Network advertising sales executives are upbeat because, despite cord-cutting and falling ratings, they say demand for TV remains strong enough to continue to push prices significantly higher.
This week, the biggest TV companies will mount their annual upfront presentations, taking over major theaters to showcase their new schedules and tell advertisers about the data, scale and integrations that should persuade them to buy TV in the upfront marketplace rather than move marketing dollars to digital.
Rita Ferro
Drinks will flow, bands will play and shrimp will be consumed. Jimmy Kimmel and Kenny Mayne will tell jokes. It will be hard to believe all those stories about TV being in an irreversible decline.
I think it's going to be a healthy market, Disney advertising sales president Rita Ferro said. When you look at our scatter business right now heading into the second quarter, across the board on both television and digital, it's healthy. The pricing continues to be significantly higher than the previous year's upfront and I think there's significant continued demand for television opportunities.
Linda Yaccarino, chairman of ad sales and client partnerships said that the TV ad business is changing in ways that are starting to fuel the business.
Data-driven decision making is absolutely taking a scaled foothold, Yaccarino said. Now that TV is smarter and companies like NBCUniversal can guarantee on results this changes the conversation completely.
Linda Yaccarino
Yaccarino noted that some advertisers invested too much in digital and social and are now coming back to TV.
There are new segments maturing, which is feeding the premium content space, whether it's businesses in the tech category or in the exploding direct-to-consumer space. DTC businesses are topping out on performance-based marketing vehicles and they have to transcend the feed completely and move to where it's going to give a long-lasting effect, which is on TV and next to premium content.
Many of the networks have new stories to tell about themselves.
For The Walt Disney Co., it's a story of additional scale with the consolidation of ESPN's ad sales and addition of 21st Century Fox properties such as FX and National Geographic. Disney also will be talking about how all of its assets can be accessed using one front door and one technology stack.
Size is also important to NBCUniversal. The idea of scale has become more and more important, said Mark Marshall, president of ad sales and client partnerships. It's getting harder and harder for an advertiser to find immediate reach so we're trying to work with advertisers to really articulate the value of the portfolio to drive immediate impact.
Jo Ann Ross
CBS
Results matter, too. NBCU is looking to measure and guarantee the business outcomes of its campaigns.
Fox, meanwhile, is pushing the idea that smaller can be good. After most of 21st Century Fox was sold to Disney, the new Fox consists of the broadcast network, Fox News and Fox Sports. We're well-positioned to be experts in the areas we're focused on, said Suzanne Sullivan, executive VP, entertainment ad sales..
For CBS, the message is continued stability despite the departure of chairman and CEO Les Moonves. We're going to be very collaborative with our clients and I expect that we're going to have a very good and strong upfront, Jo Ann Ross, president and chief advertising revenue officer, said. Clients are going to be happy with their results.
NBCUniversal (Monday Morning, May 13)
The NBCUniversal upfront will be a celebration of advertising. What we're trying to do is make the consumer experience better for our viewers and the ads work harder, Marshall said.
One way to do that it to cut commercial clutter and one tool NBCU had is Prime Pods, one-minute commercial breaks that appeared in the company's top 50 shows. As research showing how well Prime Pods delivered lifts in client marketing goals, demand grew, said Laura Molen, president, ad sales and client partnerships at NBCU.
The Prime Pods turned out to be unexpectedly good at driving web searches. On Oct. 2, the film A Star Is Born was featured in a Prime Pod during This Is Us. Starring Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga, the film was already well known, but in the five minutes after the ad ran, 145,000 people searched for A Star Is Born.
This year, NBCU will put Prime Pods in more shows, including news and late-night programs. In some reality competition shows, it might put the Prime Pod at the end of the show when results are revealed, instead of in the program's first break.
NBC will also be looking at a low-commercial-load format for A Little Late with Lilly Singh, its new late-night show hosted by the YouTube star.
NBCU is one of the most aggressive companies in trying to switch clients from buying based on broad demos to buying targeted audiences. Right now, second quarter is our biggest quarter ever in terms of audience buying through our AdSmart products, Marshall said. We think it will continue to be a big part of the negotiations this year as more advertisers become more sophisticated with their buying.
The company also recently introduced ShoppableTV, which lets clients sell products directly to NBCU viewers via on-screen cues that can be read by smartphones.
We are excited to work with marketers in the upfront and outside the upfront with these new shoppable tools, Molen said. It's really exciting for us to be able to take a QR code and help lift a marketer's sales in a live moment.
NBCU will be launching its over-the-top streaming service next year and it will be mentioned during the presentation. But ad sales won't start in earnest till next year.
New programming will also be shown, so NBCU will have a lot of ground to cover
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Network advertising sales executives are upbeat because, despite cord-cutting and falling ratings, they say demand for TV remains strong enough to continue to push prices significantly higher.
