September 19, 2025 • 23 mins
The CMO of content ratings firm details how VideoAmp leverages first-party data to measure audiences across platforms. She explans how it has partnered with multiple media giants — including the NFL — to provide what it says is a more accurate picture of cross-platform viewership.
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Speaker 1 (00:07):
Welcome to Strictly Business Varieties, weekly podcast featuring conversations with
industry leaders about the business of media and entertainment. I'm
Tyler Aquallina with Luminated Intelligence formerly known as Variety Intelligence Platform.
If you followed the TV industry in recent years, you
know that there's been more and more controversy over the
Nielsen ratings system that has long measured TV viewership in
the US. With the rise of streaming, a handful of
(00:27):
companies have begun to challenge Nielsen's dominance of TV ratings
and their use in programming and advertising decisions. One of
those companies is video Amp, which leverages first party data
to measure audiences across platforms. My guest today is Jenny Wall,
video AM's chief marketing officer, who's leading the charge for
adoption of antocurrency. Jenny comes from a long and storied
background in the TV business. She was part of the
(00:48):
team that coined It's not TV, It's HBO back in
the nineties, and later helped both Netflix and Hulu roll
out their slates of premium original content. We talked about
both what it takes to bring audiences to shows and
what it takes to measure those audiences in our complex
era of TV. Jenny Wall, Welcome to Strictly Business. It's
great to have you. Thank you here. So obviously there's
(01:08):
a lot to talk about with video amp and the
landscape of TV measurement right now we're having this conversation
in the midst of yet another controversy over that. But
first I wanted to talk about your background a little bit,
just because you've had a front row seat to so
many of the biggest, you know, transformations in the TV
(01:32):
landscape over the last couple of decades. You came from
marketing at HBO when it was launching its first original series,
same thing at Netflix when it was launching its slate
of originals, and then the same thing again at Hulu.
So I'm curious how have those experiences shaped your perspective
on the business and your approach to what you do.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
I'd like to first say that I've just been super
lucky by chance to be at all those places during
the disruption, and also being able to help the those
brands and to what they what they stand for now,
and being able to launch shows that actually helped the
identity was just just an incredible experience for me. So
(02:11):
I think I've always believed, you know, that that TV
can change the world, and that you know, emotionally connecting
people is is really really important. And I think being
able to be at HBO and just trying to find
at each place what is the thing that makes it
different and why is it worth your time and how
(02:33):
will this change your life? So, for example, at HBO,
I think you know, it's not TV. At HBO was
really born out of that. It was everything TV was not.
It did not have commercials, you could swear you know,
you could show sex on TV, and they were just different.
So I think being able to utilize that tagline that
says so much and so little is this that it's
(02:56):
it's not what your regular television is, it's something better.
And I think just also just having incredible shows to
work with and incredible material, and then also having creators
that are very willing to work with you in all
the places that I've been has been really incredible, and
I think they all just connect authentically with the audiences
(03:17):
there the choices that were made, and I would say
at Netflix again, we had to prove that this new
behavior of dropping everything at once also streaming was worth
your time and so leaning into those behaviors with like
being lucky enough to launch House of Cards with David
Fincher and being able to prove that you might binge
(03:40):
it all at once, but we can also help you
find additional shows that you will love, and that model worked.
We used a lot of the new behaviors like binging,
watching ahead in all of our campaigns, So not only
were we launching the shows, we were launching the new
behavior to show how this could fit into your life.
(04:02):
And then at Hulu, you know, we had to also
show why are we different and we're not trying to
replace Netflix, but why you should also add us because
we're an incredible supplement to it because you could get
shows next day. And then also our original programming, like
I was lucky enough to work on Handmaid's Tale and
(04:22):
that just dropped at a very cultural moment with the
twenty sixteen election, and being able to you know, relate
sometimes on a bad way, but really catch the cultural
zeitdeist of what was going on, and having those women
walk around, you know, at south By Southwest and the
red robes and the bonnets not speaking to anyone. Actually,
(04:44):
there was a headline that said, Hulu is scaring the
shit out of people here, and so it's again it's
just eliciting and emotion and connection and a relatability in
some way, and then also just things like we have
all seasons of Seinfeld. We're there just always trying to
find what is different and why people should care. So
I think that's what I've learned on those being at
(05:07):
those places, you know, is.
Speaker 1 (05:09):
That that differentiation, it sounds like, is really what's the
key in terms of establishing a network or a streamer
as a viewing destination. Is that right?
Speaker 3 (05:18):
Yeah? I think it is.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
And I'll just use another Netflix example, like the watching
a head one. We listened to our consumers. That's the
other thing is a brand is not what you say
it is, it's what they say it is. And so
if you see a behavior like Netflix was watching ahead,
and so we did a whole commercial about lie to
your partner that you didn't watch ahead, but it was
all there for you, so you kind of people were lying,
(05:39):
And so we coined this term Netflix adultery, and we
actually interviewed like a couple thousand people and asked them
if they've ever cheated on their partner or friend and
it was like fifty six percent that people had and
then we were able to get Brian Williams on MSNBC
to read it as if it was a true stat
So again it's like having not taking yourself too seriously
(06:01):
as well, but also just listening to your consumer Handmais
Tell is another great example. People were terrified, and so
we were going to market that one way, and then
with women's rights and LGBTQ rights, et cetera, a little
bit more at stake. I'll say during that time we
really leaned into that and that's again why we put
those women out there to scare the shit out of people,
to say that this could be real. Yeah, I think
(06:23):
it's just connecting on those levels of behavior and sort
of an emotional feeling.
