Why 2025 Might be an Addressable TV "Tipping Point"

Summary

Podcast Summary: Next in Media – "Why 2025 Might be an Addressable TV 'Tipping Point'"

Release Date: March 11, 2025
Host: Mike Shields
Guest: Larry Allen, VP and GM of Data and Addressable Enablement at Comcast

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Introduction

In this episode of Next in Media, host Mike Shields engages in an insightful conversation with Larry Allen, Comcast’s Vice President and General Manager of Data and Addressable Enablement. They delve into the evolving landscape of addressable TV, the challenges of multi-screen advertising, and the anticipated tipping point for Addressable TV in 2025.

Defining Addressable TV

Larry Allen begins by clarifying the concept of Addressable TV:

"[04:51] Addressable TV, historically, has been tied to traditional linear or cable TV targeting based on household physical addresses, offering high-fidelity targeting."
He emphasizes the shift towards a more inclusive definition that spans various distribution endpoints, including streaming services and connected TV devices: "[03:20] Regardless of the distribution endpoint—cable box, streaming service, or connected device—if the consumer is a paid, registered, authenticated user, they represent an addressable ad opportunity."

Challenges in Multi-Screen Advertising

The discussion shifts to the complexities introduced by multi-screen consumption. Larry points out that while traditional linear TV remains steadfast, the proliferation of streaming services creates fragmented ad opportunities:

"[03:20] The rise of multi-screen consumption means consumers might watch a linear show on a streaming service, complicating addressable ad targeting."

Programmatic Buying in TV Advertising

Mike Shields probes into why programmatic buying hasn't seamlessly integrated with addressable TV:

"[05:17] Different agencies operate at varying stages, with some handling traditional TV budgets proactively, while digital teams use programmatic platforms that aren't inherently addressable."

Larry Allen explains the inherent differences in buying mechanisms between traditional and digital teams:

"[06:33] Programmatic execution originated in digital, where buying is more immediate and flexible, contrasting with the proactive, schedule-based planning of traditional TV."

The 2025 Tipping Point for Addressable TV

Anticipating 2025 as a pivotal year, Larry outlines the factors driving this tipping point:

"[09:54] I believe 2025 will mark a tipping point as ARF inventory becomes widely programmatically available, expanding access for advertisers and stabilizing prices through increased competition."

He also highlights the necessity for hybrid systems that blend digital flexibility with traditional TV's structured environment:

"[10:54] Systems must hybridize to support both digital and traditional TV methodologies, catering to diverse event types and advertising needs."

Measurement and Attribution Challenges

Accurate measurement across platforms remains a significant hurdle. Larry acknowledges the current disarray but notes recent progress:

"[11:44] Measurement has been challenging, but larger firms are investing in big data to integrate cross-screen measurements. Additionally, major tech platforms are now more willing to share ad exposure data."

He stresses the importance of unified identity systems for precise attribution:

"[13:59] Relying solely on hashed emails or IP addresses leads to only about 50% accuracy in matching ad exposures to households, underscoring the need for more reliable identifiers like physical home addresses."

Universal Identifiers and Data Matching Issues

The conversation delves deeper into the limitations of current identity matching methods. Larry critiques the effectiveness of relying on emails and IP addresses:

"[13:59] Household email matching is often imperfect due to multiple email addresses per household, and IP address matching through identity graphs is similarly unreliable."

He advocates for using physical addresses as a more consistent and accurate identifier:

"[15:46] Physical home addresses provide a better match between ad exposures and conversion events, ensuring higher accuracy in targeting and measurement."

Unified Platforms and Aggregating Supply

Addressing the fragmentation in the marketplace, Larry discusses Comcast’s initiative, Universal Ads, aimed at consolidating inventory access:

"[18:19] Universal Ads builds a unified storefront leveraging Comcast’s Freewheel platform, allowing buyers accustomed to platforms like Snap or Facebook to seamlessly execute campaigns across multiple streaming inventories."

