Another of the virtual panels that took place on November 4th as part of the latest edition of Nextv Series South America was entitled ‘Addressable TV advertising in OTT and pay TV’. Some of the topics that took place during the debate were focused on spot replacement in linear TV and OTT; pre-roll to monetize catch up and channel switching; new monetization opportunities with Android TV and connected devices, and others.

For the debate, Dataxis gathered a panel of experts industry executives, made up of Gustavo Marra, Vice President, Business Development & Strategy at SeaChange; Marcos Foglia, Digital Platforms Director at Artear; Roberto Iglesias, Marketing Manager at Editorial Perfil; and Jonatan Fasano, Digital Marketing Manager at Grupo America.

In relation to his point of view on addressable TV advertising, Foglia said that ‘our gaze is focused on the audience, on producing the best possible content to be able to impact them, and on having commercial effectiveness, regardless of the platform on which we are. distributing it’. This way, the Artear executive added that ‘this challenge is important for those of us in the industry, because, many times, the audience does not perceive the differentiation of platforms, but rather, when they consume content that is attractive to them, they do not distinguish if they are consuming it on a linear or non-linear platform; cable; OTT; social networks, or other options’. Later, he added that ‘we have many challenges, and one of them is based on how to produce content, thinking about each of the platforms and the way of consumption and, on the other hand, adapting our business models to that point.  I think it is important to be able to measure effectiveness, and to be able to provide a value and a metric that represents that effectiveness. In Latin America, we still have a long way to go, since it is complex to be able to grant a metric that is not constructed by some means that is not generally valued by the market. We are working on that, and, above all, on generating interesting clusters or look alikes, not only building the value of the data based on our own audience, but also building them together, focusing ourselves on a key  premise, which is to provide quality content, regardless of the platform on which we are distributing them’, he concluded.

Later, Iglesias gave his vision about whether it is possible to transfer the Addressable TV advertising model to TV broadcasts, and reported that ‘when Editorial Perfil launches Net TV, it also thought about streaming. In fact, the launch was made on streaming at first, and then on a linear format, and the next two channels that are coming -one at the end of the year and another planned for mid-2021- are also designed in the same way, where one part is based on streaming, with a lot of content, thinking about digital audiences’. Likewise, the executive stated that ‘the issue of Addressable is how natural it should happen, and to all mass communication systems, where the audience chooses the device, the programming and the time at which they are going to consume it, the addressable becomes something important, but we also know that we depend on STBs, cable operators, OTTs, and, in some way, the must carry will have to see where it is channeled: if the operator will be the distributor of that addressable, or, in  any case, if the OTT, with the user’s own data and third parties data, can make better clusters for advertisers and advertising agencies’. Iglesias also opined that ‘in Latin America, for technological and legal reasons, that panorama will be better defined, but from Editorial Perfil the channels are launched and thought digitally, even though the products offered are linear’.

‘I think the issue is bigger than the addressable concept’, Fasano said. ‘There is a conjunction of topics related to the product / content, based on being able to give our entire potential audience the possibility of consuming the content on different platforms and at different times; and how to generate the correlation between that and the business models; and to be able to find the best consumer and business feed there. We have been doing many things, but there are many things that we still have to adapt ourselves to. Today, we are halfway there (understanding ‘halfway’ as an opportunity), and we see with some fear the possibility that the addressable will take weight away from the TV negotiations and how the FTA and cable TV guideline is negotiated; and we are not seeing it so much as an opportunity to add value from data, from segmentation and from everything that can be done, in order to become more competitive’, reported the executive. ‘The main issue lies in finding new products and content and adapting them to different instances, to have an audience and the best business models built on that’.

Regarding the link between addressable and classic linear FTA TV and pay TV, Marra stated that ‘in SeaChange, with our video distribution platform, it is possible to manage, from a single platform, not only distribution by insertion of advertising in OTT and digital, but also to use this same type of concept for the linear format. What we do is use the concept of the digital format of programmatic sales, also for the linear world’, she said. ‘We can also deploy our advertising module on existing platforms, but we can apply it to OTT digital distribution, and to traditional TV distribution’, he added.

‘It should be analyzed how interested and how focused an operator or telecommunications company can be in the advertising market. Cable operators, who are now working as ISPs and have their own OTTs, may have an intention to reconvert their team to create a digital advertising sales team as a business unit. But I do not see it as feasible in a large telco, which is going to be more oriented to B2C (to sell a service or a subscription), and not so much to a B2B business, such as advertising’, said Fasano.

Likewise, Foglia opined that ‘beyond the evolution of the sectors or industry participants, we are not exempted from a transformation, not only cultural, but also of working methods, procedures, methodology, feedback with the audience, processing and interpretation of data. We are experiencing a ‘tsunami’ in the industry, and we have many opportunities. I am absolutely optimistic in the future that companies that manage to adapt in this line will have’. This way, Iglesias reported that ‘the addressable model has already been working. Commercially, the application of this model will mean that all commercial teams are transformed. I believe that we are going to enter a more hybrid model, where a premium schedule can coexist with an online auction schedule and, as bidding increases, it will take more part. Initially, it will be a model of coexistence and learning’.

‘There will be an adaptation and coexistence at first, but the best thing for the future is the increase of efficiency’, said Marra. ‘The available technologies will allow us to sell more in less time. In the future there will be innovations in the concepts of sales and advertisements, but the key thing will be focused on efficiency and dynamism’, he concluded.