Speaker 1 (06:27):
I'm also curious about kind of the art of turning
a good show into a hit show. You know, how
how has that process changed as the TV landscape has
really expanded and become more and more crowded.
Speaker 2 (06:40):
Well, the sad thing is is there's so many good
shows now, so to make a hit again, I think
it's just even more important that you have to break
through that zeitgeist, especially with the event of social and
influencers like Hunting Wives is a great example. I didn't
work on that, but that was the soapiest, bingeable sh
show that I think was living on a different network
(07:03):
and they actually brought it over to Netflix and it
was a huge hit. But basically as people were talking
about it and it had sort of the red blue,
it had.
Speaker 3 (07:13):
Just had all the right ingredients.
Speaker 2 (07:14):
So I do think that just marketing alone, like spending
money on marketing, doesn't work anymore. You really have to
figure out how do I get the right people to
talk about this, And so I think that's what's changed
to make something hit is to get the right people
and the right momentum and catch that wave to make
it actually spread. And the great thing about streaming is
(07:36):
that you can watch it three weeks later, so that
can continue to just move on. So you're hopefully happy,
lucky enough to grab that wave.
Speaker 1 (07:45):
I think that's a good transition into talking about your
work at video Amp. You've kind of moved from this
business of bringing audiences to these shows to measuring the
audiences for those shows, and you know the content out there,
and how did you end up taking that path?
Speaker 2 (08:01):
Oh, I'm always looking for new things to do or disrupt,
and even I know we didn't talk about my time
at Gimlet, but I did decide to take a podcasting
the CMO job because I didn't understand the EAR and
I understood the I, but I was like, why is
the ear so like less expensive and less important? And
I was lucky enough again to work with advertisers to
(08:23):
create podcasts, to actually tie a podcast like with ancestry
dot com, or to work with networks to do I
always would say, like, why are you leaving your consumer
when they go in the car, Like if they're watching
a TV show, why don't you follow them in the
car so you can keep engagement up. So always going somewhere,
I think that I'm learning and for this next, you
(08:44):
know I did. I spent the last three years prior
to this as CMO of Nickelodeon and then my boss
from HBO days. Actually he's still to this day, and
I love him for saying that Jenny and I came
up with it's not TV, it's HBO, but I didn't
come up with it by.
Speaker 3 (09:00):
The way he did. But he still says that we
did it together, which I love.
Speaker 1 (09:05):
That's a refreshing moment of sharing credit in this industry exactly.
Speaker 2 (09:09):
But he was my boss when I was in my
twenties and very pivotal, and he was on the board
of this company, and he's a marketer at heart. And
I've always been just really upset that cmos get fired
every three years because they can't necessarily justify their spend
(09:29):
very well, and that I think measurement is broken. I
think that we should not have a monopoly. No other
country has a monopoly. You would never put all your
stock in one stock like we need diversification, we need optionality.
And so I was coming in to disrupt to say
(09:49):
there should be another source of truth because I think
that everything is getting misrepresented and it's by one person.
I also think that we waste forty percent of our
dollars still, and I want to help cmos keep their
job and I want to help people be able to
talk with their CFO about cross channel measurement. And I
(10:10):
spend this money and I have an outcome, whether it's
a sale or subscription or visit to a website, I
actually can show that cross these channels that I actually
created a sale. And I want to help marketers and
marketing departments look like revenue generators, not cost centers, and
they're mostly seen as cost centers. So he asked me
(10:33):
to come over here, and I was like, let's do
it so and we want to sort of like take
on the man to be honest David and Goliath story.
I love that type of thing of being able to
show that I think there's a better way.
Speaker 1 (10:46):
You've been alluding a lot to the Nielsen ratings and
the dominance they've had over the TV measurement space for
most of the history of TV in the United States. Really,
I think people may know the name of video Amp
if they've been reading about these Nielsen alternatives that have
been emerging. But makes you guys different in terms of
what you do well.
Speaker 2 (11:07):
First and foremost, we've been doing big data for or
ten years, and as Peter likes to say, they're in
their rookie season with big data, so this is their
first year. Actually they're doing big data plus panel and
as we've seen, there's been a lot If you looked
at the Wall Street Journal NFL story yesterday where the
NFL thinks they're being undercounted and our numbers do show
(11:28):
higher numbers per NFL, but that's because our numbers are
higher fidelity. We use a much bigger base. So we
have forty million homes, sixty five million devices. They were
measuring everything off of a forty two thousand panel home.
Now they've brought in big data on top of that,
but those are still weighted. You should ask Nielsen how
(11:49):
they wait those numbers, because I don't know exactly.
Speaker 1 (11:51):
Just to clarify quickly, So big data, that's first party
data coming from companies like Roku and comcasts that are
actually carrying this content.