He emphasizes the importance of scale and simplicity for advertisers:

"[19:37] Consolidating access reduces the need for multiple platforms, lowering costs and simplifying the buying process for advertisers."

User Experience and Innovation in Multi-Screen Streaming

Reflecting on his background in product development at Turner, Larry Allen assesses the current state of user experience (UX) and innovation:

"[22:12] While significant progress has been made, the focus now is on streamlining platforms to simplify the buying process, reducing friction caused by multiple point solutions."

He underscores the importance of creating intuitive interfaces that cater to buyers familiar with digital platforms:

"[23:00] Simplification is key—developers are working to make TV buying as straightforward as buying on digital platforms, ensuring ease of use and efficient activation."

Interactive and Shoppable Ads

Mike Shields brings up the rise of interactive and shoppable ads, seeking Larry's perspective on their viability:

"[24:32] Interactive ads enhance consumer engagement, particularly for complex brand messages. However, scalability remains a challenge due to technical dependencies and the need for consistent consumer experiences across platforms."

Larry concurs, highlighting the necessity for standardization to foster consumer familiarity and engagement:

"[25:44] Consistent ad experiences across platforms like Amazon, Roku, and Peacock are crucial for training consumers to engage effectively with interactive and shoppable ads."

The Importance of Identity in Advertising

Wrapping up, Larry reiterates the centrality of identity in successful advertising campaigns:

"[26:26] Identity is everything. Accurate activation and measurement rely on a unified identity backbone, ensuring that campaigns are efficiently planned, executed, and evaluated."

He warns against the fragmentation of identity sets across activation and measurement phases:

"[27:17] Using different identity sets for planning, activation, and measurement leads to inefficiencies and inaccuracies, undermining campaign effectiveness."

Conclusion

Mike Shields and Larry Allen conclude their discussion by emphasizing the transformative potential of addressable TV. As the industry moves towards greater consolidation, improved measurement techniques, and enhanced user experiences, the anticipated tipping point in 2025 appears increasingly achievable. Larry Allen’s insights shed light on the critical developments shaping the future of media, marketing, and advertising in a rapidly evolving technological landscape.

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Notable Quotes:

• Larry Allen at [03:20]: "Addressable TV is that if the consumer is a paid, registered, authenticated consumer, they can be an addressable ad opportunity."

• Larry Allen at [06:33]: "Programmatic execution was born out of digital... it's a different approach compared to traditional TV planning and execution."

• Larry Allen at [13:59]: "Only 50% of the time do they match email to household physical address accurately."

• Larry Allen at [18:19]: "Universal Ads builds a unified storefront... buyers can execute campaigns across multiple streaming inventories seamlessly."

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This comprehensive conversation between Mike Shields and Larry Allen offers valuable insights into the dynamic shifts within the TV advertising ecosystem, highlighting both the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead as the industry approaches a significant transformation by 2025.

Transcript

[Mike Shields]

Collaboration is a new competition. The One Audience alliance by Elemental TV unites premium publishers to tackle CTV's biggest challenge, fragmentation. By collaborating over AI powered audience insights and inventory, we're creating an ecosystem where advertisers win, publishers thrive and audiences stay engaged. Join the movement redefining [e-mail] 1audiencealliance that's e l e m e n t a-l t v.com Oneaud I e n C E A A L L I A N C E this week on nexting Media, I spoke with Larry Allen. He's VP and GM of Data and Addressable Enablement at Comcast. Larry and I talked about why many brands and agencies still aren't ready to do real targeting and TV advertising at scale and what needs to happen and move things faster. Larry and I also talked about why he thinks TV IDs don't cut it. How Comcast plans to get a bunch of TV rivals and sellers together to work together to make it easier for more brands to get into television. Let's get started. Hi everybody. Welcome to NEXT to Media. I'm Mike Shields. My guest this week is Larry Allen. He's a VP in GM Data and Addressable Enablement at Comcast.

[Larry Allen]

Hey Larry, how you doing?

