There was recently a terrific podcast interview in Brian Morrissey’s The Rebooting Show with Joe Marchese, executive chairman of Human Ventures and longtime media executive.
Marchese told Morrissey: “In a world where we have dynamic targeting and we know what each household is watching, the advertising experience is actually worse. How did we get worse at advertising in a Connected TV environment than we were on broadcast television 40 years ago?”
Much of the podcast is devoted to his answers to that question. He predicted, “CTV will get better when it gets back to context and sponsorship of programs.”
Ultimately what he is describing is how CTV is trying to serve two masters: the 200 or so “media-retail cartel” advertisers that supply nearly 90% of U.S. network television revenue, according to Interactive Advertising Bureau Research, and the 10 million or so digital advertisers that have bought from Google and Meta over the past decade. Marchese believes “CTV is in for a world of trouble" unless it figures out how to deliver sponsorships and integrated marketing deals.
Meaning, brand advertising still matters more than data-driven advertising. That point scores a direct hit at the tension between Smart TVs and the “walled gardens” of legacy media streaming services: is it the ability to provide both scale and targeting that ultimately wins out in CTV? [1]
Or ...