• by Charlene Weisler , Op-Ed Contributor, March 7, 2013

Addressable advertising has been an active, although custom, application for media purchasing for several years. Some agencies have been very strategic in folding in addressable advertising campaigns for certain clients, and several data-oriented companies have built successful businesses helping advertisers -- from insurance companies to political candidates -- more efficiently and successfully target their consumers.

Last week, at the Multichannel News/B&C Advanced Advertising conference in New York City, a roster of industry experts from data originators to programmers to agencies brought us up to date on addressable advertising and its future direction. Advertisers can more efficiently harness the value of addressable advertising, there are still some necessary next steps that need to be taken before it is a universal component of an advertiser’s buy. 

According to the various panelists, addressable advertising needs to fulfill the following goals over the next year:

Measurement

If there was one resounding theme across most of the panels, it was the need for better measurement. Currently cross-platform measurement is "in development," with some partial solutions from data and measurement companies. Rentrak's Cathy Hetzel spoke about her company's ability to measure the combination of television, movie attendance, mobile and online, as well as adding shopper data and demographics. According to Tara Maitra, TiVo can currently combine TV with online.  And I know that Nielsen has begun to cross- populate its television meter panel with homes from its Net-Ratings service. As the choice of merge-able datasets expands, let’s try to add platforms missing from the data such as tablets.

Good Creative - Programming and Marketing

Damon Williams of Music Choice said that while the biggest change to addressable advertising is measurement, consistently good creative is important too. Andrea Ching of CNN added that it is important to create great storytelling opportunities where advertisers can tell their story across all screens.

Scalability

Despite the ever-increasing repositories of fascinating and valuable datasets, there is still the challenge of scale for the current addressable advertising campaigns. One problem is that the current datasets of addressable ready boxes are only a percentage of the total footprint -- and only on digital cable boxes, and only among those MVPDs who make their STB data and footprint available. Dani Benowitz of Universal McCann would like to see this go beyond cable television, or at least have all MVPD data included to get closer to scale.

Targetability

A huge proven advantage of addressable advertising is its ability to target consumers with messages that more closely speak to their lifestyles.  But another important component is the ability to tie media exposure to purchasing, according to Andrea Ching.  Jonathan Bokor of MediaVest stated that the full implementation of DAI is also an important addition to improve target ability.

Agency Challenges

Some agencies are still siloed, having television media buying and planning separate from digital. More and more. though, agencies are breaking down the siloes, thus enabling a more efficient business structure to deliver the most efficient and optimized targeted campaign for an advertiser.

In sum, “it is important to stay relevant,” as Dani Benowitz noted. With all of the advancements in data and technology and expansive offerings from content providers, that might be the easiest goal to achieve.