[Mike Shields]

We should take tell folks that you and I have have shot ski together. So we're like, we have kind of a unique bond that I don't know if people, most people won't understand but we gotta try and be professional through, through this interview here. But let's talk about you're, you have an interesting title. You're at a company doing a lot of interesting things in an interesting moment. So let's just talk about like what you do and don't do. Let's define the terms like what is addressable tv because that used to mean something really tied to cable veils and maybe it's not in your mind. So let's just get into what you do and what that means.

[Larry Allen]

So I do pretty much everything that has to do with data here at Comcast Advertising. So it's kind of two sides of the coin. One side is how do we take advantage of the first party data that we have to enable our programming partners that we distribute on our platforms to help them more accurately target households, which is the kind of addressable part of what I do. And then on the data licensing side, we partner with measurement companies and attribution vendors in order to again leverage our first party data to enhance the ability to link ad exposures to outcomes or better measure Reach and frequency.

[Mike Shields]

Okay, so it sounds like part of what you're doing is empowering data driven advertising for your ad business in your household. So like that's a, that's a local job and then the other job is a national partnership with other players who use your data for enhancing their own ad business. That.

[Larry Allen]

That's right. That's right. So, you know, we have NBC as an example. You know, we carry their content on our platform and we can enable their inventory to be addressable within our footprint. And then we also do that with our own inventory that we sell as well.

[Mike Shields]

Okay, what is addressable today? It was historically like those ad slots in cable avails. Then people use that term for all kinds of different things. You think it's important to define the terms here in the space in terms of multi screen advertising versus, I don't know, linear advertising. Help me, help me define the terms here and what you're thinking about.

[Larry Allen]

Yeah, so addressable tv, historically people did think about it as kind of the traditional TV linear in a cable footprint or a satellite footprint being targeted based on the household and the physical address associated with that household, which is super high fidelity opportunity. The kind of challenge has become now that we have multi screen consumption where a consumer could be watching a linear TV show on a streaming service, all of a sudden that may or may not be addressable ad opportunity. And so what we are now really talking about with addressable TV is that regardless of the distribution endpoint, I. E. A cable box or a streaming service or a connected TV device, if the consumer is a paid, registered, authenticated consumer, that they can be an addressable ad opportunity. And so it really comes down to the type of data that's being used in order to match an advertiser's audience to the inventory. I would argue that just matching on a hashed email is not good enough because there's mismatches. In many cases, the hashed email is being linked via an identity graph that is probabilistic in nature and therefore not, you know, you're not guaranteed to actually be reaching the household you expected.

[Mike Shields]

Okay, I want to come back to that point just to dig a little bit deeper. How has this changed on the buy side? Because there used to be, years ago there were like specialty groups, like I think was MODI that really like they were. What they did was that local cable available inventory for car brands and political advertisers. You still have spot cable, but like is there still like an addressable bucket versus A, you know, multi screen targeting bucket? Is it make, Is it all, is it all over the place or does it matter?

[Larry Allen]

You know, I think it's an evolution. I think different agencies are in different stages. In most cases there's a video investment team that's buying kind of what you would call traditional tv. And inside of that great group there's an addressable budget that's being allocated. Then you have the digital teams that are buying digital video, which in many cases are the ones buying the kind of streaming inventory or the connected TV inventory as some people would call it. And I think that's where the challenge starts to creep in, is because you have experts at the agency that are used to buying kind of linear, addressable tv. Now there's addressable opportunities in streaming, but those budgets are bifurcated at the agency. They want them to come together. You know, maybe at the highest level they're thought about together, but practically the way they get activated, you know, the streaming budgets are getting bought in a lot of cases through programmatic, which is not addressable necessarily.

[Mike Shields]

Okay, why are they not? It's such an obvious question. I know it's not easy. Why aren't they coming together? And then why would you say programmatic? I think some people would use that synonymously with the rest bull, which you're right, it's not the same thing. But why aren't they? That's a two part question. Sorry.

