TV viewers want to connect with programming -- as well as their friends and family. But in a future, automated TV programmatic world, this might be a complex challenge for marketers. One major concern could be co-viewing. Christy Tanner, senior vp/general manager of CBS Interactive Media Group, in speaking at OMMA Programmatic Video event, says 73% of TV viewing is with family and/or friends. "The major challenge for this industry is hitting your real target," she says. "The assumption we make about people is often false." And, in that regard, it gets complicated when it comes to selling advertising in …

Minimizing waste is a top priority among political advertisers. The challenge is especially vexing when you consider that congressional districts aren't arranged by zip code. Fortunately, the rise of mobile combined with better cross-channel tracking technology is making it easier to track individual voters, according to Evan Hanlon, VP of strategy & investment at audience-buying giant Xaxis Americas. "Offline-to-online matching on a one-to-one basis" is now a reality, Hanlon told attendees of OMMA Programmatic Television, on Wednesday. Yet many on the traditional side of things are still stuck in the past, noted Chris Choi, director of media at Blue State …

When it comes to today's TV buys, Magna Global is measuring performance in a number of different ways. Yet the strategy and intelligence firm's key performance indicator remains "efficient incremental reach over the base buy," according to Todd Gordon, executive vice president and managing director at the IPG Mediabrands unit. As Gordon told attendees of OMMA Programmatic Television on Wednesday, he's obviously interested in higher yields, and greater concentrations of target audiences, but that takes time.

Without naming names, it's clear that certain individuals still think attribution simply refers to that act of crediting specific touchpoints with the sale of a product, or some other desired outcome. Not so, says Corina Constantin, VP and US director at PHD. Rather, attribution is specific to machine learning algorithms, Constantin just told attendees of the OMMA Attribution conference on Tuesday. Meanwhile, attribution is not generally reduced to digital touchpoints, but digital certainly has the ability to measure individual touchpoints, Constantin notes.

Speaking at the OMMA Attribution event, Tina Moffett, senior analyst for Forrester, says when it comes to attribution, marketers continue to point to a number of benefits. But sourcing of data remains a major problem. In reviewing a Forrester survey, Moffett says marketers working on attribution "will say they are happy with the [data management] partners they are working with. [But] it's taken a long time. [They say] 'It's not because of them, it's because we end up not knowing our data.'"

In this data-rich age of ours, the biggest danger is drowning in the stuff, and expending critical time and resources -- effectively chasing your own tail. That's according to George Musi, managing partner of analytics, insights and attribution at Mindshare. "Only data related to key questions are relevant," Musi told the crowds at OMMA Attribution on Tuesday. Too many marketers think they should be gathering all the data they can, and then combing through it for useful insights. That, says Musi, is a recipe for disaster.

With respect to programmatic, the biggest issue that agencies struggle with remains quality inventory, panelists agreed at OMMA Audience Buying on Tuesday. The "assurance of quality of data" is by far the biggest unknown, said Jamie Rubin, SVP and group media director at ad agency Campbell Ewald. When attempting to gauge quality, there remains "an enormous amount of subjectivity" in the marketplace, Ewald added. Moreover, many agencies still "struggle with opacity of media strategies," according to Will Sandwick, director of analytics at The Barbarian Group. As a result, they're "still making assumptions about what's driving efficiency," he said.

Introducing the Advertising Week session "That's Debatable!," one of the folks leading the panel (from COG NYC), said: "It's a really exciting time in our business." Debatable? The statement on the screen onstage countered: "It's a shit show."