Speaker 2 (12:02):
Yes, it's all of that, and it's all the way
down to like we work with cap to fy to
look at search intent, we work with you know, Circona
to look at food traffic. So it's just springing in
tons of data. And now that you're talking data, also,
we have the only patented clean room, which has six
different identity providers, which provides an identity spine that it
gets about a ninety percent match rate of when you bring.
Speaker 3 (12:25):
That first party data.
Speaker 2 (12:26):
So we do have first party data that we bring
in from all the publishers and they trust us with
that data because of our patented clean room, which no
one else has.
Speaker 1 (12:34):
Now you've touched on this a little bit, but you know,
can you expand on why is there this need in
the industry from your perspective for these new viewership currencies
and kind of a new way of looking at these audiences.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
I'm going to just go all the way down to
the consumer. There's going to be less shows because shows
are going to get canceled. Quilbeer got canceled, they said
because it costs too much. Well, when we did our
analysis that I can send over to you, we showed
that our ratings were significantly higher in twenty five to
fifty four, and if you model that with advertising, the
show wouldn't have lost money. So we did the same
(13:11):
thing for Fox News. So I had a liberal and
a conservative side, and we showed higher numbers for Fox News.
I in the end, think there's going to be less
choice for consumers. I think some of the volatility that's
going on with the numbers right now is it might
put the long tails out of business, so we might
not have the hallmarks and the A and e's of
the world, and that really, as a consumer and a
(13:31):
lover of entertainment.
Speaker 3 (13:33):
Really really scares me.
Speaker 2 (13:36):
So I think in the next year we could see
a big change if we don't get the numbers right.
Because right now, as you've seen in the press, the
numbers with Nielsen and big data and panel extremely volatile.
So when you're trying to plan on an upfront and
sell your advertising and then those numbers flip back and forth,
(13:57):
you may not have any more ad space to sell.
You can't fill your aus. It's a huge problem. And
so I think having optionality and our numbers we don't
promise are bigger because sometimes they're not bigger than Nielsen's.
We just have a different methodology that we use. And
like for the NFL, though we have our numbers or
twenty two percent higher than Nielsen, So the NFL is thinking, god,
(14:18):
my audience is more popular or than we think it is.
And we're not saying put Nielsen out of business. What
we're saying is you need to have optionality to be
able to compare what you believe. And also I think
just have leverage in the marketplace. If you have one
person that is dominating and with contracts, you don't really
have much leveraging negotiating power. And then I would like
(14:41):
to go back to the out of home thing, because
like with football, coming up. That's thirteen percent or fifteen
percent of football games are watched in bars and restaurants.
Speaker 3 (14:51):
And the out of home.
Speaker 2 (14:53):
Product that we have that's very different than our competitor,
our Legacy, is we are in hundreds of thousands. We
have hundreds of thousands of TVs in bars, and we
use geo targeting or fencing to figure out who's actually there,
and the Legacy partner uses a people meter that relies
on sound, and from the last data that I have,
(15:15):
I think thirteen percent of bars actually even have the
sound on. So if you're missing fifteen percent of an
audience for a live football game, that is pretty big
for brands, and pretty big for the NFL, and pretty
big for the teams, and pretty big for the advertisers
if you're missing. And then the second piece is we're
the clear winner in advanced audiences. And I just have
(15:37):
to say, I don't know why anybody buys on demo
anymore unless you're a toilet paper or a chip company,
because we have the opportunity to buy on advanced audiences,
meaning that you can get much more efficient. And then
you have these infinite pods on like Amazon and Netflix
where you could you could serve the ad to the
right person and get a better outcome.
Speaker 1 (15:56):
You're talking in terms of audience targeting rather than relying
on graphics.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
Yeah, people are still buying P two plus, you know,
or eighteen to forty nine. It's mind boggling to me,
to be honest, that more people don't buy advanceed audiences.
But we are the clear winner with all of our
partners in delivering advanced audiences and outcomes that go with that.
Speaker 1 (16:16):
So what is your relationship or what are your relationships
like with some of these partners, because I think from
what I've read, and you're not trying to replace Nielsen,
it's kind of bringing you guys on as a supplement
to Nielsen an option. So you know, what are those
conversations that you have with these companies. What do you
guys talk about in terms of what can bring to
the table and how you guys can be used as
(16:38):
another option.
Speaker 2 (16:39):
One is the advanced audiences for sure, is that we
can help you target to people and efficiently spend your
dollars to get the outcomes you want.
Speaker 3 (16:46):
That's the big one.
Speaker 2 (16:47):
I think the other one is a clear we call
it valid, but our identity spine.
Speaker 3 (16:51):
So first party data is like.
Speaker 2 (16:53):
King in right now right, and there's all these wall
of gardens that are grading their own homework. We've broken
through those walkgard gardens because people trust us with their data.
And also I think advertisers are asking now for not
a third party to at least validate those numbers that
are coming from first party data.
Speaker 3 (17:10):
But what people want.
Speaker 2 (17:11):
To do is figure out how to use their first
party data, so they have tons of it.
Speaker 3 (17:14):
Right.
