VIZIO’s Travis Hockersmith On The Future Of Native Ads In CTV

Every day, millions of people power on their TVs, and VIZIO’s home screen is the first thing they see. This creates valuable opportunities to engage those people, delivering better user and ad experiences. VIZIO utilizes Magnite's SpringServe ad server to deliver a seamless ad experience and was an early adopter SpringServe’s Tiles offering. As VIZIO continues to grow and innovate in a rapidly evolving streaming landscape, Chris Signore, Head of Revenue, AdServing at Magnite, recently spoke to Travis Hockersmith, Group Vice President of Platform+ at VIZIO, to learn more about the importance and future of native ads in CTV.

CHRIS SIGNORE (CS): When it comes to the ad experience, what are VIZIO’s key priorities?

TRAVIS HOCKERSMITH (TH): We know people rely on VIZIO to power their streaming TV experience, and we take that responsibility seriously. That’s why our home screen ad experiences are centered around personalized content recommendations, which aid viewers in their search and discovery process. And by prioritizing search and discovery, we provide advertisers with meaningful touchpoints while enhancing the viewer experience, ultimately making the best use of our inventory.

CS: Where does VIZIO see native ads fitting into the streaming ad experience?

TH: Native ad formats, coupled with trustworthy data assets like Inscape’s ACR and premium inventory, provide our media and entertainment advertisers with an opportunity to hit their KPIs and drive viewership. The format of “native” is evolving within the streaming ecosystem. By serving native ads through Tiles, we’re able to deliver high-quality results to our buyers without disrupting or negatively impacting the user experience.

Our sales team has done a great job representing these units in the market, and our advertisers have seen remarkable results since we expanded this offering. We’re able to help drive tune-in, sell high-touch sponsorships, promote different products or offerings, and highlight any number of our initiatives across highly viewable real estate in areas such as the home screen or when a user pauses a program.

CS: What was it that initially drew VIZIO to adopt the Tiles solution?

TH: In recent years, we’ve continued to see demand for home screen native ads served through Tiles as they offer a seamless option for engaging viewers, even those that only stream ad-free content on their TV devices. Streaming is also opening the door to an entirely new world of advertising that extends beyond traditional linear inventory. The home screen is the new mass-reach vehicle in the streaming environment. It offers brands an opportunity to aggregate significant reach even against viewers who are lightly exposed to traditional 15 and 30-second spots.

The Tiles solution specifically allows us to create operational efficiencies by serving, optimizing, and reporting this format alongside our CTV ad formats within one platform. Magnite has created a workflow that allows us to move faster than our previous solution, providing us with the tools to manage the Tiles inventory in an efficient and optimized manner. As a result, we’re able to drive optimal revenue with a holistic view of how ads are performing through the use of the reporting that Magnite is able to provide across multiple formats. It’s solutions such as Tiles that allow us to bring exciting packages to our advertisers, while continuing to innovate within the video format as well.

CS: Are there any innovative applications of the Tiles product you’d like to see?

TH: We continue to focus on how we can improve our data capabilities to give advertisers as much detail as possible to optimize ad performance. So for us, leveraging the data that VIZIO has access to is always top of mind. We’re able to include this data in our offering to buyers to help ensure that we’re reaching the right audiences with the right campaigns to ensure KPIs are hit.

Contextually relevant ads targeted to specific audiences more likely to engage is a powerful combination and one that we’re leveraging consistently to ensure a better user and ad experience. Being able to target the right opted-in user at the right time and improvements that allow for even more engagement are all things we’re happy to see coming front and center to the Tiles product. Additionally, more automation always helps us move faster and serve both our customers and advertisers.