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Ari Paparo
This podcast is brought to you by Adelaide Media verification and measurement are undergoing major disruption. Legacy players are pivoting to performance, advertising AI is reshaping brand safety and attention is replacing viewability. Adelaide is leading the shift with au, a new way to assess media quality that scores placements based on their potential to drive attention and outcomes. Before your ads run, think of it like a credit score for media. Finally, a clear view of quality before you buy. Take the guesswork out of your investment strategy and try Adelaide AU on your next campaign. This podcast is brought to you by audiohook, the leading independent audio dsp. Audiohook has direct publisher integrations into all major podcast and streaming radio platforms, providing 40% more inventory than what could be accessed in omnichannel DSPs. What's more, audiobook has full transcripts on more than 90% of all podcast inventory, enabling advanced contextual targeting and brand suitability. Audio Hook is so confident that in addition to CPM buys, they offer the industry's only pay for performance option, where brands can scale audio and podcasting with peace of mind, knowing they are only paying for outcomes. Visit audiohook.com to learn more. That's audiohook.com welcome to the market Podcast. I'm Ari Paparo, joined by Eric Franchi, and our guest today is Jenny Wall, the CMO of videoamp, a longtime executive in the TV world for Nickelodeon, Hulu, Netflix, et cetera. And she'll be talking about video amp currencies and a lot of other interesting stuff. Eric, are you getting sick of us talking about currencies or is this your jam?
Eric Franchi
No, I'm not sick. I think it's super important. Jenny is great. So either way, if we were sick of it, I think just having Jenny on to talk to us and talk about this stuff with us will be awesome. And I can't wait to ask her about a legend in the TV space that she was in the room for.
Ari Paparo
Yeah, I am excited about that as well. I didn't know that going in. And we have a lot of news this week. We have defamation lawsuits, we have retail media, we have more AI than we can deal with. So a lot of good stuff. We have some news this week. So marketecture, on its march to total world dominance has acquired more stuff. So many people who listen to this pod may know David Berkowitz. He's been a longtime marketer in the space, did a stint of Media Ocean, among other places. He sold us two communities. He had developed one called Cereal Marketers. Com. That's cereal like serial killers. Not cereal. Like the breakfast cereal. So serialmarketers.net is the website and that is where you can be around other professional marketers with an amazing Slack channel where everyone helps each other and learns. And the second One is called aimarketersguild.com we call it AIMG. And that is also a different Slack channel. And weekly webinars that help marketers get their hands around AI, learn things, meet each other and cooperate. So these two amazing communities that will, for the most part remain, you know, unmonetized, but they're great to have smart brains as part of the architecture world. And David serving as our chief community officer. So I'm excited about that. Eric, do you know David?
Eric Franchi
I've met him over the years, yeah. And congrats on two more acquisitions. This is amazing. My question for you is, is an ad tech VC allowed in the marketer only Slack community?
Ari Paparo
No simple answer. It's for marketers. If you have a marketing title, if you're a VP of marketing, then you get it. If you're just. If you're an investor, a tech person, a product person, then you can't get in. It's simple. That's what it is. But that's why we have the AdTech God community. So if those of you do not know adtech God has a thriving Slack community, you can join. Just go to adtechgod.com and there's a application form to join that community. And that is really. Everyone from the community is allowed in and we have different channels for different topics, so I'd recommend that. All right, enough promo. Let's dive in with Jenny Wall from videoamp. All right, welcome Jenny Wahl to the podcast, the CMO of videoamp. Jenny, thanks for being here.
Jenny Wall
Thank you, Ari and Eric, thanks for having me.
Ari Paparo
So videoamp is one of our favorite companies. It is always interesting to cover. It's always got something going on. So let's just start with what is videoamp now and how's it doing?
Jenny Wall
We're doing great, actually. We have a ton of momentum. I think you can see that in the upfronts as well, how everything's changing and moving at a very innovative pa. I will say that we are a tech first and I think that's really, really important. We started out in big data 10 years ago. We're a tech first company that helps agencies, brands and publishers to effectively engage with actually the right audience in order to maximize results.
Ari Paparo
The company has had a measurement side and a media side. So what's the current State.
Jenny Wall
The current state is we are almost 100% on the moved into the measurement space. I think we started out providing media as well. And that was really for those that did not have a media agency and wanted to actually look at measurement. And so it was more of media funded measurement. And so that has changed over the years. And our focus really is not to be a dsp. Our focus is, and we still have a few of those clients because that's what they ask for, but our focus really is being a measurement company. And that is where everything has shifted over the last, I would say, year and a half.
Ari Paparo
Yeah, the strategy always seemed to be to use the media side to jumpstart the measurement side. Obviously media produces revenue and then over time the measurement side would be dominant. And it sounds like you're on your way to that transition.
Jenny Wall
I would say we're well beyond almost that way to make that transition. And like I said, it's just for those clients that actually need that as a service. So we like to obviously be client first and if our clients need that and we're pretty agnostic with that. So it's not like we're grading our own homework in those cases.
Ari Paparo
Why do you choose to join Videoamp? You've been there a couple of years and you were formerly the CMO of Nickelodeon and you're at Hulu Netflix. So you went from the publisher side to the measurement side. What was the thinking?
Jenny Wall
I'll try to give you the easiest answer. The shortest answer. One is Peter Liguori, who's our executive chairman, was my boss in the 90s. He's a marketer at heart. So in the 90s when I was at HBO, he was my boss. We have very similar philosophies and he's been part of the measurement change, whether that's C3, C7, whether that's looking at FX bringing the age demo to 18 to 49. He's been at the forefront of this and we both have had a desire, I would say over the last 30 years to have some other option other than the legacy media and Monopoly and having one, one thing that is supposed to be the source of truth when we don't even know if that's right. So when Peter called me after I left Nickelodeon. So like you said, I've been on the, you know, the buying side, if you will, from a marketer and brand side of it for 30 years, starting at HBO. I've been at Hulu, Ran creative at Netflix back in the day in 2012, before it actually even Took off, which was exciting time to be there. I actually went to Gimlet, became CMO so I could learn the ear and understand sort of the value of the ear and learned a lot there in producing podcasts because I was doing that for advertisers because nobody else wanted to do it there because they were journalists.