Speaker 2 (17:15):
So if we had a partner when they're a large
television provider, and they gave us their first party data,
and you know if without using o ID spine, they
had a thirty four percent match rate, meaning once it
went through and went out to the internet and tried
to find those people in a privacy complainant way, it
(17:35):
only actually reached thirty four percent of them. In through
our clean room with our sex identity spines, we reached
we got them up to ninety percent. So one of
the things is we're actually going to help you reach
the people and not waste money. So I say a
lot of things is waste less, sell more. Or even
when I went down to St. Jude's nonprofit helping kids,
I said, waste less, save more kids. And I think
(17:58):
with everything on the line right now, the better matching
you can get, the better outcomes. And that's what we
provide with our high fidelity and we're you know, our
promise is to provide transparency with don't think other people
do by transparency, be a great client partner, very transparent
that help automate the system and make your life easier.
(18:19):
We have APIs that people can work directly with. We
have a lot of people in our planner, so it's
a one stop shop for media buyer. So it's make
your life a hell of a lot easier. We can
just better calculate what that audience is and hopefully drive
larger sales or larger people showing up at the movie theater.
Speaker 1 (18:39):
People love to complain about Nielsen, but what is your
sense of really the appetite in the marketplace for bringing
a new currency to the table in this industry that
has been so entrenched in this one standard for so long.
Speaker 3 (18:52):
This is what baffles me a lot.
Speaker 2 (18:55):
And as a marketer, I'm trying to help people understand
that change is heart. That's the one one of the reasons,
and I think people are afraid to be honest with you,
I think they're afraid to rock to brod. I think
a lot of these people have five year contracts, so
they think they don't have any more money and they're
kind of locked in. But what we try to help
(19:15):
people understand is even if you actually could take a
very small amount it and we're our models different, we
don't have a flat fee, were based on usage, so
in the end you're going to get more return on
your money. But I think that people there's a lot
of people out there that are still four years from
retirement or like and I'm just going to not rock
(19:35):
the boat, or everything's going crazy in all the mergers, etc.
Speaker 3 (19:40):
That this just adds another what they think is a
piece of complexity. Change is hard, but it's worth it.
Speaker 2 (19:48):
And that's what I'm trying to prove or help prove,
is that it is absolutely worth it. One for your
job and two for this industry. We have to save shows,
and in order to do that, advertising is the thing
that keeps this boat moving. I have a speech I
give where I say advertising is going to save the world,
and part of it is I've worked at the places
(20:09):
that we're trying to destroy it.
Speaker 3 (20:11):
I worked at HBO with no advertising. I worked at
Netflix no advertising.
Speaker 2 (20:15):
But what everyone realized once they got into the game
and Netflix also is that subscriber fees are not going
to keep it alive.
Speaker 3 (20:24):
There's just no way.
Speaker 2 (20:25):
And so you see, like even when I was at Hulu,
we had a paid, an ad free tier, and a
AD tier, and the ARPU is higher on the AD tier,
so meaning you get subscription fees and you got advertising fees,
and so you know, you see some people pushing people
into the paid things, like even Amazon flipped the switch
and you had to opt opt out to get ads,
(20:48):
so they're there. We're realizing that advertising is this thing
that keeps it going. And if we get advertising right,
and also if we get CTV right where we're not,
people are buying Reach and free Quincy still, which is
not bad, but in certain instances, as you know, you
probably watch CTV and you're like, if they show me
that ad one more time, I am going to like
(21:11):
throw something at the TV. And what people don't understand
is that they're reaching their frequency numbers, but it's to
the same person like thirty times and guess what that's
brand damaging. So it's like we have to get advertising right,
we have to get the frequency right, we have to
get targeting right, and we have to deliver on the
promises that we said. And I think everybody's just caught
up in the middle between advertisers and media, buyers and sellers.
Speaker 3 (21:34):
And there is a better way, and there is a
simpler way.
Speaker 2 (21:37):
And I think bottom line is your life can be
much easier if if.
Speaker 3 (21:42):
You just put a little work into it. And it's
not really that much tech work.
Speaker 2 (21:46):
I think a lot of people think that they have
to integrate new systems and it's not.
Speaker 1 (21:50):
My final question is how do you envision or what
are your hopes for the industry, you know, realistically kind
of embracing these alternative currencies and being more willing to
rock the boat, as you say.
Speaker 2 (22:02):
My hope in the end is that we all hold
hands together and realize that the customer needs a good experience.
The customer also wants to get ads that actually pertain
to them. That's what the brands want. They don't want
us to sell something to somebody that doesn't need that.
My goal is I hope cmos keep their job longer
(22:24):
than three years because they're able to look like revenue
generators and show they actually do increase sales, and then
also that people don't just rely on mmms. You know,
I can't believe it's still around. It's a fine tool,
a media mixed model. A lot of people can't afford it,
and they can only do it once or twice a year.
And it's backwards looking, so you should be planning for
(22:45):
your future, not on backwards information that's probably seasonal. So
you should be able to be and we have real
time attribution data, you should be able to pivot pretty
quickly and easily in an API environment as we get
closer to AI your media to optimize it in real time.
My end goal would be to get marketers smarter and
(23:05):
marketers like a lethal weapon, to be honest in the
C suite, to be able to justify what we do.
