Alex Boras, Business Platform Leader at Samsung Ads, foresees a consolidation in streaming, and FAST will no longer be a separate structure. “We are going to have a hybrid environment -HVOD- in the coming years,” he pointed out during the talk Winning the Advertising Game: Targeting, Technology, and Beyond, held on the last day of StreamTV Ad Summit.
The talk also included Aulden Kaye, Philo’s head of Advertising Alliances; Jennifer Hess, VP of Advertising Operations at Fubo; Rose McGovern, Head of Programmatic and Digital Advertising Sales at DIRECTV Advertising; Steve Sklar, VP of Advertising and Monetization at Frndly TV, and Mike Nagle, General Manager of Streaming/Sr. Director of OTT Distribution and Alliances at Gannett USA Today Networks, who served as moderator.
Boras recalled that Samsung launched FAST four years ago, seeing wonderful growth. “We’ve seen a condensation of SVOD and AVOD, it’s just one-tier. We’re going to start involving FAST in that environment,” he said. He added that streaming user growth is the new normal. “In terms of advertising, some budgets are coming to streaming, but many are going traditionally to linear. We need to evolve to capture the powerful consumer of today.”
Hess of Fubo sees a significant acceleration in FAST. “FAST’s CPMs are catching up with traditional streaming. Everything is going in the right direction,” she noted.
Kaye (Philo) said they are about to introduce FAST. She pointed out they continue to see growth in their business model, that there is now increasing flexibility in sales thanks to programmatic, and that the next big focus in the next 18 months will be SPO (Supply-Path Optimization), which allows buyers to identify connections more efficient and use them to negotiate with vendors.
Sklar (Frndly TV) noted that their users watch about 20 hours of content weekly due to delivering a great consumer experience: the right content. “We are trying new things, new experiences with the data, and adjusting everything. We are looking for the best of the best.”
Boras pointed out that one of the advantages of Samsung is that they own the device. “We can review the ecosystem in real time. We are trying to put this advantage in the hands of our advertising partners.”
McGovern (DIRECTV) also highlighted that they own the device and the content viewing environment. “We are moving in the right direction. The audience and the eyeballs have increased close to two hours on CTV. We have inventory available at FAST and MVPD. We own the environment and the device, we have the tools to target, but I think the standards are still a little loose.”