John Piccone

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• How Advertiser Sales Data Will Turn The Sales Funnel Into An Hourglass in Audience Buying Insider on 05/22/2015
  

  We are entering the stage where anonymous data-matching techniques are improving enough that an individual's television-viewing behavior can be directly matched to his or her purchase information. This development will have a dramatic impact on how television advertising is bought and sold.

• Inevitable Impact Of TV-Derived Business Outcomes On This Year's Upfront in Audience Buying Insider on 03/20/2015
  

  We are entering a new era of television history, an era where data has as much value as content. In the 2015/16 upfront season, the networks will still need to deliver on the promise that content will carry the audience weight it has historically delivered. But starting this year, the networks will also need to predict, guarantee and deliver the audiences most likely to buy an advertiser's product.

• Better Will Always Outweigh Perfect In Audience Targeting in Audience Buying Insider on 02/20/2015
  

  Since the dawn of TV, ad buyers and sellers have, for the most part, been transacting on the opportunity for an audience to see an advertiser's ad. Of course, there were leaps made in measuring the relationship of TV advertising to sales, but perfect did not seem to get in the way of better. The media marketplace understood that over time, things would naturally progress -- if the drum beat of "what if?" and satisfaction with "better than, though not perfect" set the tone for decisions.

• Two On-Ramps To the Audience Buying Superhighway in Audience Buying Insider on 01/23/2015
  

  I read with delight a series of announcements that appeared after the beginning of the new year. The first was the news of a programmatic "first" in the TV space, when ESPN facilitated the bidding of avail on the set of ESPN's "Sports Center." It reminded me of the leap that Google's TV Ads product had made by automating the process by which ads could be bought on TV through an interface.

• Remnant Is Dead -- Long Live Remnant! in Audience Buying Insider on 01/16/2015
  

  Is "remnant" a good thing or a bad thing? How could the same word to describe undesirable ad inventory be interpreted both ways simultaneously? Why does it still cast a long shadow on TV, but has disappeared into the sunset of the online advertising lexicon? Let's flip back a few pages into the media archives and find out.

• Cleaning The Dust Off TV Preconceptions in Audience Buying Insider on 12/19/2014
  

  When dust accumulates on an object, it loses its twinkle. Although the general form, purpose and value of the object are unchanged, it somehow loses that special luminescence that originally caught our eye. Since the birth of the Internet, dust has started to accumulate on TV in spite of the fact that its form, purpose and value in the media food chain did not change. But now it's time to get out the feather dusters. TV is about to get its groove back, and the shine will be blinding. Here's why

• How Unbundling Content And Audience Will Negatively Impact Advertisers in Audience Buying Insider on 10/24/2014
  

  As a reaction to the news last week that HBO and CBS plan to offer direct-to-consumer subscription models, Joe Marchese does a great job in last week's Online Spin explaining the impact of the cable bundle. In short, he argues that a la carte pricing for TV content may in the end be more expensive for consumers than the traditional cable subscription model today, and could potentially decrease the quality of programming. While reading his post, I was struck by the similarities between content bundling for consumers and advertising bundling practices that exist today in linear TV. For years the two have been joined at the hip, and it is dangerous to ignore the profound impact any dismantling of the current content bundle will have on advertisers' fundamental use of TV: mass awareness and consideration for their products and services.

• The Audience Day Part in Audience Buying Insider on 09/26/2014
  

  More and more marketers, reacting to the chaos of fragmented TV viewership by digging deeper into when their target audiences are watching TV, find they need to relax their content restrictions as a result. And thanks to online media's capacity to demonstrate the relationship of advertising expenditure to business outcomes, there is a slew of proof that valuable audiences are available around the media clock.

• The Gross Rating Point Begot The Audience Rating Point -- And The Father Is Digital in Audience Buying Insider on 08/01/2014
  

  The gossip is true. The mother of all media measurement, the Gross Rating Point, got her groove on with the man, Digital Measurement, and unto them was borne a new measurement standard: the Audience Rating Point (ARP).