Ari Paparo
The value of the ear. That's the value of the ear.
Jenny Wall
Which is quite grand, I think. And I would always say to some of my friends, like, why do you leave your audience when they leave the couch? Why don't you go with them in the car? So let's make some companion podcasts. And I can say that I was definitely instrumental, I think in some of those companion podcasts of trying to keep people engaged over time. And then I went to Nickelodeon because I really actually thought that I could help people that had been there many, many years, help them into the streaming era. I will say that was harder than I imagined. But then when this came up, I really, really. Again, maybe this isn't my last rodeo, but from a legacy perspective, I'm in my 50s. I actually have a career of always being at a disruptor and I absolutely love challenges. I love the David versus Goliath. I believe there should be a multi currency world. I believe there should be options. I believe that big data is the right way to look moving forward. And I believe again that publishers and advertisers should have an option of what to look at in regards to data to make the best decisions. And what that does is, you know, when you have a monopoly, you don't have price flexibility, you don't have innovation. And so we have put everything into actually on the playing field to actually create an option for everyone to hopefully save the industry some money but also get better results. And you know, our numbers show significantly higher audiences. And that's good for both from you know, a publisher perspective, but also from an advertiser perspective. It's higher audiences, but more addressable audiences. So you really have to pay less to reach the people that you want to reach. And I just think this is something that I think the industry needs to embrace and I think the industry needs to embrace it for themselves, but also just our future.
Ari Paparo
So I want to go into the whole currency wars. I mean, I think that's the meat of our conversation. But before I do, I want to know that when you were at Nickelodeon, were you ever slimed?
Jenny Wall
I was never slimed except for when I went, I went to the Riviera Maya Nickelodeon resort and I was slimed. There. So I was not slimed.
Ari Paparo
Oh, that was on your free time. You left work, a bus driver's holiday, you leave Nickelodeon for vacation and you.
Jenny Wall
Get slimed and I get slimed. But yes, I was slimed.
Eric Franchi
Maybe even more of an epic story, Jenny. And we don't have to spend time on this, but just doing a little bit of diligence on you. I noted that you were on the team. They came up with the tagline, it's not tv, it's hbo.
Jenny Wall
I was, but I was a young pup back then and Peter was my boss. And you know what I love about Peter Liguori is he still says we're 10 years apart. He's in his 60s, I'm in my 50s. But he still says when we go to meetings, Jenny and I came up with the tagline and I love that I was part of the team. That's why I put it that way in my resume, because I didn't come up with it. But that's what I love about a boss over the years and I really, really respect. But that was an incredible time to be there. You know when you first heard it, you were like, well, that's just so simple. But you're like, but it really says what it is. You can actually swear on television there's no commercials, there's more sex. And it is a completely like almost creator driven area, whether that's Sex and the City, Sopranos. So it was incredible to be at that, at HBO at that time for eight years.
Ari Paparo
Do you have any comment on the rebrand, Max?
Jenny Wall
Oh, I have a lot of comments. I can't believe, I can't believe both Peter and I could not as like legacy employees of HBO and the value of that brand. I could not believe they dropped HBO in the first place. And then also I don't think a lot of people point this out. They chose not just a random name of Max, they chose the end of the sister network that used to be known as skinemax in the 90s. And I just was like, I think that's insane. So I actually just had a great chuckle. And I know like Eric Pallotta over there who I worked with at Netflix, he runs Social and I think he did a pretty pret, pretty self deprecating job of acknowledging that we know how crazy this is. And I think it's going to go down as the, as like the New Coke.
Ari Paparo
Yeah. I think also one of the reasons they gave was because the research showed that HBO was too associated with like nudity and violence. And things. But then to use Choose Max makes no sense.
Jenny Wall
No sense. You might as well choose like Bob.
Ari Paparo
Bob. The best operating system Microsoft ever created.
Jenny Wall
Yes.
Ari Paparo
All right, let's. Let's talk currencies. So I'll give my narrative which is, and as a strawman you can knock down, which is obviously Nielsen has a monopoly and has had a monopoly on television measurement for, you know, since. Yeah. Is it, is it 100? No, no, it's almost 100. They should have the 100th anniversary of the monopoly. And over the past, I don't know, 10 years there have been various efforts to create, not direct competitors, but so much, but like secondary currencies, alternative currencies, and then slowly but surely it's been kind of like a street fight to try to get individual broadcasters or individual advertisers and agencies to adopt these secondary currencies. And we're now at the point where it's a mixed system. Tell me if I'm wrong or if that's an accurate kind of narrative.
Jenny Wall
No, I think it's accurate. I mean, I think the industry is moving, I think slower than it should be. I think we have every single publisher but one and every single holding company doing business with us. So everybody is giving us a piece of their business and a lot of that is advanced audiences. But I do want to knock down maybe something that's not true and that is 50% of our work still is in demos. So I think that some people think that people use Nielsen for demos and us for advanced audiences. Obviously we are the king in advanced audiences because of our big data approach. But we also do demos quite well. So we, you know, we have a three year deal with Paramount, we have a deal, a multi year deal with Netflix, we do with Amazon, we do with nbcu. Like it just, we have deals with every single person for the next three years in order to incorporate our measurement into their systems. And also we've gotten ourselves into the planning tools which makes it much easier for agencies to have like a one stop shop to actually plan across, you know, not just linear, but digital and social. So it is a multi currency world and it should be.
Ari Paparo
Yeah. I just wanted to clarify to make it obvious, what are the most common use cases of what you call advanced audiences?
Jenny Wall
So an advanced audience is beyond age demo. So I don't really understand why people are still buying age demo. I mean, I know that, you know, you've got people like Hershey that, you know is like, I just want to reach everyone with a mouth. Okay, you can Buy age Demo and I'm not saying you shouldn't buy Age demo, but if you are looking for someone that's going to buy a car or a razor, why on earth would you waste your dollars on someone that is not intent on buying a car or buying a razor? Why would I give someone with a beard a razor ad? And so advanced audiences really is just breaking it down because we have the identity and the data and a privacy safe compliant to reach audiences that actually have higher intent for your product. And what that does is it reduces frequency and which saves you money and it actually increases outcomes.