Speaker 1 (23:12):
It's a long road ahead, I'm sure, but it sounds
like let's have a good, good plan of attack. I
want to thank you again for joining us today and
thanks for great conversation.
Speaker 3 (23:22):
Thank you, Tyler, I really appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (23:24):
Thanks for listening. Please leave a review at the podcast
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Speaker 1 (23:31):
Please go to Variety dot com and sign up for
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Speaker 2 (23:37):
Tune in next week for another episode of Strictly Business.
Welcome to Strictly Business Varieties, weekly podcast featuring conversations with
industry leaders about the business of media and entertainment. I'm
Tyler Aquallina with Luminated Intelligence formerly known as Variety Intelligence Platform.
If you followed the TV industry in recent years, you
know that there's been more and more controversy over the
Nielsen ratings system that has long measured TV viewership in
the US. With the rise of streaming, a handful of
(00:27):
companies have begun to challenge Nielsen's dominance of TV ratings
and their use in programming and advertising decisions. One of
those companies is video Amp, which leverages first party data
to measure audiences across platforms. My guest today is Jenny Wall,
video AM's chief marketing officer, who's leading the charge for
adoption of antocurrency. Jenny comes from a long and storied
background in the TV business. She was part of the
(00:48):
team that coined It's not TV, It's HBO back in
the nineties, and later helped both Netflix and Hulu roll
out their slates of premium original content. We talked about
both what it takes to bring audiences to shows and
what it takes to measure those audiences in our complex
era of TV. Jenny Wall, Welcome to Strictly Business. It's
great to have you. Thank you here. So obviously there's
(01:08):
a lot to talk about with video amp and the
landscape of TV measurement right now we're having this conversation
in the midst of yet another controversy over that. But
first I wanted to talk about your background a little bit,
just because you've had a front row seat to so
many of the biggest, you know, transformations in the TV
(01:32):
landscape over the last couple of decades. You came from
marketing at HBO when it was launching its first original series,
same thing at Netflix when it was launching its slate
of originals, and then the same thing again at Hulu.
So I'm curious how have those experiences shaped your perspective
on the business and your approach to what you do.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
I'd like to first say that I've just been super
lucky by chance to be at all those places during
the disruption, and also being able to help the those
brands and to what they what they stand for now,
and being able to launch shows that actually helped the
identity was just just an incredible experience for me. So
(02:11):
I think I've always believed, you know, that that TV
can change the world, and that you know, emotionally connecting
people is is really really important. And I think being
able to be at HBO and just trying to find
at each place what is the thing that makes it
different and why is it worth your time and how
(02:33):
will this change your life? So, for example, at HBO,
I think you know, it's not TV. At HBO was
really born out of that. It was everything TV was not.
It did not have commercials, you could swear you know,
you could show sex on TV, and they were just different.
So I think being able to utilize that tagline that
says so much and so little is this that it's
(02:56):
it's not what your regular television is, it's something better.
And I think just also just having incredible shows to
work with and incredible material, and then also having creators
that are very willing to work with you in all
the places that I've been has been really incredible, and
I think they all just connect authentically with the audiences
(03:17):
there the choices that were made, and I would say
at Netflix again, we had to prove that this new
behavior of dropping everything at once also streaming was worth
your time and so leaning into those behaviors with like
being lucky enough to launch House of Cards with David
Fincher and being able to prove that you might binge
(03:40):
it all at once, but we can also help you
find additional shows that you will love, and that model worked.
We used a lot of the new behaviors like binging,
watching ahead in all of our campaigns, So not only
were we launching the shows, we were launching the new
behavior to show how this could fit into your life.
(04:02):
And then at Hulu, you know, we had to also
show why are we different and we're not trying to
replace Netflix, but why you should also add us because
we're an incredible supplement to it because you could get
shows next day. And then also our original programming, like
I was lucky enough to work on Handmaid's Tale and
(04:22):
that just dropped at a very cultural moment with the
twenty sixteen election, and being able to you know, relate
sometimes on a bad way, but really catch the cultural
zeitdeist of what was going on, and having those women
walk around, you know, at south By Southwest and the
red robes and the bonnets not speaking to anyone. Actually,
(04:44):
there was a headline that said, Hulu is scaring the
shit out of people here, and so it's again it's
just eliciting and emotion and connection and a relatability in
some way, and then also just things like we have
all seasons of Seinfeld. We're there just always trying to
find what is different and why people should care. So
I think that's what I've learned on those being at
(05:07):
those places, you know, is.
Speaker 1 (05:09):
That that differentiation, it sounds like, is really what's the
key in terms of establishing a network or a streamer
as a viewing destination. Is that right?