[Larry Allen]

I think a lot of it has to do with the buying mechanism. The programmatic execution was born out of digital. The digital teams, they were display buyers or social buyers. They were not TV buyers. There's still a large amount of money that's being invested in traditional tv. And the way you allocate those funds and you think about plans is very proactive. Right. It's upfront commitments or quarterly commitments where you're planning a schedule that's still in many cases based on, you know, GRPs and you know, demos and day parts. And so that's a different type of plan and execution than if you are kind of describing an audience in a trading platform and then hitting the enter key and buying, you know, $25,000 a week and optimizing it, you know, week in and week out, it's a different approach. And I think that's why there's a little bit of a struggle right now inside the agencies because they're like, well, how should we be buying multiscreen? How do we think about bringing these two different buying environments together? And I would argue that, you know, we are pushing hard to meet the buyers where they Are. And what I mean by that is there's a large chunk of demand that sits in the programmatic platforms. And so how do we make traditional linear TV look more like digital? And then I think there's folks on the other side that, you know, have a large supply of impression based campaigns and they're saying, hey, how do we aggregate impressions and sell them the old way? Because there's dollars there too. Right. So I think we're in this interesting moment in time where the digital teams and the kind of historical video teams are trying to go to the other side and there's a little bit of collision.

[Mike Shields]

You can't like just wait for this one side to take over or not. You got to have to cater to everybody where they are right now.

[Larry Allen]

That's absolutely right. Because the supply is sizable and the demand is sizable on both sides of the equation. And I would also just make the argument that linear TV as we know it isn't going to just go away. I mean, you think about live sports and live news that is going to live on for a long time. Appointment based viewing is still a thing, right? I mean the new show on Apple TV plus shows up every Sunday night at 9:00. Right. So it's like there's that notion of schedule based showing shows that is going to live on. And so we're blurring lines between kind of what traditional TV used to be and what streaming TV is now.

[Mike Shields]

It's funny, I was just at the Beat retreat in San Juan and everything was author arc. So I'm not going to say anything I shouldn't. But like there was definitely a frustration perhaps that I thought we'd be further by now. Like I thought everything was, it was going to be once, you know, streaming took over. Advertisement is going to be dynamic, right. And everything was going to be addressable. And then there's others. Maybe we should, maybe we should never do that. Are we moving as fast as we can, like with this, this idea that everything, every ad is going to have like all these different data points and you're going to use a clean room and send the right ad to the right person? I don't know if that's going to, if that's what the industry wants. But are we not moving as fast as we should?

[Larry Allen]

I think 25 feels like a tipping point. ARF inventory is going to be programmatically available in a large way. I know the satellite providers are pushing really aggressively to make their inventory programmatically available and I think that's a good thing. Because it creates opportunities to expand the number of clients that can get access to that inventory, which then increases the demand opportunity. It also is good from a yield standpoint because it puts additional pressure on inventory so prices can, you know, stabilize. But I do think that there's a number of opportunities where brands want sponsorship or integrated marketing or kind of total ownership of the audience consuming a particular event. You know, you don't want to piecemeal that there's probably a small advertiser that wants to buy some impressions there. But if you're a big advertiser, you're.

[Mike Shields]

Buying that because it's the whole event you want, the whole baby.

[Larry Allen]

Exactly, exactly. And so I think, you know, the systems that support digital video and streaming need to hybridize and be flexible so that they're not one or the other, that they can be both, depending on the event, the type of show, you know, whether it's live or not. Right. I mean, we've got some work to do from a development perspective to really enable those capabilities.

[Mike Shields]

All right, so speaking of hybridizing, you know, one area that comes up all the time, especially in a relatively new or changing market, you got to get measurement right for that, for things to move faster. You're involved with SIEM and other measurement organizations. It seems like it's a big challenge. How are we doing in terms of like trying to really measure cross platform TV ads?

[Larry Allen]

Well, you're right, it has been a bit of a mess. I think we have clarity on what needs to be done now, which is good. Like knowing the requirements is important. I think most of the larger measurement companies have invested in big data so that they can bring together the right data assets in order to measure cross screen, multi screen. And I think there's also been in, you know, the last year and a half, more willingness of the big tech platforms to actually provide ad exposure data for campaigns.