Ari Paparo
And then the advanced audiences are they applied at the program level, the channel level or the impression level.
Jenny Wall
I think it's at every single one of those because they're different. Like still for some of the streamers you can't hit a program level. So it's different across. And we're actually nimble enough to figure out how to do that with our publishers with what they're doing. Limitations or non limitations are.
Ari Paparo
So it could be, let's say just to give an example, it could be like peacock in a genre of sports is 1:1 targeting node, whereas it might be something much more granular in another targeting node.
Jenny Wall
Yeah, we could go into sports and then say but in the sports I want females between 18 to 24 that actually are into music, into cats, you can get that deep. I also think just to note is that with streamers and again I spent a lot of time there and we spend a lot of time with Amazon, we're going from finite pods to infinite pods. And so why would you run the same ad when you have infinite pods and you can actually address or addressable target audience or advanced audiences and not waste your money. And so I don't want to quote this for Amazon, but what I've heard is about 40% is going to be addressable and then that's just going to be coming up much higher. And I don't know if you went to Netflix up front, but their plethora of data and just proving why it's successful and why their actual targeting creates higher outcomes is sort of what the future should be.
Ari Paparo
Right. So in the environment of a, say a Netflix where they have very rich data to target on what's the interaction of a currency provider with that media planning and execution?
Jenny Wall
I mean we're just, we're deeply embedded in working with the agency in regards to buying and what to buy I would say either from again like a program level or when you get deep into the like integration levels. I mean look at what, who would have thought you could put squid games with Domino's. So it's bringing some of those brands together with the opportunities internal and that could be everything from just you know, a regular buy on the Christmas games or we do exclusively the measurement on currency for raw. So we work in myriad ways in that sense, just sort of how again like our publishers and our brands would like us to work with them.
Ari Paparo
And do brands choose whether to use you on a campaign by campaign basis based on their goals? Or is it that some brands are always on and really prefer your solution and other brands are content with Nielsen or whomever?
Jenny Wall
You know, I still think it's a mix, you know, like Subway we had on at our vamp front. And I think what they're seeing is when they use us for a particular campaign, they're seeing different results like, so they're seeing results like a lower cpm, higher reach to intended audiences and higher outcomes. And I think when you start to see that you're going to see shift to more. You know, my hope is, is that it's not just a campaign anymore. It's going to be like I'm not saying Nielsen's going to go away because I still think there needs to be an option. But especially if you're hitting advanced audiences and you want to go into some of these digital players and you want to, you know, want to measure your cross platform all the way from brand all the way to performance. And I have a whole thing I'd love to talk to you about brand versus performance and mid funnel but it really is, I know cross channel is like a buzzword but it really is important to understand like how did I drive that outcome? And that is going to be the biggest thing moving forward is in this kind of financial crisis we're in and budgets being cut, marketers are going to need to look like revenue generators versus cost centers and they're going to need to prove that what I did actually turned into sales. And so the more data that you have on that and the for the less money that you can do, it's going to be really important.
Ari Paparo
So, but I'm trying to understand this a little bit in terms of like if you think of it as two waves coming from opposite sides, you know, the traditional sort of TV currency approach, which is independent measurement and you know, very broad coverage versus the outcomes based digital first folks like the TV scientifics of the world where they have their own methodology and their own platform for measuring outcomes, does it segment that way. Or is there a role for a currency provider like videoamp when you're measuring digital click based outcomes and conversions that might be measured in a more deterministic way?
Jenny Wall
Yeah, I mean I think it is deterministic, especially when we're looking at zero party data and first party data and all those other providers again I think are great because they push everyone for innovation. And it's, you know, not to say that we tell, you know, a lot of our brands like, yeah, keep your mmm, keep some of the stuff that you have. But we are another layer on top of that. It helps you connect the dots and I think that's the biggest piece is connecting the dots between all of your media. Whereas a lot of these providers might just do mid funnel or last click. And you know, I have kind of a joke of when I was at Hulu running media there and I used to get told just buy more search because it's only a $7 cac. And I said, well it's really not a $7 cac because that's last click. It's really a $30 cac because what I had to do is to create that demand to collect it. So you can't just go buy at the bottom of the funnel if you don't create top and mid. It almost boils my blood when I hear people separating performance and brand or just saying I'm a mid funnel provider. I think, you know, we provide top of the funnel. We provide mid funnel. We just released a, I don't know if you saw it yesterday, a partnership with Captify and that is mid funnel search. So that's intent and so we now can get all the way through that funnel and provide it as a more of a one stop shop. So I think people are realizing that yes, you can layer us on top for better insights because I think the more insights the better to be honest. I mean an MMM is backwards looking but it's not bad to have to figure out what does that say versus what does video amp say and then how do I optimize my media based on that.
Ari Paparo
So you just came from many of the upfronts, I imagine. What was the general vibe? I mean I don't get invited to these things.
Jenny Wall
Well, maybe you're lucky because yeah, I.
Ari Paparo
Went to Yahoo so that was not like the most exciting one.
