The industry has seen tremendous change in the way viewers consume content, as well as a transformation in the advertising solutions available to brands who want to connect to their customers. So, what’s the most impactful way to reach the right audience at the right time, wherever and whenever they watch their entertainment in today’s marketplace? Steve Silvestri, SVP, Audience Solutions at Discovery Inc., shares his insights.
Steve says:
Captivate Consumers with Scale + Targeting.
[SS]: At Discovery, our portfolio of real-life brands is built to inspire media’s most coveted audiences – and for us, scale is key. The recent launch of our streaming service discovery+ has added to our already significant linear footprint. But of course, the story goes beyond scale. With our refined audience targeting strategy, clients can drill down to their exact target, delivering greater impact - whether that’s female pet owners, men who love lasagna, or women in the market for a new car. Historically, both the buy and sell side have been focused on key television age/sex demos. However, recent data advancements have begun to change that. As a result, Discovery is now captivating consumers who are as diverse as our stories. With our advanced audience targeting capabilities, we can deliver precise data-driven advertising wherever, and whenever audiences are consuming our content.
Flexibility is Key.
We cater to clients spanning all industry verticals, and most have their specific needs and preferred point solutions when it comes to data and attribution. Our goal is to support them in every possible way and we’ve built incredibly nimble data and tech capabilities to deliver on that. It’s an ever-evolving advanced advertising market, and we’re always adapting. Our platform is geared to support an open model. Whether it’s clients activating custom audience segments or agencies leveraging their own self-service activation tools, our technology solutions will enable that. This gives them greater flexibility with inventory decisioning and planning, which ultimately benefits everyone in the ecosystem.
Delve Deeper to Show Proof of Performance.
It’s become increasingly more important to go beyond the typical audience metrics associated with traditional campaign reporting. At Discovery, we take a consultative approach to our clients’ audience strategies. We report and measure not just on audience metrics but also measure campaign effectiveness. We can attribute ad exposures to actual sales results by measuring how many times consumers visit their store or website, how they feel about their brand, and the purchase decisions they make as a result. We work with best-in-class partners to prove the efficiency and effectiveness of a client’s buy.
Keep it Simple for Clients.
We understand the growing importance of our clients’ unified audience strategies. But we also realize the marketplace can be challenging to navigate. So, we launched OneGraph, Discovery's cross-platform targeting solution built to enable a streamlined one stop shop experience. OneGraph offers our customers the ability to target consumers across linear and digital alike. This gives clients the ability to onboard and activate a data set once, and subsequently target the same audience across platforms. Additionally, Discovery can power back-end analytics to quantify incremental reach, frequency, and attribution post campaign.
Always Offer Value.
Marketers know that when they invest with Discovery, they’re going to see a return on investment and ad spend that’s unparalleled in the marketplace. On average, through selling title optimizations and the use of advanced targeting, our clients are seeing over 20% incremental delivery compared to their traditional investment. We’re bringing their message to the right consumer on every screen with accuracy and efficiency, and we’re doing it in a way that is positively impacting their bottom line.
Embrace the Future.
The door is now open to new audience opportunities on a scale that was unimaginable a few years ago. Linear addressability is the next frontier for advanced advertising. Historically, 1:1 household addressable advertising was only available on the local level across the MVPD set top box ecosystem. That’s changing rapidly, with consortiums like Project OAR (Vizio connected TVs) and CANOE (Cox, Charter and COX) enabling national programmer addressability. Ultimately, this will be a true bridge to cross platform audience buying in the premium, brand-safe video market. Everyone in the ecosystem - advertisers, programmers, and enablement partners alike – will share in the upside of television’s transformation.
Keep Looking Ahead.
In a year where all the rules seemed to have changed, at Discovery we’re fortunate to see continued success across our audience solutions products. In this past Upfront, we more than doubled our data-driven linear commitments, with a roster of new and returning clients across every major agency. While the road ahead will be challenging, we know it will be a rewarding journey.