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Every May, NewFronts week in New York brings together the most dynamic companies in the digital marketing ecosystem, but the sheer pace and scope of the programming can make it challenging to distill the information into a clear set of themes.
To help, ADWEEK partnered with the Interactive Advertising Bureau to convene a roundtable of some of the most prominent executives in the industry.
Led in conversation by IAB CEO David Cohen, marketing leaders at Google, Roku, the Sports Innovation Lab, Meta and Samsung Ads discussed their biggest insights from the week, as well as its defining trends and their predictions for the year ahead.
The timing of the panel comes at a defining moment for the television industry: This year, the IAB predicts that ad spend on digital video (52%) will eclipse ad spend on linear channels (48%) for the first time.
“Very few people would argue that we are not moving toward digital video,” Cohen said. “The question is: There is still around $60 billion in linear spend—what will it take to move that to streaming?”
But the event also comes set against a backdrop of immense uncertainty, particularly from a technological perspective. Innovations in artificial intelligence, privacy infrastructure and measurement continue to both improve—and complicate—how marketers transact on video inventory.
“The lack of standardization across CTV prevents easy execution and measurement,” said Kristina Shepard, global head of ad sales and partnerships at Roku. “This year, everyone is focused on interoperability.”
Shifts in consumer behavior and popular culture also factor heavily. The runaway popularity of women’s sports, for instance, and the role of platforms and OEMs like Roku and Samsung in combating fragmentation, mean that marketers have multiple moving targets to account for in their media strategy.
“The percentage of our revenue share that has moved into programmatic is staggering,” said Michael Scott, vice president and head of ad sales and operations at Samsung Ads. “Outside of sports, whose scarcity forces an upfront commitment, there is a growing desire from marketers for ‘just in time’ media.”
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