Jenny Wall
I did not go to Yahoo's. I mean I'll just say thanks Yahoo for the invite, Justin, and thanks Yahoo for working with us. We have a great partnership with them and Josh Line just became their cmo, dear friend of mine. So you should get him on this podcast. I mean, obviously it's sports, sports, sports. It's like trying to figure out, like, okay, how do I differentiate myself if every single person is mentioning the NFL? So I think that's one thing that came out loud and clear. I think the need for transparency. Marketers are asking for transparency. So I think there was a lot of talk about ad tech. You know, who did it best was by far was Netflix. I mean, not just because I worked there. I also just want to give a shout out to the three badass women that were on stage. The only Netflix actually spokespeople were three badass women. You know, Mary and Amy and Bella. I think they're incredible. So they just killed it. But they backed themselves up with data. So I would say that's the one thing I felt was lacking a little bit, was actually performance of like, you know, we have this audience and we know that this audience, you know, converts at 2.1% of something else. So it was, it was very data based. So I would say, yeah, definitely. Sports, sports, sports. Live, live, live. And then really just everybody selling their cross platform, which I think is extremely smart. You know, I just had a great call with Paramount and, you know, Mike Benson over at cbs. And then you've got Amy Campbell, then you got Dominic d' Ameglio who's doing Paramount plus. And then you have Alyssa running some Pluto. It's like, how do you keep people in that flywheel? Because you need to keep people within your system and move them through it. And how do you use that data to figure out, did I move somebody from Pluto to Paramount plus did Yellowstone air on Paramount TV and then Paramount plus and actually really understand that. So I think a lot of this, what's the old school term of tune in marketing is, you know, is something that we have increased our, I would say, involvement in drastically to help show people through that flywheel as to what is actually driving conversion and retention and to make better decisions. Because, I mean, when you look at it like, again, I'll just use Netflix. Netflix has a $3 billion cap on it. If you add all of the big players, like, you know, Disney And Paramount and NBCU, et cetera, they combined don't even equal 3 billion. So it's. They're in a fight and their fight needs to be. I need to use better data more efficiently and I need to connect with the right audiences. And that's just another piece I want to throw out is when I say sort of like, we work. So everybody wins, meaning publishers, advertisers and brands. I also think the consumer wins. I mean, CTV is a mess these days. Like, you get the same ad over and over again because of frequency caps. And again, people just doing reach and frequency and that's. They're like, well, I reached them 20 times. I'm like, well, you know, that's, that's actually brand damaging. Like I would say like, I, I hate you now or I already bought that thing three days ago. So I think between digital and CTV and some of the programmatic spaces with the fraud going on, but also just people still, which I don't understand, are looking at reach and frequency. And, and why is reach and frequency something that shows how somebody's going to act at the end? And why wouldn't you use, you know, whether it's video amp or someone else, why wouldn't you use different signals to tell you that you're pissing people off or they've already bought your product, so upsell them or listen, they're a loyal customer. I need to engage them in something else. That was with Hulu. Like a lot of the money went with retention and a lot of people just put it in acquisition. And I'm like, well, you know, it's a lot cheaper to keep somebody than it is to go get somebody new. And if Churn, you know, even when I was at HBO, churn was 50% and you're looking at now it's about 70% in some of the ad tiers, which is normal because of serial churners. But just think about that. If you actually spent just a little bit of money to go out and try to say, I'm gonna. With our data that we have. I know you watched Handmaid's Tale and Handmaid's Tale 2 is coming out and you haven't been on the service for two months. Why wouldn't I reach out to that person a privacy compliant way, of course, and let them know about it? Because they have so many choices. So retention, I think is a big piece of. That is sometimes overlooked, unfortunately.
Ari Paparo
Yeah, it seems like they just use pricing as a retention vehicle. They don't try anything creative or involved.
Jenny Wall
I did though, so.
Ari Paparo
Yeah. Okay. Well, you were a part of it's not tv, so we know that. All right, let's call it there. That was a super interesting conversation. This podcast has talked about currencies, probably more than our audience wants to hear, but this was probably the best one. We will take a break and we'll be Right back with the refresh. This podcast is brought to you by Freewheel. Freewheel gives advertisers direct connections to streaming video inventory from the world's leading publishers. It's simple, really. They're removing middlemen, which means more working media dollars, better outcomes, and enhanced control. Discover how it pays to go direct. Visit freewheel.com architecture. That's freewheel.com market.
Eric Franchi
All right, we are back with the refresh. The news of the week, everybody. And it's been a big week for news. We're not going to be able to get it to all this stuff, but what we definitely want to cover up front is, number one, DoubleVerify is suing analytics. Breaking news from last week, but we got to talk about it. A couple of big pieces of retail media news, and then, as always, feels like the world just advanced this week with AI. And we'll get a couple other things if we have some time. So at the top of the docket, DoubleVerify is suing analytics for defamation. This is centered around the bot traffic report that Atalytics came out with about two months ago. DV is saying that this report falsely claims that its systems don't block bot traffic, misleadingly suggesting advertisers are regularly billed for invalid impressions. And it alleges the claim harms its reputation and was made to promote analytics for profit services. So there's a lot there. Yeah, defamation.
Ari Paparo
Yeah, defamation's bad. I would just say that we're at the center of this because we've had both Kristoff and Mark Zagorsky on this podcast almost consecutively. There was only a couple weeks separate. And Kristoff said, I have to do it this way because if I tell people that I found something, they're going to cover it up. And then Mark said, well, you can't just blindside us and say things about us without checking. So I see both sides of this, and it's a very aggressive legal tactic to sue for defamation. We'll see.
Eric Franchi
But it's a. I mean, it's a serious claim. The claim is that they're, you know, harming DB's business with going to market with these claims. So I. I kind of get where. Where DV is coming from. Is there any precedence for this? Like, have we ever seen. There's been a bunch of, obviously, lawsuits over time, but something of this nature play out. And this is a question for both of you, since we've all been doing.
Ari Paparo
This for a long time, it doesn't ring a bell of someone getting sued for Defamation?
Jenny Wall
Yeah, I can't think of anything in this space for defamation. I mean absolutely for false claims.
Ari Paparo
I think one interesting little nuance here is in my opinion, this report of analytics was probably the least important or impactful report that Alex has put out. And even in the article in Adweek about this, they talk about the other report about the, you know, csam which is much more important. And that one went through and everyone's like, oh yeah, that's bad. But here, this one was just. This report that is the subject of the lawsuit was about bots that are declared, meaning the good bots and analytics claim that DV was not blocking those, which is, you know, I don't know, it seems interesting.
Jenny Wall
What's a good bot?
Ari Paparo
Like, you know, like a search crawler.
Eric Franchi
Search crawler?
Ari Paparo
Well, a bot that is, that is self declared properly. So it doesn't seem like a critical issue to me. If it were true that DV was counting those impressions and not marking them as bots, that's not great. But this is not the end of the world kind of, kind of revelation.
Jenny Wall
No, but I do want to get some elevation on that to say that, you know, this isn't about either company, but what this could help is really push the conversation of what is fraudulent in regards to digital. So I mean there are some reports, like I said, that are like 40% is actually fraudulent. And I think that if we can get down to helping that situation from an efficiency perspective, it would be helpful if we get like elevation on the problem.
Ari Paparo
Absolutely. I mean I think it's always been this difficult problem of figuring out not just fraudulent but just non human.
