Hot Takes: What We’re Bullish On Right Now

For this latest Hot Takes, we asked our TVREV Thought Leaders Circle members to flag the one area of the business they are most bullish on for 2024. The answers covered a wide range of topics, which is good news in that it means there is a lot to be bullish about.

First up, Tony Marlow, CMO at LG Ad Solutions, is stoked about the possibilities that advanced advertising brings for everything from better targeting to shoppable ad units.

At LG Ad Solutions, we are exceptionally bullish about the transformative potential of advanced CTV advertising, such as shoppable ad units, especially when combined with our advanced targeting capabilities. As we deepen our integration of AI and machine learning, these technologies not only refine how we target and engage diverse audiences but also enhance ad relevance and viewer experience. This innovation not only fuels the momentum of ad-supported streaming but also redefines its future, ensuring advertisers deliver the right message to the right audience at the optimal moment.

Dalaney Thompson, Vice President / Strategic Partnerships at AiBUY is also feeling advanced advertising, shoppable in particular.

At AiBUY, we're excited (bullish) about enhancing interactive advertising capabilities on Connected TV (CTV) this year, enabling users to scan and access products instantly, bridging the gap between viewing and purchasing. This combination of direct CTV integration and mobile synchronization offers a transformative advertising experience that can bring higher CPMs and much-needed new revenue models to brands and FAST channels.

Zach Frost, Director Program Management at CCR Media is banking on measurement companies all pulling in the same direction as the industry shifts to streaming.

​​I believe we will see more collaboration from measurement companies and the streaming platforms as more live programming shifts to streaming.

Ramsey McGrory, Chief Development Officer at Mediaocean is bullish on the power of converged television rolled out across multiple platforms.

I'm very bullish on high-quality TV experiences across linear, CTV, social video, and OLV. The converged TV space is transforming in so many ways from planning and buying to advanced audiences, attribution, and creative personalization…all infused with AI. It's an incredible time to be active in the space and, for Mediaocean, it's an incredible time to be steering the ecosystem through this accelerated change. TV is dead. Long live TV!

Ronny Lutzi, President at ZEASN EMEA: Global sees the big SVOD services looking to expand their international distribution platform partners as a way to reach a vast potential new audience.

SVOD streaming services will soon discover the need for distribution on platforms that did not originate from the US, to maximize their subscriber funnel strategy. As their subscriber growth will stagnate they will start to evaluate additional platforms and distribution methods in order to continue to grow their businesses. There is a massive opportunity internationally but you will need to look further than the traditional US-based TV operating systems.

Simon Klein, Global SVP Supply, Teads feels that this is the year that supply path optimization shines as a way for advertisers to optimize their CTV investments.

As brands look to target more premium, relevant audiences, supply path optimization (SPO) strategies have emerged as a crucial component in the evolving CTV landscape. At Teads, we’re at the forefront of this shift and are leveraging our CTV supply via Teads Ad Manager (TAM) to provide publishers with more efficient campaigns and greater control over advertising outcomes. Through TAM, we optimize the supply path to ensure cost-efficiency, produce more precise audience engagement, maximize revenue, and enhance the viewer experience. This is a game changer for publishers in the current environment, where better ad experiences lead to higher engagement, increased retention, and more ad inventory opportunities.

Mike Fogarty, Head of Platform Sales at Tatari reminds us that linear TV still has a lot of life left in it and he’s feeling good about its future prospects.

It is time to set the record straight for the road ahead and acknowledge that linear TV is, and will continue to represent, a vital component in this new normal of distribution convergence. While we as an industry like to forensically highlight the cord-cutting euphoria, many of these households are transitioning into vMVPDs and FAST Services, both of which ultimately represent a new, modern, and hybrid linear television experience. According to eMarketer, linear is projected to still represent a $45B marketplace by 2027, and new cord-cutting insights from Leichtman Research Group indicate that the vMVPDs (e.g., YouTubeTV) are continuing to scale, recently gaining 2M new subscribers.

Why does this matter? While there is much sensationalism around the rapid growth of streaming, it certainly hasn’t been without its fair share of challenges: subscription fatigue (churn), cumbersome viewing experiences, currency (measurement) inconsistency, content reporting transparency, and fraud through programmatic activation. Could this turmoil pave the way for linear television to stabilize and stage a remarkable resurgence? Time will tell.

Mike Laband, SVP, Platform Revenue at Magnite has a positive vibe on the importance of user experience, especially in terms of making ad breaks and ad blocs more consumer-friendly, unintrusive and effective.

As we saw at the upfronts, media owners are leaning into premium content to draw in audiences. But in a sea of choice, the push towards more ad-supported streaming and high-stakes environments like live content, ensuring a seamless ad experience will be a key focus for media owners. We’ve talked about perfecting the viewing environment for a long time, but this is the year everyone gets focused on differentiating via user experience. Have the most optimal ad pod experience that provides subscribers a deduplicated and competitively separated ad experience with optimal frequency all while limiting slate to provide and better outcomes all around. I anticipate we’ll see media owners take a closer look at the tech that enables ad serving and tailor it to today’s streaming landscape. I’m excited to see more innovation around new ad formats like tiles and pause ads that complement the streaming interface and reimagine what good TV advertising can be.

Mike Shields, CEO at Shields Strategic Consulting suggests keeping an eye on Amazon as it keeps making all the right CTV moves.

Amazon. This is kind of a duh answer, but their ad business is soaring, and it still feels like they've barely scratched the surface in CTV. They need more Prime hits, and they need to make sure they deliver on all these promises to improve TV attribution and make it shoppable, etc - but when this company sees a market to exploit/optimize, it rarely holds back.

Paul Alfieri, CMO at Cadent has high hopes for the ways that data can enhance and streamline the omnichannel experience for advertisers.

