We met with Ryan Kenney from Magnite, and he opened my eyes to how much streaming is impacting the advertising industry, and how Magnite is taking advantage of streaming, data, and artificial intelligence to bring video ads to TV.

What does Ryan actually do? 

With the new wave of switching from live tv to streaming, brands and companies have to find new ways to advertise their product, as so much advertising was built around live TV. What Ryan (and his company, Magnite) does is take the same commercial breaks you see on live tv and provide a way to reach the same audiences on streaming–giving companies a way to advertise in new places but with better information and automation making it smarter. 

What is interesting about what Ryan does?

I have noticed a common theme as I interview people and learn more about the advertising industry. Even though there are so many different companies and businesses, almost all of them have a common goal of upgrading the better, classic-style advertising to fit streaming TV.  I wonder if it all comes back to how suddenly the streaming era was introduced, and that now people are acclimating, we are starting to see advertisers try and find more and more ways to advertise, and one of the “easiest” options is to revitalize the old ways. 

What did I like about Ryan’s message?

Ryan’s message was cool because it’s a great reminder that streaming is only getting bigger and will most likely be the dominant form of consuming content in the future. If it’s the dominant form, that means the majority of your potential audience will be using streaming services. What Ryan is saying is to use that huge audience to your advantage and set up a relationship with that audience, because they will last the longest. 

TRANSCRIPT:

RIO: Okay, so what is your name? And what do you do for a living? 

RYAN: My name is Ryan Kenney, I work for a streaming TV advertisement company. 

RIO: And what is that company? What does the company do?

RYAN: our company's named Magnite. And what our primary focus is, is to help streaming services, so TV who have commercial breaks, put commercials into their break. So it feels like least for me, who's old, the traditional commercial experience that I was used to, as you hit an ad break, you get four or five, however many commercials, we helped to do that, but just in the streaming environment. 

RIO: So if I'm on Hulu, or some streaming service site, and I see an advertisement that's like, that's sort of what you may have put in?

RYAN: If you're on Hulu, enjoying your favorite television show, once it goes to a commercial break, a signal gets sent to my company's platform. And that tells us that time we need three, four, or five commercials depending on how long the break is, then we compile the various commercials that are going to pay enough money to Hulu that are the right length, or the right brands. We package those together and through our pipes into Hulu, we send those back in it plays in front of you. 

RIO: So you essentially sell them advertisements 

RYAN: So in an example like Hulu, we're not always the ones that are selling it. Those are big companies owned by some of the largest media brands in the world. But we do have teams that go out and talk to Coca-Cola, or Chevrolet or whatever example you can think of, to help provide more demand in scenarios where they don't have demand. So it works both ways.

RIO: That's really cool. How would this affect someone like me?

RYAN: So this affects most viewers, depending on what type of streaming services that they use. First and foremost, it's a traditional TV television break, something that we've all really grown up experiencing. And you know, it's kind of second nature at this point. However, you mentioned Hulu, there are other services out there streaming services, such as Pluto and Tubi, someone else might be a little bit more familiar with those, those are free, called fast services free ad supported streaming, versus Hulu, where you pay a subscription monthly to get access. They've got some free versions as well. But primarily, that's how Hulu uses leverage on those free services, Pluto and Tubi. For them to continue to provide the content that you're watching and the channel lineup, they need advertising. That's how they make their money. And so it's super critical to those viewers. And folks in your age range have really shown that that's kind of where they have an affinity to watch television, to continue to get those services, the advertisements are going to need to be prevailing there.

RIO: And sort of switching up the questions. What's the best thing about your job? What do you like doing?

RYAN: Man, the best thing about my job is it's just fun. Like it's, this is a fun industry. You know, we're in the television business. It's super dynamic, there are a lot of really fun people. And what's really cool about streaming, this is where I get a little bit nerdy about it is we're literally front and center and changing like kind of what's been an American institution, the television in the living room. And we're on the front lines of getting to see that evolve. Getting to see major changes that we get to participate in. And that's something that's pretty cool.

RIO: Yeah, yeah, I think so too. How do you think this could work out for the future? Is that too-Is that too far?

RYAN: No, that's not too far. I'm trying to think of the right way to respond to that.

RIO: We can cut anything.

RYAN: So I think the future of this industry and this business, you're going to continue to see streaming grow like crazy. We recently held a research where we found that 81% of TV viewers are already watching streaming of some type that's only going to continue to grow. It's incredibly obvious and the numbers there's going to continue to be a ton of evolution and how these media owners think about managing their content and how they think about bringing in advertisers and monetizing it. There's a lot of exciting stuff in front of us. You're probably not going to use any of that because that was like not for a teenager.

RIO: No, no I understood that! Alright, just as a final thing, like I've asked everybody this; Do you have a message or any messages for a marketer out there?

RYAN: My message to marketers if you want to be you think that you're buying television but streaming isn't a part of that mix, then you're missing a hugely important audience that you're going to have a longtime relationship with and you really got to consider.