Jenny Wall
Well even like also remember the below the fold issue and all of those back in the day.
Eric Franchi
Sure.
Ari Paparo
And so like ads Txt, which by the way was also in the news this week, Ads TXT and viewability and you know, they've all been chipping away at the problem, but the problem still exists.
Eric Franchi
Okay, let me give one perspective here. The CSAM stuff was horrible. Should never happen. Like ads should never be served on those sites.
Ari Paparo
Yeah.
Eric Franchi
What the bot report is claiming is that DV is not blocking bot traffic and billing advertisers for it. We don't know what that percentage is. I mean Jenny just said, right, there's like 40% if we think about the kind of like TAM of fraud, to use a bad term. And to your point, Ari, there is a good percentage of that that's just non human and non human in some ways for good. Right. Like crawlers and everything like that. I think the allegation here is that advertisers are being billed for some percentage and a small percentage of traffic that they shouldn't be billed for. And then if I was dv, like I would say, yeah, you're harming my business.
Ari Paparo
Well, yeah, but we don't know what. I don't think analytics knows what actually was happening. All they could know is that there was a DV tag and it was a bot. They don't know if the DV tag was set to block, which would be a setting the customer would choose. We also don't know what the relationship between the advertiser and the publisher would be with regard to clawbacks on bots. So I think that this might be an example where analytics got a little ahead of its skis in terms of implicating what was happening when all it could observe was the fact that a DV tag was serving an ad to a bot. It's complicated, I guess is where we end up.
Eric Franchi
Yeah, yeah, super complicated. Ironically, Mark Zagorski had an ad exchanger interview. It sounds like they set up the interview prior to this news dropping. And while he couldn't comment on anything related to this or other lawsuits, he did drop a pretty cold line as it relates to just like being in his business. And it's no one roots for the referee, which I thought was like pretty apropos of the position that DV is in.
Ari Paparo
And DV released a press release, they just emailed it to me this week claiming they found this giant fraud where spammy sites were copying the ads txt from good sites. And that's just not an important claim, to be honest. That's just because you can cop. I could copy the ads text from the New York Times and put it on aripaparo.com tomorrow. Who cares if I can't sell ads using those IDs? It doesn't matter. I feel like that was not a good faith little expose that they put out today. But I'm sure I'll hear from Chris about that. Chris H. Chris H. Tell me why I'm wrong.
Eric Franchi
Ari's DMs are open. Okay, let's move on. A couple of big pieces of RMN news. Maybe one piece of news and one piece to keep an eye on. So Walmart had their earnings last week and they dropped something very interesting. Basically post Vizio. Their advertising business is up 50% year over year. So Vizio made real contribution to the ads business such that it was 27% year over year without it. And the Entire Walmart Connect business was up 31% year over year. So business is growing very nicely. But you know, as expected, injecting some CTV into it really had a meaningful effect.
Ari Paparo
I want to hear Jenny's point of view on this. What's going on here? What's your perspective on this?
Jenny Wall
Well Juan, I just have to disclose that we have a long term partnership with Visio which I think shows just from a set top box perspective, I think how valuable that data is. So I would say Walmart did an incredible thing with that and we're very happy to continue to be part of that I think stack if you will. So it just shows you, I think when you bring in something like a set top box. And again I think it's interesting Roku didn't show up at the upfront but I think it was an incredible move to bring in that piece. And so I believe every part of that it's up 50%. And I also think retail media itself is an incredible place to be and the is going to be the theme for this year in regards to everyone from a PayPal to like, you know, I was talking to Mondelez the other day and it's amazing what the CPMs are going up 40%. Like on an Amazon or a Walmart they are going up 40%. But also when you go to a Walmart search cookies, I would say you there's nine sponsored ads before you even get to organic and then when you get to organic it's Walmart brands. So everyone's having to pay to play. And so as they continue to go up this space is going to become really competitive because people know that that's right at the bottom of the funnel. If I'm searching for cookies I want to be there as Mondelez with my Oreos. So it's, it's going to be a really competitive world. And like I said, CPMs are going up 40% year over year. So people are going to have smart where they put their money. And I think that more data like Visio data, et cetera is only going to help those RMNs.
Eric Franchi
Yes. And those 40% year over year increases on CPMs are what's driving a lot of these businesses to be super, super profitable. So this is the other thing that was eye opening Walmart's advertising and membership offerings so you can join like a, you know, the online version of a Sam's Club or Walmart make up a quarter of the company's profits.
Ari Paparo
Retailing is not the best business, but advertising is great.
Eric Franchi
Retail media sure is. And that's why ads are coming to Airbnb sometime.
Ari Paparo
Why not?
Eric Franchi
No time soon maybe, but sometime. So I saw a Bloomberg TV reporter who has almost no followings, but I'll give credit to the X algo, it made it into my feed saying something about advertising is inevitable. Brian Chesky. I was like, what's going on? He gave an interview on Bloomberg tv. It's good. We'll link to it in the. In the newsletter. Because they had a big expansion in their services. Now it is no longer you can book a place to stay, you can book services. So like a spa or a chef or anything like that.
Jenny Wall
Or what about a Barbie? A Barbie house?
Ari Paparo
Yeah, the Barbie House. The specialty houses.
Eric Franchi
That's right. That's right. Yep. Yeah. So basically the idea is they want to be Amazon for services. And then the journalist said, hey, since Uber launched their advertising business now $1.5 billion run rate, they've gotten a lot of love from the street and it's super profitable. And I saw the clip. It's literally like two seconds you could find it. Brian says advertising is a huge opportunity. It is inevitable, but he really wants to nail services first. So I don't know what the over under is on when it comes, but it will be coming. It'll be interesting to see who they hire to run this.
Ari Paparo
Yeah, well, the thing is that you get, like I say, a $10 CPM, but then you also have to put your creatives in the dishwasher before you leave.
Jenny Wall
I think they need to do. They're probably like Instacart and things like that is incredible partnerships they should be doing.