[Mike Shields]

That was not in their nature for a long time.

[Larry Allen]

It was not. They were holding everything close to the vest before. And I think the large brands, you know, that's a requirement for them. If they're buying across multiple platforms and the TV landscape, they need to be able to measure reach and frequency appropriately. And I think that there's been a big movement in the last 12 months where, you know, Nielsen, comScore, Videoamp, they're all now getting access to more ad exposures in those different platforms.

[Mike Shields]

More complete picture.

[Larry Allen]

We're not completely there yet because they each have gaps, but that's good. And then I think on the other side of measurement, where the Inventory owners are doing more attribution measurement with their clients. There's an awareness and an understanding that they need to bring together larger data sets as well. So instead of just measuring their streaming platforms on the programmer side, they're also now saying, hey, I want to bring my linear exposures into the clean room so that, you know, if I'm running a measurement campaign with Instacart, they can see the conversions that were attributed to both the linear exposure and the streaming exposure. That's right. As opposed to just the digital environment.

[Mike Shields]

Yes. You, you hinted at. There's often a debate about whether we need a, you know, with TV doesn't have to deal with the cookie thing. Right. Which is good. But there is a. Want maybe to have a universal identifier. Is that possible? Should we, you kind of hinted that maybe email based identifiers are not as strong as we think they are. Not as or not as useful. Can you expand on that a little bit?

[Larry Allen]

Yeah. So in many cases, if a inventory owner has authenticated inventory, they will get an email address on that household or the consumer. And in many cases they just try to do a one to one match between the conversion event and the email that was associated with that record and the email associated with the the streaming service. Problem is most households have multiple email addresses and therefore, you know, you're not going to have a perfect match rate between those two events. And then if you want to backstop that at the household, you'll use an identity graph. And there was a study over a year ago now by Truth Set and Sim that basically said that only 50% of the time do they match email to household physical address accurately. And so if you're using an identity graph to also try to bring those, the ad exposure and the conversion event together in the same household, you're missing the mark.

[Mike Shields]

That's not a good batting average for that kind of thing when you're not talking about it as if it's, you know, pure targeting.

[Larry Allen]

And then to make matters worse, some folks will use IP address, that's a common linking variable as well as email address in the, you know, streaming space. And that's a moving target also. It's also about 50% accurate when run through these identity graphs. So this is where, you know, we, we are a big believer in kind of addressable TV where you're actually knowing the household for certain so that, you know, those ads exposed can then be properly linked. Using the physical home address is, is a way better variable between, you know, the conversion event and the ad exposure than kind of an email or some other proxy.

[Mike Shields]

It's very counterintuitive to people that came up through digital that the household and a physical address is what's going to be the anchoring data point. But it makes sense, it doesn't change. And you're not trying to project or merge anything that doesn't belong together. Okay. One thing is also related to measurement. I want to ask you, in your experience or in your, when you talk to marketers or buyers, we're talking pretty much about multi screen streaming television. Where do you put YouTube? Where do you put short form TikTok, things like that? Are those things bound to all come together in some fashion or should they not be, or where is the prevailing philosophy?

[Larry Allen]

If there is one, I'm biased, I would say because we have a, you know, premium content focus. You can't deny YouTube is on the big screen in the living room. I think the differential is that those ads are skippable in many cases and that, you know, only getting three seconds of a brand exposure versus 30 seconds of a brand exposure is markedly different. Has a different, you know, impact to the consumer. And I think the buyers are starting to understand that. And I think, you know, they can get reach, but the question is how much quality reach are they getting? And that's where, you know, a lot of the measurement systems now are looking at duration and understanding the duration of the ad to completion as opposed to just the total impression count. Because that obviously the, you know, level of attention and awareness to the brand's message is different.

