At OMMA’s Programmatic Conference on Tuesday, Julian Zilberbrand, Viacom’s EVP of audience science and a veteran of agencies ZenithOptimedia and Starcom MediaVest, told the audience
that programmatic TV (PTV) is a long way off.
Zilberbrand, who manages a Viacom unit that handles audience onboarding and segmentation, advanced analytics and data activation, said that the
buzz for PTV “is a nice fantasy but it doesn’t truly exist in the way people want it to exist.” He explained that there’s a data-driven vs. programmatic concept.
Programmatic is the ability to use technology to allow for operational efficiencies. An audience-based approach is a proxy for reaching a consumer. “PTV doesn’t understand how the
broadcast marketplace functions.”
So what is the biggest challenge for implementing PTV? Zilberbrand explained that the infrastructure of traditional broadcast delivery isn’t set
up for the dynamic insertion of ads. For example, he said, “I see an audience, I deliver them an ad in real time that is relevant to them. The world of broadcast today isn’t structured for
that.” As connected TV and over-the-top TV grows, an environment for PTV will become more realistic, he maintained.
What steps need to be taken to inch closer to PTV?
“Technology on the backend needs to be enabled, consumption patterns need to be monitored, and digital content delivery needs to be streamlined.” And, he says, “a broadcast signal
is not a digital signal,” Zilberbrand explained. “The digital-delivered signal needs to be similar to a dynamic insertion of an ad unit.”
Viacom buys programmatic media on
the open market and from private marketplaces; the company sells only through private marketplaces. Zilberbrand is focused on building audiences by using Viacom’s first-party data, and many
advertisers now want to bring their own first-party data. The goal is to build audience and segmentations that feed into consumer marketing and help support sales-driven initiatives.
As for
cross-device targeting and viewability, Zilberbrand said companies like comScore and Nielsen will need to build and improve the ability for
their tools to measure across devices “effectively." These companies are either just now building or will release cross-device tools to measure programmatic video content within the next year.
Once these tools are built and in the market, they need time to mature, Zilberbrand said, which means the methodology needs to come into check with accreditation through the Media Ratings
Council (MRC), for example. All the networks will need to go through this process individually, but standards will need to be created and accredited.
"Those standards are still being talked
about and structured," he said. "It's complicated because of the numerous ways content gets consumed."