Ari Paparo
One of the things about Uber's business that's important to realize their advertising business is that a lot of it is, you know, the Uber Eats side of things. And the reason is because you have a competitive market with a lot of different advertisers for the same demand. You know, pizza place, burger place, you know, or groceries. That liquidity is important and probably services. And the way he's using services, they're really more like experiences. You might have a much more competitive market than you do for the actual lodging itself, because lodging has so many specifics to it. There's not a lot of competition in a given neighborhood for a given number of bedrooms and things like that. Whereas if you're going to Paris and you want to book a tour, there might be 10, 15 identical companies looking to grab that dollar. And that's where you might have a much better advertising competitive situation.
Eric Franchi
Brian, meet Ari. He's available.
Ari Paparo
I'm available.
Jenny Wall
Oh, we're going to move on. I do want to jump in. I think you mentioned Uber, maybe we were still talking about Airbnb, but I do think that as you know, you have Uber rides, Uber eats, Uber services, et cetera. And full disclosure, we work with Uber. But the amount of information that those companies know about you, good or bad, is I think going to be incredible as they continue to scale like an Airbnb and in a privacy compliant way, but like even like an Instacart, the data shows that, you know, if you eat a certain kind of foods, you might have a certain disease. So think about how that affects data for pharmaceutical companies. So the amount of first party data data that we have, as long as we treat it well, can actually help advertisers in ways that are just. You wouldn't, I mean you'd think that like someone that eats a, eats particular things, has a disease and wants a certain drug, like that all makes sense. And I think it just continues to scale, not just like with Uber putting in car advertising, but basically I'm not saying they use their data this way. I'm just saying that it's going to be a bank of first party data that's going to help advertisers. And if Airbnb scales like that, just imagine they're going to know exactly what people want when they go where they, they go.
Eric Franchi
That's a great point. And I would imagine that, you know, buying this type of services makes you more apt to buy this type of thing. It opens up, you know, a whole larger market than just travel and vacations. That's a, that's a great point, I gotta say. So past couple of weeks we've been beating up on Google a little bit with respect to some of the AI experience in and around the Google workspace. And boy, did we just get a right hook with Google. I o. So, gosh, where do we begin? Have you experimented either of you with AI mode yet?
Ari Paparo
No, I haven't. I saw the videos.
Jenny Wall
I will right after this.
Eric Franchi
Yeah, yeah. So go to your. I think it's only available on your personal account. So it's available for Google Workspace. Go to your personal account, google.com aimode and it's Google, but you interact with it somewhat like you interact with an LLM so you can type in a keyword, but you really type in a question and it's a neat experience. It's a bit jarring because the brand, it's brand new. And I personally am not used to the interface, but it's showing where Google I think is going to take this whole thing with respect to AI based search and ads are going to be coming to it. So it's a pretty neat thought experiment to think about how they can start to monetize questions.
Ari Paparo
Yeah, I think that this is impressive. It's great to see Google trying to overcome the strategy tax that they have. It's going to be a little bumpy. It's still bumpy and it's good to see them moving. I think the thing that impressed me the most was the video. Generative AI videos that seem quite good and also much faster to generate than some of the state of the art right now. So that's exciting. And the other thing that people are chattering about is that the Chrome integration, which people are kind of wondering whether Google's sort of poking the eye of the judge in their antitrust case by showing how much power Chrome has and whether that was maybe a mistake to do that.
Eric Franchi
Hard agree on those two points. If you go on X people are going wild already with it's called V03. Somebody pointed this out which I thought made a lot of sense. Well, if you can have YouTube as your training data, you could probably do some pretty awesome things with generative AI when it comes to comes to video. Makes sense. Two other things I thought were interesting, one of which maybe adds adjacent. So the first is real quickly for Google Meets the real time translation. So you could have a Google Meet with someone speaking a language you don't speak and it's like seamless in terms of it being kind of reported back in the native language. I thought that was really cool. And then a little bit more adjacent to advertising. So we've got this thing called Project Mariner which is their version of computer mode. So it's an agent that can carry out tasks on the web autonomously for users. So find me a hotel in Paris type of thing. I don't know if it's now going to go to book me a hotel and Google Travel gets a cut affiliate model like. But you can imagine that being an outcome at some point.
Ari Paparo
Yeah. The constant demos of book me a restaurant, book me a hotel are a little tiresome because the number of actual restaurants or actual hotels that have been booked by AI is probably countable on one hand. Right. And I feel like the tech companies need to stop thinking so aggressively about the use cases of like 23 year olds in San Francisco. And you have some real world use cases that actual human beings will Do.
Eric Franchi
That's a great point. Nikita Bear had a tweet this week that was something to the effect of the percentage of people that do things on their phone at night while drunk or the percentage of people that, like, are just like, you know, not necessarily, you know, the Silicon Valley type in terms of, like, where they live, what they do, and their age. You probably now have 40% of your Tam right there, so. He said it far better than I did.
Ari Paparo
One of the secrets of the app install market is that, you know, people only install apps, like, basically in the evening when they're sitting in their house or while they're, you know, in a couple of, like, scenarios during the day at work. No one's installing apps on, you know, people exercising. You're not installing apps. So even though the ads appear 24,7 to people all around the world, the actual windows of app installs are much narrower.
Jenny Wall
Right. And if you don't close them, then it still looks like you're using them.
Ari Paparo
Yeah, that too.
Jenny Wall
Let's talk about fraud.
Eric Franchi
Good point. And then there was something even bigger. So IO OpenAI's acquisition of Joni I've startup. Did you see the 9 minute video love Letter to San Francisco?
Ari Paparo
I didn't, I didn't watch it. I saw little snippets of it. I just, like, I figured someone else would tell me about it. Maybe that's. Maybe that's what's about to happen.
Jenny Wall
I didn't see it either. But I will say that, like, snapping him up is the. Somebody else should have snapped him up for $6 billion. Yeah.
Eric Franchi
Yes. Okay. All right, so first thing, how am I the one that's like, watching all these videos and seeing all these things?
Ari Paparo
Because you're a vc, you have a lot of free time, man.
Eric Franchi
Fine. Okay. It's part of the job. So it is a 9 minute, ish video that is a love letter to San Francisco. And talking about the two of vision. It's so beautiful and well done that there's a rumor that it's actually AI. Like these images of them walking down the street and talking to each other might be AI or it's just sheer beauty. I would watch the video. It's very inspiring. Makes you want to go to San Francisco now. What are they doing? So they acquired Joni I've startup for six and a half billion in stock in OpenAI. So you've got the upside there. And according to employees of OpenAI, Sam Altman thinks that this $6.5 billion bet could add a trillion dollars of value to their company.
