Interview with Connor Tuttle from Mediacom

So today, we're extremely lucky to be joined by the super impressive Tyra Kilcoyne, from Dentsu. Welcome, Tara. I was hoping that we could start with you just giving you a little overview of who you are, what you've been doing, what you are doing.

So my name is Tara. I currently work at Dentsu, I've been in the global team for the past five years. So I head up our operations team across our hub, which sits across London and Amsterdam. We're a predominantly programmatic team. So yeah, that's pretty much me at the moment. My background is programmatic mainly, work a bit on publisher side, and I also did a little stint at IES when I moved to London first. So that's, that's me.

Perfect. Perfect. Thank you. So as you know, mostly the conversation today is going to be around the topic of contextual and I wanted to start, do we know now with the much-publicized death of the cookie, just interested to get the broad agency perspective on what you guys have been doing over the last couple of years to prepare for that?

Yeah. I think it's very specific to certain clients in terms of certain clients have been heavily reliant on data, whereas others not so much. And I think from a broad perspective, we've already kind of made that shift towards contextual away from cookie-based data.

And I think it's not just a change in what's happening with the death of the cookie, but also from a consumer perspective. We know that people don't want to be targeted like that anymore. And it's a better way to target people based on where they're looking at content, rather than targeting based on any data that we've collected from third-party sources, essentially. So I think in that regard, we've already kind of started to make that shift, we still have some work to do. But for the most part, I think we're kind of 80 to 90%, there on a client-by-client basis?

And is that kind of, do you feel like that's been driven by the agency, the client or combination of the two?

Yeah, I definitely think it's a combination. I think it's the same no matter what agency you're in, or, if you're working with a global or local team, it's very kind of dependent on the clients that you're working with in terms of their level of knowledge about these things.

But I think it is important from an agency perspective that we are educating those clients who need to be educated on what is common and more importantly, what the alternatives are, and how they can still get the best out of their programmatic activity without using third-party data.

That makes sense. And I guess, as we enter 2023, final full year before Google supposedly pulls the trigger, is anything that you kind of expect to be a priority for this year, and making sure that 80% becomes 100%? Or is that just kind of an evolution?

I think for the most part, it's a bit of an evolution. There are obviously some factors that influence us. Google data is one of those points. But I think for the most part, we are almost there. But it is about making sure that we are finding the right partners to use as an alternative as well.

I think there's quite a lot of saturation within the contextual space in the last year or so. And it's kind of become this buzzword, but it's about really understanding, you know, who are the contextual providers we're using and recommending for our clients? And why?

And is that easy to scrutinize effectively? I mean, how easy is it to really understand the genuine capabilities of so many partners that are claiming to have this contextual cookieless solution for you?

Yeah, I guess it's about fully understanding exactly what it is that they're selling and how their tech works, how capable they are. And from an agency perspective, how compliant they are with the regulations that are already in place. But in 2023, I think we will still be seeing a lot of testing. We've done a lot of testing over the last year or so. But we will continue to do it next year to find those partners that can offer the best new solutions. And I'm going to say alternative solutions, because we want to find a new way of targeting users.

Yeah, yeah. And so you mentioned obviously, it's very, very client specific in terms of the approach you take. I mean, how much of the way you approach contextual is, I suppose, driven by the agency, where you've got kind of overarching strategies, and how much comes down to specific client requirements or even specific campaign needs.

I definitely think, for the most part, we do have to look at the client, the needs of the client. And this specific campaign will always come first when we look at who and what strategies we should be using on a client-by-client or campaign-by-campaign basis. And that's the way that we do like to work but it also depends on other factors such as what markets are they looking to run in, what format they're looking to run, what assets they have readily available when we look at using those, those partners.

So it's kind of very dependent on what exactly the client is looking to do and what the KPI of the campaign is, as well. And also, I guess, what else we can add to make the client want to use a certain partner?

Yep makes sense. So moving on from contextual for a minute, interested in getting your broader thoughts on key areas of development in 2023. I know videos are a key part of your general plans for your clients. Anything specific that you think is going to change in 2023? In terms of video, use of CTV, anything else interesting in the video space?

Yeah, definitely. I think we've already seen a huge shift into video spend over the last couple of years, and it's been quite an exciting time with the evolution of CTV, it has really evolved over the last couple of years. And two years ago, there were only certain clients that would buy into it, probably the more programmatic savvy clients that really understand what exactly CTV is.

Now we see that all clients are interested in it. And as we come to the end of 2022, and we look forward to 2023, and we look at client planning, across all of those bands, there's a huge shift into CTV within the video space. And we're seeing it across all different verticals, whether it's tech or luxury, they're all looking to be in that space, but just in different ways. So I think it's going to be really, it's a really exciting year to move into that space.

