Combatting fragmentation
The companies that participated in the roundtable sit in various places along the digital advertising supply chain, and their takeaways reflect that diversity.
Still, several key themes emerged, particularly in their work to combat fragmentation, capitalize on scarcity and find practical use cases for generative artificial intelligence.
Google, Roku and Samsung, for instance, all emphasized their focus on solving the problems created by the fracturing of the digital video landscape—both for advertisers and consumers.
At Google, the company focused its messaging on the value of its demand-side platform DV360 as a means for ad buyers to streamline their streaming transactions. The platform reaches 90% of U.S. households using CTV, according to Kristen O’Hara, vice president of agency, platforms and client solutions at Google.
“Tools that were once limited to YouTube are now available across CTV,” O’Hara said. “We want ease of use to be apparent.”
Roku and Samsung, which both provide the hardware behind the CTV experience, touted their position as a home screen to bring scale to advertisers and simplicity to consumers.
During its NewFronts event, Roku cast itself as the new “lead-in,” evoking a strategy in which marketers combine popular programming with new programming so the latter can draw on the former’s audience.
Roku reaches 120 million viewers daily, according to Shepard. To offer marketers access to that audience, the company is introducing a new dynamic video ad to its most prominent home-screen placement.
“At our NewFront, we talked about the power of the platform and our ability to open up the home screen for advertisers,” Shepard said. “The goal of that unit is to help defragment the ecosystem.”
Samsung echoed a similar strategy. The OEM firm introduced new content discovery solutions to help users find new programming to watch, as well as new content offerings and ad products, all of which are designed to take advantage of its position as the starting point of the streamer’s journey.
“We launched several new ad products and solutions that were designed to serve not just the advertiser, but also the viewer,” Scott said. “As the largest consumer electronics company, we think we have a special covenant with consumers.”
The value of scarcity
While Google, Roku and Samsung focused on the challenges posed by nearly infinite inventory, the market research firm Sports Innovation Lab embraced the upside of scarcity.