Speaker 3 (05:18):
Yeah? I think it is.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
And I'll just use another Netflix example, like the watching
a head one. We listened to our consumers. That's the
other thing is a brand is not what you say
it is, it's what they say it is. And so
if you see a behavior like Netflix was watching ahead,
and so we did a whole commercial about lie to
your partner that you didn't watch ahead, but it was
all there for you, so you kind of people were lying,
(05:39):
And so we coined this term Netflix adultery, and we
actually interviewed like a couple thousand people and asked them
if they've ever cheated on their partner or friend and
it was like fifty six percent that people had and
then we were able to get Brian Williams on MSNBC
to read it as if it was a true stat
So again it's like having not taking yourself too seriously
(06:01):
as well, but also just listening to your consumer Handmais
Tell is another great example. People were terrified, and so
we were going to market that one way, and then
with women's rights and LGBTQ rights, et cetera, a little
bit more at stake. I'll say during that time we
really leaned into that and that's again why we put
those women out there to scare the shit out of people,
to say that this could be real. Yeah, I think
(06:23):
it's just connecting on those levels of behavior and sort
of an emotional feeling.
Speaker 1 (06:27):
I'm also curious about kind of the art of turning
a good show into a hit show. You know, how
how has that process changed as the TV landscape has
really expanded and become more and more crowded.
Speaker 2 (06:40):
Well, the sad thing is is there's so many good
shows now, so to make a hit again, I think
it's just even more important that you have to break
through that zeitgeist, especially with the event of social and
influencers like Hunting Wives is a great example. I didn't
work on that, but that was the soapiest, bingeable sh
show that I think was living on a different network
(07:03):
and they actually brought it over to Netflix and it
was a huge hit. But basically as people were talking
about it and it had sort of the red blue,
it had.
Speaker 3 (07:13):
Just had all the right ingredients.
Speaker 2 (07:14):
So I do think that just marketing alone, like spending
money on marketing, doesn't work anymore. You really have to
figure out how do I get the right people to
talk about this, And so I think that's what's changed
to make something hit is to get the right people
and the right momentum and catch that wave to make
it actually spread. And the great thing about streaming is
(07:36):
that you can watch it three weeks later, so that
can continue to just move on. So you're hopefully happy,
lucky enough to grab that wave.
Speaker 1 (07:45):
I think that's a good transition into talking about your
work at video Amp. You've kind of moved from this
business of bringing audiences to these shows to measuring the
audiences for those shows, and you know the content out there,
and how did you end up taking that path?
Speaker 2 (08:01):
Oh, I'm always looking for new things to do or disrupt,
and even I know we didn't talk about my time
at Gimlet, but I did decide to take a podcasting
the CMO job because I didn't understand the EAR and
I understood the I, but I was like, why is
the ear so like less expensive and less important? And
I was lucky enough again to work with advertisers to
(08:23):
create podcasts, to actually tie a podcast like with ancestry
dot com, or to work with networks to do I
always would say, like, why are you leaving your consumer
when they go in the car, Like if they're watching
a TV show, why don't you follow them in the
car so you can keep engagement up. So always going somewhere,
I think that I'm learning and for this next, you
(08:44):
know I did. I spent the last three years prior
to this as CMO of Nickelodeon and then my boss
from HBO days. Actually he's still to this day, and
I love him for saying that Jenny and I came
up with it's not TV, it's HBO, but I didn't
come up with it by.
Speaker 3 (09:00):
The way he did. But he still says that we
did it together, which I love.
Speaker 1 (09:05):
That's a refreshing moment of sharing credit in this industry exactly.
Speaker 2 (09:09):
But he was my boss when I was in my
twenties and very pivotal, and he was on the board
of this company, and he's a marketer at heart. And
I've always been just really upset that cmos get fired
every three years because they can't necessarily justify their spend
(09:29):
very well, and that I think measurement is broken. I
think that we should not have a monopoly. No other
country has a monopoly. You would never put all your
stock in one stock like we need diversification, we need optionality.
And so I was coming in to disrupt to say
(09:49):
there should be another source of truth because I think
that everything is getting misrepresented and it's by one person.
I also think that we waste forty percent of our
dollars still, and I want to help cmos keep their
job and I want to help people be able to
talk with their CFO about cross channel measurement. And I
(10:10):
spend this money and I have an outcome, whether it's
a sale or subscription or visit to a website, I
actually can show that cross these channels that I actually
created a sale. And I want to help marketers and
marketing departments look like revenue generators, not cost centers, and
they're mostly seen as cost centers. So he asked me
(10:33):
to come over here, and I was like, let's do
it so and we want to sort of like take
on the man to be honest David and Goliath story.
I love that type of thing of being able to
show that I think there's a better way.
Speaker 1 (10:46):
You've been alluding a lot to the Nielsen ratings and
the dominance they've had over the TV measurement space for
most of the history of TV in the United States. Really,
I think people may know the name of video Amp
if they've been reading about these Nielsen alternatives that have
been emerging. But makes you guys different in terms of
what you do well.
Speaker 2 (11:07):
First and foremost, we've been doing big data for or
ten years, and as Peter likes to say, they're in
their rookie season with big data, so this is their
first year. Actually they're doing big data plus panel and
as we've seen, there's been a lot If you looked
at the Wall Street Journal NFL story yesterday where the
NFL thinks they're being undercounted and our numbers do show
(11:28):
higher numbers per NFL, but that's because our numbers are
higher fidelity. We use a much bigger base. So we
have forty million homes, sixty five million devices. They were
measuring everything off of a forty two thousand panel home.
Now they've brought in big data on top of that,
but those are still weighted. You should ask Nielsen how
(11:49):
they wait those numbers, because I don't know exactly.
