Amobee Out Loud, Episode 4: Live from the Croisette: Highlights from Cannes Lions

This week’s episode of Amobee Out Loud was recorded live at Cannes, at RTL Beach. Val and I sat down with our Amobee colleagues Volker Helm, Amobee’s Head of EMEA; Tim Spengler, General Manager of ATV Solutions; and Kara Puccinelli, Chief Customer Officer, for a recap of our experience at the festival and to discuss key takeaways from the week’s conversations. 

The Power of Alliances to Drive Industry Change

As our colleague Volker Helm noted, one recurring topic was the power and importance of alliances and partnerships between companies. Looking to the European marketplace, many publishers are coming together to share information in a holistic and accessible way with their marketing partners. There is a shared desire, even among competitors, to make the experience of accessing inventory and publishers easier for marketers, because it will ultimately improve the viewing experience for consumers. They see it as a shared mission, so they find areas of compatibility and collaboration. 

With major players like Meta, Google and Amazon growing ever more powerful, alliances between smaller companies are necessary to staying competitive and agile in the marketplace. 

The Evolving Definition of “Premium Content” 

Another hot topic of conversation was the question: what is premium content? As the shared definition of premium content evolves with consumer behavior, what are the implications for advertisers? 

The old paradigm of premium content depended on front/back of camera talent, plus the time of day that it aired. Marketers were easily able to identify premium content and build their brands off of associations with it. But in today’s marketplace of linear and digital content, that old paradigm becomes irrelevant if you can target audiences accurately, and premium content becomes much more personal to the viewer. There is no “prime” time of day in a digital world, and different audiences value different types of content – for a 45 year old, their definition of premium may be closer to the old paradigm of professionally developed content, but for an 18 year old, that premium content may be user-generated on a platform like YouTube. The new paradigm seems to be that premium content is in the eye of the beholder, so long as you can append data to it to target the viewers and serve content and advertising that matters to them. The environment or circumstances in which content is viewed is an added layer of significance for advertisers – what screen are they viewing it on, and who are they viewing it with? Is it a shared experience, sent from one viewer to another via individual devices, or viewed together on one device at the same time? If you factor these details in, viral content can be considered premium, no matter who creates it. The challenge for advertisers is whether they can find a way to be part of that cultural zeitgeist in a fragmented media landscape with so many niche audiences. 

Adopting New Currencies

Measurement and currency were another big discussion point at Cannes. In the past few years, these terms have often been used interchangeably, but today there’s more clarity and distinction being made between the two. 

Among the many panels and conversations, it was clear that publishers are out of the test phase and are activating against new currencies coming out of this year’s upfronts. Given this development, “alternative currencies” is no longer an accurate phrase, and Kelly Abacarian, EVP of Measurement and Impact for NBCUniversal made the call in a panel discussion for people to start using the phrase “new currencies” as they become part of mainstream media transacting. 

The Future of Work

Being together in person at Cannes for the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic began was an incredible experience, and prompted discussion around the future of work. It reaffirmed what is valuable about in-person gatherings – it provides an opportunity for new connections and deeper discussions in a way that virtual gatherings do not. But as Kara put it, asking people to return to in-person work just for the sake of it isn’t good for team morale; a clear purpose for meeting is what makes it meaningful. The new workplace paradigm should be quality over quantity – the quality of the engagement with colleagues should matter more than the number of days people show up to the office. 

For more discussion about the Cannes Festival and the future of media and advertising, listen to the full episode here. Be sure to leave a review and join the conversation on our LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook.

 

About Amobee

Founded in 2005, Amobee is an advertising platform that understands how people consume content. Our goal is to optimize outcomes for advertisers and media companies, while providing a better consumer experience. Through our platform, we help customers further their audience development, optimize their cross channel performance across all TV, connected TV, and digital media, and drive new customer growth through detailed analytics and reporting. Amobee is a wholly owned subsidiary of Tremor International, a collection of brands built to unite creativity, data and technology across the open internet.

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