[Mike Shields]

Do you think attention metrics help you there or is it, or is it really about the duration? That's a whole nother topic. I know, but like that's been a hotter issue lately.

[Larry Allen]

Yeah, Look, I think if your ad is on screen for 15 to 30 seconds and you are at a 95% completion rate, the likelihood of the attention score, whoever's measuring that, is going to be much higher than the attention associated with a skippable app.

[Mike Shields]

Okay. You mentioned earlier the idea of bringing more brands to television. It's been a hot topic lately, expanding the pie. Let's, you know, maybe let's get the industry closer to where the platforms are, where they have so many advertisers that they're not relying on a few hundred or whatever. There's a bunch of initiatives focused on this. Everybody's got a self serve platform. You, there's also Comcast has universal ads, I guess. Can you talk about that one? It seems different that you've got multiple Partners that are not just in your company, but it seems an awfully crowded space, even though it's a. Everyone seems to be going in the same direction.

[Larry Allen]

Yeah, I think we're focused on helping not only our own inventory, but our partners that are on the platform get access to a much larger client base. And it was a logical evolution for us owning the Freewheel platform. We have many programming partners in the TV ecosystem that are already on that platform. So the supply is kind of in the same format in the same system. And so building a storefront, if you will, that could cater to and really behave like the platform's UIs, so that it's very easy for a buyer that's used to buying, you know, Snap or Facebook, that they could swivel into our storefront with the universal ads and be able to execute a similar campaign on streaming inventory. Seemed logical and pretty straightforward. And obviously if each of the programming partners built their own storefront, that's duplicate resources, duplicate development, you know, multiple salespeople, like there's a lot of costs that are able to come out of the system.

[Mike Shields]

You're asking a lot of those aggregated buyers, right, that don't, that don't want to log into 12 different things and learn them and all that.

[Larry Allen]

Exactly right. And scale matters, you know, and I think if you want TV to be viewed as a platform similar to a Meta or a Google, then you need all of the programming partners to really participate and operate as one, not as a single company, but as a single opportunity. And I think that's really what we're striving for is to, you know, create bespoke access, but also aggregated access that enables scale and flexibility for the buyer.

[Mike Shields]

Okay, that all makes sense to me. I was talking to an industry friend recently who wants one. He's like, I want one of these things to work. But then it's confusing or it seems confusing when you have like an open ap, a block graph. You have this initiative, you have other self serve platforms. I know they're not all the same thing, but is the clutter in the marketplace making it challenging?

[Larry Allen]

I mean, this is, I guess how development works, right? How, you know, you, you have to have a lot or a little bit of chaos in order to get to kind of the best outcome. And I think we're in that moment right now. You know, consolidation is going to happen and so I think the best product will ultimately rise to the surface and get the most scale and the most throughput. I do think that some of the companies that you mentioned are more complementary than competitive. And so I think if the plumbing is connected correctly, it actually creates opportunity for buyers to onboard first party data to be activated against and then ultimately measured more effectively and more accurately. And so I think they kind of start to work together in many cases. There's definitely, you know, competing self serve platforms. I question that they'll all have the same scale and that they'll have the same identity capabilities and the, you know, scaled onboarding opportunity.

[Mike Shields]

And those are all things that are natural to be scaled. You don't want them?

[Larry Allen]

No.

[Mike Shields]

Okay. Shifting gears a bit as I do. I looked through your LinkedIn before we decided to do this and in your previous life you were a product guy at Turner when we used to say the word turner since that time, like you, since you think about product and user experience, how are we doing in terms of those in the multi screen streaming space like user experience and innovation? How would you grade us? How the projection or the trajectory? I should say?

