Addressable TV & The Future of Identity

Watch the Full Episode

We’re back this week with another insightful episode of Amobee Out Loud, with guest Julian Zilberbrand, EVP of Advanced Media at Paramount Global, to discuss Addressable TV, its opportunities and challenges.

Addressable TV vs. Data-Driven Linear TV: Which Will Last?

We kick off the conversation with Julian by clarifying the difference between Addressable TV and Data-Driven Linear TV, which often get confused with each other. Both are methods of precision-targeting, but they use different mechanics. Addressable TV allows advertisers to reach consumers at a household level via devices like a Set-Top-Box, whereas Data-Driven Linear TV allows targeting via the distributor. As more TV viewers adopt Set-Top-Boxes and similar devices, the backend infrastructure of linear TV will need to evolve along with it. Julian predicts that Addressable TV will ultimately become the dominant method of precision-targeting due to this technological evolution.

The Biggest Challenges of Addressable TV

The Addressable TV industry has some significant challenges to address if it wants to become the go-to method of precision targeting for advertisers, says Julian. Like every other area of the media ecosystem, Addressable TV is in the midst of a sea change as media companies adopt new measurements and currencies to transact against. New standards of measurement need to be defined, and ideally, be capable of determining impact on sales, as well as controlling for frequency and reach. While industry organizations like “Go Addressable” are working on setting new measurement standards, Julian says that advertisers need to get comfortable with leveraging a multitude of technologies to achieve a holistic view of their performance.

Another major challenge that comes into play is creative: precision-targeting can be powerful, but if creative assets – particularly the marketing messages – aren’t tailored to the consumer they’re reaching, its impact will be limited. Producing custom creative assets at scale will require new tools and more production planning, says Julian, something that the industry is only just beginning to tackle.

Addressable TV and Identity

Like other digital media industries, Addressable TV is subject to privacy regulations and data deprecation. We ask Julian how media companies like Paramount shape their consumer identity strategies amidst these challenges. He paints a complex picture: there are dozens of different distribution environments and different consumer touch points. When you start to layer in different privacy regulations that are currently managed on a state-by-state basis, and the fact that media companies don’t have full ownership of the data across every environment, it becomes very difficult to achieve a single view of their audience to share with potential buyers.

Julian predicts that new regulations will push the industry toward opt-in models, which may create more complexity for walled gardens while giving typical non-registration environments more opportunity to understand who the consumer is.
We’re grateful to Julian for taking the time to unpack some of the complexity of Addressable TV and precision-targeting with us. You can watch or listen to the full episode here. Stay tuned for more eye-opening conversations about our complex media ecosystem in the coming weeks. And as always, we invite you to join the conversation on LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook.