The Medium
Friday Mailing: From GroupM to Advertising at Netflix
In Q1 2023, PARQOR will be focusing on four trends. This essay focuses on the trend, "The definition of scarcity is continuously evolving away from linear. What happens next?”
I somehow missed in November that Adam Gerber had left his role as executive director of U.S. investment strategy at media buying agency GroupM. His new role is Head of Client Development, Advertising at Netflix.
I enjoyed quoting Gerber and wrote about him three times in 2022, specifically how he had become central to the debate over measurement across devices. He had become a vocal and pugilistic agitator for change after a GroupM study with iSpot.tv found that 17% of advertisements shown on televisions connected through a streaming device—including streaming boxes, sticks and gaming consoles—play while the TV is turned off. The study also found that on average, between 8% and 10% of all streaming ads were shown while the TV was off.
Needless to say, as for GroupM, Gerber was openly unhappy about wasting 20 cents out of every ad dollar spent. Listening to him at the Interactive Advertising Bureau’s Video Leadership Summit last June, it sounded like the iSpot.TV survey had left him skeptical of all Connected TV data.
Key Takeaway
GroupM's Adam Gerber was a vocal agitator for change in the connected TV ad market. His new role at Netflix is both a bullish signal and raises important questions, too.
Total words: 1,600
Total time reading: 6 minutes
He also had been openly discussing his issues with the walled gardens of advertising: streaming services and CTV devices are too walled off for their data on viewers to be more broadly applicable. As a result, the increasing supply of new data sources was adding complexity to measurement.
I ...