[Larry Allen]

Well, we come a long way. I know I was kind of toying with a lot of the kind of always on attribution capabilities when I was at Turner, but we were primarily just thinking about the traditional TV environment. Right. So whether that was a linear spot or even a data driven linear spot, it was still kind of one ad exposure kind of reaching a hundred thousand, two hundred thousand households simultaneously. Now I think the buyer, when they're thinking about opportunities, they have a wider spectrum of products and capabilities that they can use to satisfy different tactics, which I think is good for them. It can be a little confusing to your earlier point, but I think we're streamlining that. I think these platforms where we're consolidating the front end so that it's more obvious what they're buying and, and make it simpler for them to buy. I think that's really the name of the game right now is simplification and you know, make it easier for people to say this is the tactic and these are the things then that I'm going to buy and execute on and make it as easy as possible for them. You know, I think we in digital tend to make things harder, you know, because everybody there's, you know, multiple point solutions that get strung together and that's kind of what ultimately, you know, makes something new and interesting. But that adds friction and causes, you know, pain and you know, more fees. And so I think we're at that moment in time where people kind of have strung these things together to kind of create a new product. And now we're saying, okay, how do we simplify it? How do we streamline it? How do we make it easier for those, you know, the data to work its way through the system, for it to activate inventory and then get measured, you know, automatically, as opposed to having it be manual and, you know, multiple companies intervening in order to make something work.

[Mike Shields]

Along those same lines, you're seeing a lot of excitement and experimentation around both interactive streaming ads and or shoppable ads, which is great, but they're seemingly great, but there are a lot of variations in different point solutions. And we're in that stage right now where everyone's doing their own thing, I guess. So that's a big way of asking, are you a believer in interactive capabilities for television ads? And what gets us to a place where there's a little bit more of a standard way of doing that if need be?

[Larry Allen]

I think increasing engagement with the consumer is really important for brands. I don't know that every brand needs an interactive ad, but I think if you're trying to tell an elongated story, if you have a complex message, I think providing more interactive opportunities for a consumer is a good thing. Scale is usually the first challenge that we've experienced with these kinds of ad opportunities because, you know, they're kind of wedded to some technical capability. I think we're with the shift to streaming and, you know, the fact that, you know, people have both their phone and their, you know, connected TV remote in their hand kind of create some interesting opportunities. But it's, you know, changing the consumer behavior is hard and takes a lot of education and promotion. So you need to have some consistency so that the ad experience on, you know, Amazon, Roku, Zumo is the same peacock, Right. All the streaming services have their own kind of ability to have a bespoke product, and hopefully we avoid that. You know, we can get to some level of standard because that's the way you kind of train the consumer to engage.

[Mike Shields]

I guess you say the same thing about shoppable tv. Probably not. Probably not. Every brand and probably needs the same kind of training and standard or commonality.

[Larry Allen]

I think shoppable is almost. Is even harder than interactive ads. I think the desire is to integrate directly into the content. And scaling that is also hard because you have to do it way upstream in the content production process or, you know, have the right contracts in place with the content producer so that you can augment the content, you know, live.

[Mike Shields]

Yeah, it's easy. Last time to throw in there, right?

[Larry Allen]

Yeah.

[Mike Shields]

All right, Larry, what else? Might not ask you what else is really big that you're watching right now in the industry or for your business that people should think about what else is going on?

[Larry Allen]

I mean, at the core, you know, identity is everything. This issue that we've talked about, where you're activating audiences, you need to really know how those audiences are connecting to the inventory, and you know that you're doing it as accurately as possible. That's step number one. And then using the same identity backbone to measure the outcomes of those campaigns, I think is critical because I think too many campaigns today are being planned on a one identity set, activated on a different identity set, and measured on yet a third identity set. And that is just resulting in, you know, a lack of. Of opportunity for the buyer to really run efficient campaigns and accurately understand what's working and what's not working.

[Mike Shields]

All right, well, listen, awesome stuff. Thank you for your time here. Let's do this again. But great conversation, Larry.

[Larry Allen]

Yeah. Thank you. My pleasure.

[Mike Shields]

Thanks again to my guest this week, Comcast Larry Allen, and my partners at Elemental tv. If you like this week's episode, please take a moment to rate and leave a review. We have lots more to bring you, so please hit that subscribe button. We'll see you next time for more on what's next in media. Thanks for listening.