Speaker 1 (11:51):
Just to clarify quickly, So big data, that's first party
data coming from companies like Roku and comcasts that are
actually carrying this content.
Speaker 2 (12:02):
Yes, it's all of that, and it's all the way
down to like we work with cap to fy to
look at search intent, we work with you know, Circona
to look at food traffic. So it's just springing in
tons of data. And now that you're talking data, also,
we have the only patented clean room, which has six
different identity providers, which provides an identity spine that it
gets about a ninety percent match rate of when you bring.
Speaker 3 (12:25):
That first party data.
Speaker 2 (12:26):
So we do have first party data that we bring
in from all the publishers and they trust us with
that data because of our patented clean room, which no
one else has.
Speaker 1 (12:34):
Now you've touched on this a little bit, but you know,
can you expand on why is there this need in
the industry from your perspective for these new viewership currencies
and kind of a new way of looking at these audiences.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
I'm going to just go all the way down to
the consumer. There's going to be less shows because shows
are going to get canceled. Quilbeer got canceled, they said
because it costs too much. Well, when we did our
analysis that I can send over to you, we showed
that our ratings were significantly higher in twenty five to
fifty four, and if you model that with advertising, the
show wouldn't have lost money. So we did the same
(13:11):
thing for Fox News. So I had a liberal and
a conservative side, and we showed higher numbers for Fox News.
I in the end, think there's going to be less
choice for consumers. I think some of the volatility that's
going on with the numbers right now is it might
put the long tails out of business, so we might
not have the hallmarks and the A and e's of
the world, and that really, as a consumer and a
(13:31):
lover of entertainment.
Speaker 3 (13:33):
Really really scares me.
Speaker 2 (13:36):
So I think in the next year we could see
a big change if we don't get the numbers right.
Because right now, as you've seen in the press, the
numbers with Nielsen and big data and panel extremely volatile.
So when you're trying to plan on an upfront and
sell your advertising and then those numbers flip back and forth,
(13:57):
you may not have any more ad space to sell.
You can't fill your aus. It's a huge problem. And
so I think having optionality and our numbers we don't
promise are bigger because sometimes they're not bigger than Nielsen's.
We just have a different methodology that we use. And
like for the NFL, though we have our numbers or
twenty two percent higher than Nielsen, So the NFL is thinking, god,
(14:18):
my audience is more popular or than we think it is.
And we're not saying put Nielsen out of business. What
we're saying is you need to have optionality to be
able to compare what you believe. And also I think
just have leverage in the marketplace. If you have one
person that is dominating and with contracts, you don't really
have much leveraging negotiating power. And then I would like
(14:41):
to go back to the out of home thing, because
like with football, coming up. That's thirteen percent or fifteen
percent of football games are watched in bars and restaurants.
Speaker 3 (14:51):
And the out of home.
Speaker 2 (14:53):
Product that we have that's very different than our competitor,
our Legacy, is we are in hundreds of thousands. We
have hundreds of thousands of TVs in bars, and we
use geo targeting or fencing to figure out who's actually there,
and the Legacy partner uses a people meter that relies
on sound, and from the last data that I have,
(15:15):
I think thirteen percent of bars actually even have the
sound on. So if you're missing fifteen percent of an
audience for a live football game, that is pretty big
for brands, and pretty big for the NFL, and pretty
big for the teams, and pretty big for the advertisers
if you're missing. And then the second piece is we're
the clear winner in advanced audiences. And I just have
(15:37):
to say, I don't know why anybody buys on demo
anymore unless you're a toilet paper or a chip company,
because we have the opportunity to buy on advanced audiences,
meaning that you can get much more efficient. And then
you have these infinite pods on like Amazon and Netflix
where you could you could serve the ad to the
right person and get a better outcome.
Speaker 1 (15:56):
You're talking in terms of audience targeting rather than relying
on graphics.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
Yeah, people are still buying P two plus, you know,
or eighteen to forty nine. It's mind boggling to me,
to be honest, that more people don't buy advanceed audiences.
But we are the clear winner with all of our
partners in delivering advanced audiences and outcomes that go with that.
Speaker 1 (16:16):
So what is your relationship or what are your relationships
like with some of these partners, because I think from
what I've read, and you're not trying to replace Nielsen,
it's kind of bringing you guys on as a supplement
to Nielsen an option. So you know, what are those
conversations that you have with these companies. What do you
guys talk about in terms of what can bring to
the table and how you guys can be used as
(16:38):
another option.
Speaker 2 (16:39):
One is the advanced audiences for sure, is that we
can help you target to people and efficiently spend your
dollars to get the outcomes you want.
Speaker 3 (16:46):
That's the big one.
Speaker 2 (16:47):
I think the other one is a clear we call
it valid, but our identity spine.
Speaker 3 (16:51):
So first party data is like.
Speaker 2 (16:53):
King in right now right, and there's all these wall
of gardens that are grading their own homework. We've broken
through those walkgard gardens because people trust us with their data.
And also I think advertisers are asking now for not
a third party to at least validate those numbers that
are coming from first party data.
Speaker 3 (17:10):
But what people want.