And I know we're kind of moving away from the cookieless conversation, but, I think that does have a massive piece to play in this. And it makes that narrative actually a lot easier for us as an agency to sell in CTV to clients, because it is one way of moving away from that old way of buying media towards a newer way to kind of engage with their consumers.

Interesting. And then the other area that I was interested to get your perspective on was measurement and specifically for video, but also more broadly, kind of any sort of key shifts that you've seen, or expect to see more of from a measurement perspective next year?

I think measurement is one of those conversations, especially when we talk around CTV – that is a bit of a grey area. But I think there's been a lot of changes. And, you know, for us, one key measurement piece or measurement topic that comes up a lot is around attention. And being able to measure attention, but not only being able to measure attention, but also optimize towards it. And I think that really brings all your strategies together.

And it moves away from the traditional way of looking at video performance and moving more towards actually like, how did consumers engage with it? How much did they pay attention? And where is the best place for video ads to be in a CTV or video environment, and being able to have that consolidated way to measure a video campaign, whether it be traditional video or a CTV environment?

Yeah, I think, I mean, the area of attention seems to be, yeah, it's a hot topic, for sure must be another one where it's hard again to sort of assess just the sheer volume of different partners that are out there at the moment. And everyone's got a slightly different methodology. So I'm sure that will become a lot clearer over the course of this year.

And an area that has had a lot of focus recently is sort of being able to measure and understand the impact on the environment of the activity we run in the broader digital advertising ecosystem. So I'm just interested to understand kind of where this fits in your agenda for 2023 for the agency broadly.

You know, from a denstsu perspective, it's a huge focus for 2023 as it should be and I think the main thing is, is that it's not just a strategy and what you want to do. It's the overarching strategy to everything that we're going to do, especially from a programmatic perspective, moving into next year. So it will be a key consideration for us when it comes to equal partners as well.

You know, we want to be doing all we can within that space. But we also need to make sure our partners are doing the same. And similar to the attention conversation, there are a lot of partners in this inner space who are working within it, and different measurement tools and offsets, etc. And I think that's the main challenge that we're all going to face is hopefully, going into next year, we will have a very clear guide on what that is going to look like and what our strategy is. But for the most part, we just want to make sure that we as an agency are doing everything we can in this space. And we're working with partners who are doing the same.

Yeah, I guess the first stage is, is actually just taking some action, right. And it's I know, most of us are at the stage where we're currently looking to offset, which isn't the long-term goal. But it feels like the whole industry has got to start somewhere.

And so yeah, hopefully, we'll see some good progress in that space over the course of the year. So looking at the year ahead, a lot of focus on things you expect to happen in 2023. But any sort of key industry New Year's resolutions that you would like to see, things you'd like to see more or less of? What are your hopes and wishes for 2023?

That's a good question, isn't it? You know, I really would like to see next year, for there to be more of a focus on these different measurement pieces.

And I think as we are getting more and more advanced measurement is is lagging behind a little bit. When we talk about CTV as a whole, when we talk about sustainability, it's very fragmented, and there's no kind of governance on what exactly it should look like. So a standardization of measurement will be great, very operational of me to say that, but, I think it needs to be a key focus going into next year, and there does need to be some sort of standardization, especially with metrics like attention, it's a great buzzword, but like you said people have different measurement tools and tricks to do it.

So it's, it's about, making sure that there is a standardization within the industry, and that all these amazing things that are happening don't fall by the wayside because we don't have the measurement to keep up.

So it feels like in certain areas like the environmental impacts of our industry, there's definitely a sort of more unified approach being taken lots of strong IAB groups being established to create standardization and everyone coming together to fight the same fight, which is great.

Now, in the attention space, it does still feel like there are a lot of different companies with different methodologies. And yeah, how much of a challenge is that, I guess, for you, and also for your clients to get their heads around?

I guess it's just, it's great that we've gotten here, a couple years ago we weren't in a space where we could kind of really measure and I know there's, different ways of measurement within the attention space. But at least we're doing something within it. And it would be nice to see that evolve. And like I said earlier, for that to evolve so there's a more consolidated way of, measuring attention.

Like anything new, there's always a challenge when there's something new out there, and it's about finding the right partner. And for us, it's just about working with the leading industry bodies within these spaces, and also with the companies that our clients and our partners want to use as well. So it's still a bit fragmented, but hopefully next year we'll kind of make steps in making that more consolidated way of measurement. And especially when we move into a cookieless world and want to buy consolidated across video and CTV, it will really help tell that story and help that narrative in general. So I have high hopes that hopefully, we can standardize what that looks like next year.

Perfect. Seems like a good place to end managed to get in attention, cookieless and CTV into the same sentence, which is perfect. Thank you very much. So great. Really appreciate you joining today. Thank you, Tara, and I look forward to seeing you soon.