• Remnant Is Dead -- Long Live Remnant! in Audience Buying Insider on 07/03/2014
  

  Is "remnant" a good thing or a bad thing? How could the same word to describe undesirable ad inventory be interpreted both ways simultaneously? Why does it still cast a long shadow on TV, but has disappeared into the sunset of the online advertising lexicon? Let's flip back a few pages into the media archives and find out.

Comments by John All comments by John

• How Advertiser Sales Data Will Turn The Sales Funnel Into An Hourglass by John Piccone (Audience Buying Insider on 05/22/2015)
  

  Ed - Thanks for the feedback. You are right that self reported data sets have ruled the roost in the past, however this new direct matching process will complement those systems while providing new clarity about brand specific return on ad spend for television advertising. 

• How Advertiser Sales Data Will Turn The Sales Funnel Into An Hourglass by John Piccone (Audience Buying Insider on 05/22/2015)
  

  Ed - I could have clarified the matching process better but did not want the focus to be about the data matching itself but more about the impact it will have on business outcomes and the audience targeting process. That being said, one thing that I do want to clarify is that it is possible today to isolate millions of set top boxes that nationally represent the US TV viewing population and directly match specific buying activity to their specific TV viewing activity. Once this match is done then the results are projected nationally. So to summarize there is NO modelling. It is directly matching impressions to transactions.

• Inevitable Impact Of TV-Derived Business Outcomes On This Year's Upfront by John Piccone (Audience Buying Insider on 03/20/2015)
  

  Hi Ed. So that we are clear, without content there is no need for data. The opportunity in front of us, thanks to the latest advances in big TV data, is that we can now understand the impact of the respective content an advertiser chooses, as well as the creative, (thanks Dorothy) to further optimize media choices. I agree that sellers will not buckle down to advertiser's whim's". I see the opposite happening. I see a marketplace developing where the sellers will realize they have been commoditizing their inventory to date, and further clarity around program level audience behavior will increase their revenue yield per program, network and day part and many combinations thereof.

• Better Will Always Outweigh Perfect In Audience Targeting by John Piccone (Audience Buying Insider on 02/20/2015)
  

  Ed - you are right to point out that there have been excellent proxies in place to measure the impact of TV. In addition to these tactics the arrival of first and third party direct matching data sets, anonymized through third party matching companies, is indeed happening today. And although not perfect, it will at the very least inform the accuracy of historical models and separate the wheat form the chaff moving forward.

• Cleaning The Dust Off TV Preconceptions by John Piccone (Audience Buying Insider on 12/19/2014)
  

  John - You make a great point. Closed loop insights is merely a means to an end - with the end being better target audience identification. TV's value will remain as the best means to reach target audiences at scale (top of the funnel).

• Cleaning The Dust Off TV Preconceptions by John Piccone (Audience Buying Insider on 12/19/2014)
  

  Joan- Thanks to availability of deeper content and advertising viewership data on TV, it is now possible to anonymously link this activity to purchasing behavior. As this "first party data matching" becomes the norm it will be easier to see the role of reach and frequency on TV to cash register receipts.

• How Unbundling Content And Audience Will Negatively Impact Advertisers by John Piccone (Audience Buying Insider on 10/24/2014)
  

  Leonard, I agree the business models are constantly changing and the consumer is at the wheel of change. However the digital advertising model still needs major improvements such as eliminating the fraudulent and robotic activity that according to IAB is roughly 36% of all Internet activity. Television and Internet advertising will always work hand in hand to satisfy distinct marketing objectives and even more so now that better data is coming to Television.

• How Unbundling Content And Audience Will Negatively Impact Advertisers by John Piccone (Audience Buying Insider on 10/24/2014)
  

  Neil - I agree that context will always play a valuable role but fewer programs command the needed volume of viewers to satisfy an advertiser's reach needs. As a result, bundling targeted audiences will be needed to fill in the ratings gaps and support contextual strategies moving forward.

• The Anthropomorphization Of Programmatic by Tyler Loechner (RTBlog on 04/08/2014)
  

  Well captured Joe and a great panel. Programmatic is trying to make media something it doesn't want to be, especially in TV.

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