Ari Paparo
Sure.
Eric Franchi
So what an l Not keeping him at Apple and just giving him a ridiculous pay package.
Ari Paparo
To Jenny's point, yeah, I think that's definitely true. And Sam Altman was an investor in this company he acquired. So I want to give my teenage son who's back from college his cynical take because if people think that that genetics don't follow. I just said to him, hey, do you hear the news about this whole thing? And he said, yeah, obviously Sam Altman is trying to increase his share of the ownership of OpenAI so he could take over and make it private. And I was like, wow, that is a fast hot take from my teenage son who's just chilling out on the couch. I have a different hot take. So I think these two pieces of data, the Google I O astounding AI demo and OpenAI's purchase of this hardware company are both threads in the overall conversation about Apple's empire crumbling. And the thing I've always said and thought about Jony I've's efforts here is that someone needs to create a device that's significantly better than an iPhone in order to break that monopoly. And the old thing has to be 10x better. And that seems impossible, right? IPhones are really good. I love my iPhone. But you can start to see this as a possibility with these amazing advances and how far back Apple is. I mean, Apple just doesn't have any functional AI on their devices basically. And an Android device or a new device that has AI at its core and looks very different from what we're used to and just does things faster and better seems like the future. And it's a question of who gets there and how fast they get there there.
Eric Franchi
I'll pull a couple quotes from the Journal piece and then Jenny, maybe we can get your reaction. So what are they doing? They are bringing devices starting with one device to market next year according to Sam Albin. So it is an AI device. It is not a phone, it is not glasses. It will be pocket sized, screen free and contextually aware. It will be capable of being fully aware of a user's surroundings and life will be unobtrusive, able to rest in one's pocket or on one's desk, and will be a third core device a person would put on a desk after a MacBook Pro and an iPhone. That was so intentional. Altman's intent is to help wean users from screens. Altman said that the device isn't a pair of glasses and that I've been skeptical about building something to wear on the body. So there's so many clues here, but actually no clues at all. But it's a third device. Jenny, what you got?
Ari Paparo
Well, let me just say it sounds like a Motorola beeper. All right, now, Jenny, please.
Jenny Wall
This feels actually like me to like, just let's go back to her. But I do feel like it's sort of a play into how do I actually get into potential screens or whatever the next screen is in the future. So, yes, let's integrate ourselves into our daily lives that exist today. Let's show how much better it can be and then let's figure out how do we scale that and learn as to what's going to happen in the next five years. Because from an AI perspective, integrating that into it from the get go, I think they're going to learn a hell of a lot. They're going to scale really fast with Johnny and I just would say that if I had $6.6 billion, I would have teamed with Johnny. So I'm going to do a big bet on that and I'm going to bet that I think this is a little bit of a smokescreen as to we're going to develop a device that actually is going to take over all the other devices within five years.
Ari Paparo
I don't see how you can have a good experience without some visual and audio aspect. And they're not going to build glasses, headphones, screens, et cetera. So it seems to me like this is going to be some sort of of dongle that then projects things onto your other screens when needed. Like maybe you talk to it and then it's like, hey, check out your phone for an image. And there's an app on your phone that then uses Bluetooth to talk to this thing and the thing does its thing. That's my.
Jenny Wall
Yeah. Or maybe the device that we create in five years is going to be glasses, phone and earpods all in one. So I think it's again, this sort of dare to dream like, like we don't know what something's going to look like. We may never have phones in five years.
Ari Paparo
I think it may be a concept of like it's an operating system that disintermediates all your existing devices by being more intelligent, more personal, and then the other devices are the ways you actually interact with it when you want to.
Jenny Wall
Right. And it's going to be a brain chip in 10.
Ari Paparo
So no one's getting into my brain.
Eric Franchi
All right.
Jenny Wall
Unless you're in severance.
Eric Franchi
Everything else on the docket seems quite insignificant compared to this, but what you got, Ari?
Ari Paparo
I got to do a call out to my ad ops peeps who just really want me to talk about this even though it's boring as shit. Amazon had their publisher day. It was a private conversation. I think it was off the record, but everyone leaked it to me anyway. There were two announcements out of Amazon's publisher day. The first, and the one that really matters to adopts people is that the TAM is now inside pre bid. So tam, which stands for Transparent Ad Marketplace. Thank you. TAM is Amazon's version of prebid. Essentially it's a different tag you put on the page and you get your bids from all your demand sources and it's always been separate. So you had prebid and TAM on the page and then you had to manage the bids between them. That still exists, but also you can have TAM bid into pre bid so that it can compare the best price of TAM with all the best prices from all the other sources. And there's still duplication, but it should simplify the ad op system and also get better pricing. So people on the publisher side are pretty psyched about that. And secondly, there was this announcement that Magnite is inside tam and I really don't understand this despite a multi thousand word essay about it, but it seems really cool. And I think the headline here is that you can bid on Amazon Fire inventory through Magnite, which seems like a big deal, but it wasn't clear if that was Amazon inventory on Amazon Fire or if it was third party apps on Amazon Fire which already were available. So if someone wants to create like a big flowchart on this Magnite announcement and post it, that would be great because it was like really complicated.
Jenny Wall
Well, as a marketer, I'm just going to say that TAM is a horrible thing because it does mean total addressable market to most people in. In advertising. So let's just. There's too many acronyms. Too many acronyms.
Ari Paparo
Yeah.
Jenny Wall
And it's also acronyms Own them. Own them. Yeah, like the plus sign. Right. On all the SVOD services.
Ari Paparo
Also, I'll just do a shout out that there is another antitrust case against Google that a lot of people don't know about, which is Rumble, the kind of right wing YouTube. And they had a. They have a couple of cases but their bigger case was about Google favoring YouTube videos over videos on other sites. I personally read this complaint and thought it was pretty compelling and a judge tossed it out. So it's no longer a case Google won. It was totally dismissed. It was dismissed for a lot of technical reasons. They took too long to file it. They didn't have certain arguments. But it doesn't matter. It was tossed out. It's over. Google has an actual win on the antitrust side, although it's a case that very few people knew existed.
