As Senior Vice President of Product Management at Univision, Brian Lin heads up all aspects of product for the ad sales team, including Advanced TV, new capabilities in the digital and streaming world, and programmatic offerings. His focus, he says, is on "challenging the status quo of how media is bought." He spoke with TVREV about how Univision is innovating across both linear and streaming platforms and how the IRIS_ID is helping his team make better use of contextual targeting.

AW: Let's discuss streaming and how you handle transparency and privacy issues. How do you ensure that the right targets are being reached?

BL: Comparing streaming and linear TV, the experience hasn't changed much in terms of sitting in front of a screen. However, in the linear world, you buy ads directly from networks or publishers based on selling titles, content type, and genre. 

In streaming, due to its digital nature, ads are often purchased programmatically with a focus on audience targeting, which can lead to transparency, privacy, and fraud issues.

To address these challenges, Univision combines its audience data with content information. IRIS.TV’s IRIS_ID enables transparency in content and genre, bringing together the advantages of both linear and digital approaches. It ensures that the targeted individuals or devices are reached through the appropriate contextual means. By integrating these elements, we can provide a better advertising experience while maintaining transparency and privacy.

We've found that when we can accurately identify our target audience and match them with the appropriate contextual environment, the advertising becomes much more relevant and effective. The beauty of combining these data sets is that it allows us to not only reach the right people but also present our ads in a context that makes sense for both the content and the viewer. This results in a better overall experience for our audience, and in turn, leads to better performance for our advertisers.

AW: What are some of the advantages and disadvantages of using contextual targeting in streaming services?

BL: Contextual targeting offers several advantages for streaming services, including addressing privacy concerns and tackling measurement challenges. It allows advertisers to eliminate some issues associated with audience targeting in linear advertising. Focusing exclusively on audience targeting may lead to content commoditization, with advertisers overlooking the importance of the context in which their ads appear. To achieve optimal results, advertisers should adopt a more thoughtful approach that balances audience targeting with the context in which their ads are placed.

AW: How does the role of context and its connection to a brand's image factor into the effectiveness of advertising in streaming services?

BL: Context plays a crucial role in advertising effectiveness, as it has a direct impact on brand perception. When advertisers focus only on reaching their target audience and disregard the context, they might miss out on the benefits of associating their ads with specific content. A strategic approach that takes into account both audience targeting and context will lead to better advertising outcomes.

AW: How does the combination of accurate audience data and contextual targeting improve advertising results?

BL: By combining accurate audience data with contextual targeting, advertisers can not only reach their desired audience but also ensure their ads are placed within the most appropriate context. This approach is especially effective when working with specific demographics, such as the Hispanic audience, where traditional data providers might struggle to provide accurate reach and targeting. Utilizing accurate audience data allows advertisers to bridge the gap between targeting and context, resulting in more successful and impactful ad campaigns.

AW: Can you explain how IRIS.TV distinguishes itself from others in terms of providing better advertising solutions?

BL: IRIS.TV stands out by being digitally native with a deep understanding of the digital ecosystem and programmatic advertising. They excel at connecting content metadata libraries and enabling solutions that use AI and machine learning algorithms to analyze and enrich content metadata. This advanced analysis includes determining franchises, genres, series, episodes, characters, sentiment, and other aspects that can help advertisers find the right context for their ads.

They then take it a step further by making this information available through standard programmatic pipes. By partnering with platforms like SpringServe or Magnite, IRIS_IDs can be utilized within the existing advertising ecosystem. This enables advertisers to not only reach their target audience but also serve ads in the appropriate context, ensuring a more effective advertising experience.

AW: Is there anything about Univision and its Hispanic content that presents a challenge in terms of audience data and targeting?

BL: While the issue of insufficient tags on non-US content was a minor factor, the real challenge we encountered was related to the quality and accuracy of audience data for the Hispanic market. We collaborated with a company called Truthset to explore the market and found that not all data was created equal. 

There's a significant amount of bad data in the digital ecosystem, which limited the reach of these datasets to only 30% - 50% of the total US Hispanic audience. Additionally, nearly 70% of ad impressions were inaccurately delivered due to the use of unreliable proxies such as last name categorization or geographical location.

This spurred us to develop a more comprehensive Hispanic household graph, which today covers nearly 95% of the total US Hispanic population and includes over 200 million device IDs. By combining this accurate audience data with the contextual data that IRIS.TV is able to provide, we are able to bridge the gap between targeting and context, allowing advertisers to achieve better reach and more relevant ad placements. This approach emphasizes the importance of having both accurate audience data and the right context for successful ad campaigns.