which includes brand sponsorships but those are probably still direct i think at that point i think the publishers are probably not going to give up control as quickly as the oems are in terms of what is on their apps probably because they'll get more in trouble for it if something goes wrong that's that's one that's one way of

37:14Alyssa Boyle: thinking about it yeah no i don't disagree like um i also think uh that i think publishers streaming platforms, they just, they obviously things are competitive. They really want to, I guess, stand out and have their own little flavor of things. And I kind of feel like that's why certain publishers really care a lot about having their own look and feel to the way that their platform works. It does make me curious if, you know, that's part of the reason why when we talk about, you know, programmatic standardization and piecemeal updates like a Nexen or a Magni and making a certain format available across a bunch of OEMs, you know, what about the individual publishers, you know, like NBC or Warner Bros.

37:52Alyssa Boyle: Discovery, I feel like they kind of want to still stand out a bit. And maybe that's why their formats look so unique to their own platform. So that's kind of the biggest question I have is how are we going to standardize that? Like, do they do the platforms want that? So that's just, I guess, a bigger question that we'll hopefully find an answer to soon. I also want to say, you know, I you mentioned that, you know, not in these exact words, but eventually, you know, the digitization of all of these ad formats and might end up looking more like a display or a banner ad someday. And I'm already seeing that on Prime Video.

38:24Alyssa Boyle: And I know you've heard me say this anecdote before, but for the listeners, I will share a brief anecdote, which is that I was watching some sports game at a friend's house a few months ago, and he has Amazon Prime, and there was some QR code ad that came up, and it said, scan to phone? And then he said, why does my TV have to be a computer? And it was like, because he was frustrated. And I get it, because that's exactly how I would feel. So yeah, I don't know. I feel like there might be more friction and tension with these advertiser and publisher incentives kind of coming or just being at odds with what consumers want when they just want to watch a game and they kind of want to be left alone sometimes.

38:59Alyssa Boyle: So I kind of feel like there is a little bit of danger or potential risk in kind of pushing those boundaries. And then lastly, I'll say that, you know, also you mentioned this point before, but upper funnel and lower funnel kind of being both, I won't say equal, but just both very significant parts of the formula of making an ad work well, which is probably why when we covered the upfronts together, at least I was noticing that there was a slight, not a step back from focusing on performance, but at least coexisting acknowledgement that reach also matters. And I feel like that was that's been missing for a little bit, at least maybe I'm in the weeds and I'm biased.

39:40Alyssa Boyle: But it was refreshing in a way because I like the idea of just not not everything being this race to the bottom, as the world would say.

39:48Victoria McNally: It was refreshing, but then it was also frustrating because it's like performance. We know we can cover at Ad Exchanger. We're talking about fandom or like passion or reach as much as harder to kind of fit into the Ad Exchanger mindset, although it works really for synopsis. So there you go. there you go we'll be doing double duty next year i guess we will yay well until then um i guess it remains to be seen how home screen ads are going to shake out but we'll be here to cover it on uh two outlets so check us out on streamline check us out on synopsis obviously check us out on the actual ad exchange website as well um but you know that won't come to your inbox as quickly as everything else will unless you're also subscribed to the daily Addicts Future newsletter, which you should be.

40:34Victoria McNally: Let's plug that as well.

40:35Alyssa Boyle: We'll go to the newsletter. Why not? We've got some great stuff. We do. So the daily newsletter, very informative, very funny. We have a great team of very smart and funny people. And one last reminder to come to Programmatic.io if you haven't signed up yet in New York City, I will be on stage wearing a very weird hat. And that's all I'm going to say. We're going to be a journalist. What else you want to know?

40:54Victoria McNally: I always forget about the hats and then somebody reminds me. I know too. I'm very excited. All right. Well, thanks. See y 'all next week.

41:08Victoria McNally: this episode was sponsored by verve an ad solution that helps brands activate consumer intent in real time across platforms as ai reshapes how people plan vacations verve helps travel brands show up when it counts find out more at www.verve.com that's v-e-r-v-e.com

41:32Thank you.