Eric Franchi
All right, Google, Book the W Google. This has been super fun. Thank you, Jenny.
Jenny Wall
Oh, thank you so much for having me, Ari and Eric. This was a lot of fun.
Ari Paparo
Yeah, this was a great episode. I learned a lot and it was a lot of wow, there's a lot of news. I give us another year before AI replaces this podcast. We'll see.
Jenny Wall
And Eric, I'm calling you every day so you can just give me a quick download on what I need to know.
Eric Franchi
You got it. Anytime. Only you, nobody else. All right, we'll see you next week, everybody.
Jenny Wall
Bye Bye.
Eric Franchi
Thank you for subscribing to marketecture.
Jenny Wall
New interviews are added every week at Markitecture TV and your favorite podcasting app.
Ari Paparo
Thank you for listening to the Market podcast. New episodes come out every Friday and an insightful vendor interview is published each Monday. You can subscribe to our library of hundreds of executive interviews at Markitecture tv. You can also sign up for free for our weekly newsletter with my original strategic insights on the week's news at News Market tv. And if you're feeling social, we operate a vibrant Slack community that you can apply to join@adtechgod.com.
Marketecture Podcast Summary
Episode 124: Jenny Wall from VideoAmp on Currency and the Upfronts
Release Date: May 23, 2025
In Episode 124 of the Marketecture Podcast, hosts Ari Paparo and Eric Franchi engage in an insightful conversation with Jenny Wall, the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) of VideoAmp. Jenny brings a wealth of experience from her tenure at major TV and streaming companies like Nickelodeon, Hulu, and Netflix. The episode delves deep into the evolving landscape of media measurement, the shift from traditional to advanced audience metrics, and the broader implications for the advertising and marketing industries.
Jenny Wall introduces herself as a seasoned executive with over three decades of experience in marketing and brand strategy. She highlights her journey from traditional television at HBO and Nickelodeon to pioneering roles in digital streaming at Hulu and Netflix. Her transition to VideoAmp marks a shift from the publisher side to the measurement side of media, emphasizing data-driven strategies to optimize audience engagement.
Notable Quote:
“At VideoAmp, we are a tech-first company that helps agencies, brands, and publishers effectively engage with the right audience to maximize results.”
— Jenny Wall [04:39]
Jenny outlines VideoAmp's strategic pivot from offering media services to concentrating almost entirely on measurement solutions. This transition underscores the company's commitment to providing robust analytics that enable clients to make informed decisions based on audience behavior and intent rather than traditional demographic data alone.
Key Points:
Notable Quote:
“We have moved almost 100% into the measurement space. Our focus is being a measurement company, and that is where everything has shifted over the last year and a half.”
— Jenny Wall [05:11]
A significant portion of the discussion centers on the concept of a multi-currency world in media measurement. Jenny advocates for multiple measurement standards to foster competition and innovation, countering the longstanding monopoly held by Nielsen in television measurement.
Key Points:
Notable Quote:
“I believe there should be a multi-currency world. Big data is the right way to look moving forward, offering options that save the industry money and deliver better results.”
— Jenny Wall [08:50]
Jenny elaborates on the distinction between traditional demographic targeting (age, gender) and advanced audience metrics that leverage big data to identify high-intent users. This approach allows advertisers to allocate budgets more effectively by focusing on consumers who are more likely to convert.
Key Points:
Notable Quote:
“Advanced audiences reduce frequency, saving money and increasing outcomes by targeting users with higher intent for your product.”
— Jenny Wall [14:30]
VideoAmp's collaborations with major streaming platforms like Netflix and Amazon underscore its integral role in the evolving media ecosystem. These partnerships facilitate the integration of VideoAmp’s measurement tools into large-scale operations, enhancing the accuracy and effectiveness of advertising campaigns.
Key Points:
Notable Quote:
“We have deals with every single person for the next three years to incorporate our measurement into their systems, making media planning a one-stop-shop experience.”
— Jenny Wall [14:24]
During the episode, Jenny shares her observations from recent upfronts, highlighting key trends and innovations in the advertising landscape. She emphasizes the increasing importance of data-driven strategies and transparency in ad tech.
Key Points:
Notable Quote:
“Retail media CPMs are up 40% year-over-year, making it an incredibly competitive and profitable space for advertisers.”
— Jenny Wall [35:52]
The hosts briefly touch upon a recent lawsuit where DoubleVerify (DV) sued Analytics for defamation, centered around claims of bot traffic and invalid impressions. While this segment is a minor part of the episode, it underscores ongoing challenges in ensuring ad quality and transparency.
Key Points:
Notable Quote:
“This report helps push the conversation about what is fraudulent in digital advertising, aiming to improve efficiency and transparency.”
— Jenny Wall [30:38]
Jenny discusses the booming retail media sector, emphasizing its role in driving advertising growth. She highlights how retailers like Walmart and Amazon are leveraging their first-party data to enhance targeting and measurement capabilities.
Key Points:
Notable Quote:
“Retail media is an incredible space where CPMs are soaring, and having access to comprehensive data from partnerships like Vizio only enhances the value proposition.”
— Jenny Wall [35:52]
The conversation shifts to recent advancements in artificial intelligence (AI), particularly Google’s AI Mode and OpenAI’s acquisition of Jony Ive’s startup. Jenny and the hosts explore the potential implications of these developments on the future of media and advertising.
Key Points:
Notable Quotes:
“Integrating AI from the get-go will allow rapid scaling and learning, potentially leading to devices that could replace existing technologies within five years.”
— Jenny Wall [49:25]
The episode concludes with reflections on the dynamic changes in the advertising and media measurement industries. Jenny Wall’s insights into VideoAmp’s strategy, the rise of advanced audiences, and the impact of AI innovations provide listeners with a comprehensive understanding of current trends and future directions. The hosts express optimism about the potential for continued innovation and the importance of data-driven approaches in driving marketing success.
Notable Quote:
“This was a great episode. I learned a lot, and there's a lot of news shaping the future of our industry. I give us another year before AI replaces this podcast. We'll see.”
— Ari Paparo [53:35]
For more insights and discussions, visit Markitecture TV and subscribe to their weekly newsletter.