Optimized, direct access to premium data and supply. Advertisers and agencies have begun to prioritize working with streamlined platforms, proactively taking control of data privacy and eliminating MFAs in their supply chain. Ultimately, they are looking to simplify the way they build audiences and transact on inventory. Over the next 12 months, we should expect to hear more discussions around the need for cohesive audience targeting, buying and measurement across the omnichannel ecosystem.

Rohan Castelino, Chief Marketing Officer, IRIS.TV is all about the power of AI-powered contextual signals to make ads both relevant and more emotionally resonant.

The one area of our industry that IRIS.TV will be most bullish on for the year ahead is the accelerated adoption of AI-powered data signals for CTV advertising, specifically in the realms of contextual relevance and emotional resonance. As we navigate the challenges posed by the ongoing signal loss in CTV due to the demise of cookies and stringent privacy laws, traditional methods of targeting and tracking consumer behavior are becoming increasingly difficult.

Research from the Alliance for Video-level Contextual Advertising (AVCA) and others consistently shows that viewer attention in CTV is closely tied to the relevance of ad creative to the surrounding content. This is where contextual relevance and emotional resonance come into play. These new signals offer a sophisticated understanding of user intent and preferences without compromising privacy or relying on individual identifiers.

As marketers experience better business outcomes through these AI-driven signals, I believe they will move beyond being interim alternatives to becoming primary targeting strategies. This shift will not only enhance the effectiveness of CTV advertising, but also ensure a more privacy-compliant and user-centric approach, driving significant growth and innovation in the industry.

Raffi Bagdasarian, CEO at Paket Media is seeing more bundling in our future, bundling that is optimized for each consumer’s needs.

I'm thrilled to see the major streamers embrace bundling as a means to mitigate churn and deliver ongoing value across multiple services. More needs to be done, however, to offer bundles efficiently, at scale, and optimized to the individual. I'm excited to see how tech can innovate and bring internet scale to the bundle so we can stop comparing it to cable once and for all.

Adam Bergman, Group Vice President, Advertising and Data Sales at VIZIO sees the Smart TV Home Screen taking center stage as the ideal mass reach vehicle for brands.

In the year ahead, we're going to see the continued importance of the Smart TV Home Screen as a mass-reach vehicle, which brands rely on to combat the fragmentation. The Home Screen provides brands the opportunity to reach audiences as soon as they turn on the TV, and deliver data-driven content recommendations that enhance the entertainment experience, which is a win-win. All Home Screen executions can be measured to showcase incremental reach on top of linear campaigns. On top of that, we’re validating true business outcome analysis as well. What matters to brands is the impact on customers - did someone walk into a store and buy a product, drive through at a QSR, and so on. The connectivity between the smart TV Home Screen and outcomes is a major focus for us and brand partners this year.

Travis Scott Howe, VP, New Products & Solutions at Samsung Ads is bullish on the ability of data to provide marketers with a clear view of today’s hybrid (linear and streaming) TV ecosystem.

Marketers today are struggling to bridge the gap between linear and streaming reach, especially as ad-supported video on demand (AVOD) and free ad-supported streaming television (FAST) continue to reign as consumers’ preferred viewing methods. At Samsung Ads, we recognize that marketers need a reliable, holistic view of advertising reach across the entire TV ecosystem with the capability to target unexposed, unduplicated audiences.

With our industry-leading, proprietary first-party dataset, we are uniquely positioned to address these challenges head-on – which is why we developed Optimal Reach. Freshly announced during our NewFronts presentation, Optimal Reach is a first-of-its-kind solution that expands our leading ACR footprint and data signals to provide marketers with unmatched insight into overall audience reach across linear and in-app viewership. 

 Samsung will remain bullish on helping marketers identify gaps in reach across linear and in-app, find unexposed audiences, and target missed audiences at scale all within a single-source solution that drives campaigns forward in 2024 and beyond.

Tim Hanlon, Founder and CEO at The Vertere Group, LLC is betting on local TV stations to start broadcasting local games now that many RSNs (regional sports networks) are in freefall.

I am bullish on local TV stations and their group owners taking up more of the distribution slack for local sports teams struggling to find alternatives to the suddenly collapsing regional sports network (RSN) model - especially in markets affected by the ongoing Diamond Sports bankruptcy debacle.  While not an immediate replacement strategy for lucrative RSN subscription revenue, broadcast TV carriage deals both in-market and regionally across markets (e.g., TEGNA's mini-network for the WNBA Indiana Fever) offer teams/leagues instant local scale, brand credibility and ad sales upside - while serving as stable distribution anchors for franchise-direct streaming subscription apps that will ultimately compliment them.

Evan Shapiro, Media Cartographer Extraordinaire and CEO, ESHAP is feeling data. More specifically the need for better sharing and collaboration around data.

Data. The better we learn how to use our data, the better our ecosystem will be. I'll be pushing for better data collaboration every day the rest of this year. 

Finally, Spencer Potts, CEO at Madhive, is hot on the opportunities improved data capabilities will bring to small and medium-sized businesses.

We're excited for the positive business impact small and medium-sized companies will experience with better tools for reaching and engaging customers across touchpoints.

Our TVREV take is that if there is one thing we are most bullish about for the latter half of this year, it is the increased use of generative AI to do… just about everything.

And by everything, I mean everything from better recommendations on TV operating systems using natural language interfaces, better contextual data for better targeting and the enablement of shoppable TV. It will help advertisers plan across multiple platforms and optimize their campaigns based on performance.

It’s not going to replace humans—at least not this year—but it is going to improve on many processes, both consumer- and advertiser-focused. There will be many snake-oil salesmen out there—companies promising to do things they can’t—but that is always the case with any new technology and the good ones always seem to win out.