Greg DePalma, newly named head of revenue, IPSOS Affluent and Influencer Database, has a career steeped in research, data and analytics. “I started in New York with my first seven years at
Nielsen working in the National NTI TV ratings group supporting network, agency, and advertiser clients,” he shared.
He also worked at TiVo, and on the media agency side with
“nearly every media consumption and purchase behavior data company to inform campaign planning/targeting, activation and measurement.”
These experiences prime him for the current
media ecosystem, which relies on an ever-increasing number of datasets — and questions about how to best leverage them.
DePalma has some interesting thoughts on data, the future of
television and measurement:
Charlene Weisler: What do you see as the biggest current challenges to TV measurement?
Greg DePalma: The proliferation via
time-shifting, device-shifting and platform-shifting creates a spider web of measurement problems. The technology on the back end to serve and measure program audiences and commercial ad
views is not unified. Clients say they want advanced data targeting and measurement, but agencies are paid on demo CPMs. How do you measure a new data-driven brand campaign that is 10% of a
particular network buy, which is 10% of your overall spend? There is no way you can parse out and report on 1% of a brand campaign.
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Weisler: Do you think the linear TV sales model will be here five years from now? Why or why not?
DePalma: The networks will try to hold on to upfront
premium inventory trading as long as they can. But consumer behavior will move faster than the networks can hold on to the current linear TV sales model.
Anecdotally I see it with
my tweens at home. Try asking kids, “if you could have one TV option, would you choose Netflix, Disney, or HBO?” The answer is Netflix 90% of the time.
It is especially discouraging to see only pharma ads on network TV evening news. Local stations historically made a huge percentage of their profits from news. Who is watching
local news now? The ad dollars follow the eyeballs — and, sooner than later, the linear TV sales model will change to mirror digital trading.
Weisler: How has the role of data in media changed since you first started?
DePalma: Data has transformed the media marketplace in terms of
transactions, talent and strategy. We see programs replacing people and data replacing insights.
You really need to dive under the hood. The black box research and
attribution models have to be completely examined. I’ve seen media companies report on their ROI and attribute sales with a model that applied a 25:1 weight for their own ad exposure
impact. I was fortunate to work on a team that challenged the media company to open up their attribution formula and provide the correct recommendation to our client.