Speaker 2 (17:11):
To do is figure out how to use their first
party data, so they have tons of it.
Speaker 3 (17:14):
Right.
Speaker 2 (17:15):
So if we had a partner when they're a large
television provider, and they gave us their first party data,
and you know if without using o ID spine, they
had a thirty four percent match rate, meaning once it
went through and went out to the internet and tried
to find those people in a privacy complainant way, it
(17:35):
only actually reached thirty four percent of them. In through
our clean room with our sex identity spines, we reached
we got them up to ninety percent. So one of
the things is we're actually going to help you reach
the people and not waste money. So I say a
lot of things is waste less, sell more. Or even
when I went down to St. Jude's nonprofit helping kids,
I said, waste less, save more kids. And I think
(17:58):
with everything on the line right now, the better matching
you can get, the better outcomes. And that's what we
provide with our high fidelity and we're you know, our
promise is to provide transparency with don't think other people
do by transparency, be a great client partner, very transparent
that help automate the system and make your life easier.
(18:19):
We have APIs that people can work directly with. We
have a lot of people in our planner, so it's
a one stop shop for media buyer. So it's make
your life a hell of a lot easier. We can
just better calculate what that audience is and hopefully drive
larger sales or larger people showing up at the movie theater.
Speaker 1 (18:39):
People love to complain about Nielsen, but what is your
sense of really the appetite in the marketplace for bringing
a new currency to the table in this industry that
has been so entrenched in this one standard for so long.
Speaker 3 (18:52):
This is what baffles me a lot.
Speaker 2 (18:55):
And as a marketer, I'm trying to help people understand
that change is heart. That's the one one of the reasons,
and I think people are afraid to be honest with you,
I think they're afraid to rock to brod. I think
a lot of these people have five year contracts, so
they think they don't have any more money and they're
kind of locked in. But what we try to help
(19:15):
people understand is even if you actually could take a
very small amount it and we're our models different, we
don't have a flat fee, were based on usage, so
in the end you're going to get more return on
your money. But I think that people there's a lot
of people out there that are still four years from
retirement or like and I'm just going to not rock
(19:35):
the boat, or everything's going crazy in all the mergers, etc.
Speaker 3 (19:40):
That this just adds another what they think is a
piece of complexity. Change is hard, but it's worth it.
Speaker 2 (19:48):
And that's what I'm trying to prove or help prove,
is that it is absolutely worth it. One for your
job and two for this industry. We have to save shows,
and in order to do that, advertising is the thing
that keeps this boat moving. I have a speech I
give where I say advertising is going to save the world,
and part of it is I've worked at the places
(20:09):
that we're trying to destroy it.
Speaker 3 (20:11):
I worked at HBO with no advertising. I worked at
Netflix no advertising.
Speaker 2 (20:15):
But what everyone realized once they got into the game
and Netflix also is that subscriber fees are not going
to keep it alive.
Speaker 3 (20:24):
There's just no way.
Speaker 2 (20:25):
And so you see, like even when I was at Hulu,
we had a paid, an ad free tier, and a
AD tier, and the ARPU is higher on the AD tier,
so meaning you get subscription fees and you got advertising fees,
and so you know, you see some people pushing people
into the paid things, like even Amazon flipped the switch
and you had to opt opt out to get ads,
(20:48):
so they're there. We're realizing that advertising is this thing
that keeps it going. And if we get advertising right,
and also if we get CTV right where we're not,
people are buying Reach and free Quincy still, which is
not bad, but in certain instances, as you know, you
probably watch CTV and you're like, if they show me
that ad one more time, I am going to like
(21:11):
throw something at the TV. And what people don't understand
is that they're reaching their frequency numbers, but it's to
the same person like thirty times and guess what that's
brand damaging. So it's like we have to get advertising right,
we have to get the frequency right, we have to
get targeting right, and we have to deliver on the
promises that we said. And I think everybody's just caught
up in the middle between advertisers and media, buyers and sellers.
Speaker 3 (21:34):
And there is a better way, and there is a
simpler way.
Speaker 2 (21:37):
And I think bottom line is your life can be
much easier if if.
Speaker 3 (21:42):
You just put a little work into it. And it's
not really that much tech work.
Speaker 2 (21:46):
I think a lot of people think that they have
to integrate new systems and it's not.
Speaker 1 (21:50):
My final question is how do you envision or what
are your hopes for the industry, you know, realistically kind
of embracing these alternative currencies and being more willing to
rock the boat, as you say.
Speaker 2 (22:02):
My hope in the end is that we all hold
hands together and realize that the customer needs a good experience.
The customer also wants to get ads that actually pertain
to them. That's what the brands want. They don't want
us to sell something to somebody that doesn't need that.
My goal is I hope cmos keep their job longer
(22:24):
than three years because they're able to look like revenue
generators and show they actually do increase sales, and then
also that people don't just rely on mmms. You know,
I can't believe it's still around. It's a fine tool,
a media mixed model. A lot of people can't afford it,
and they can only do it once or twice a year.
And it's backwards looking, so you should be planning for
(22:45):
your future, not on backwards information that's probably seasonal. So
you should be able to be and we have real
time attribution data, you should be able to pivot pretty
quickly and easily in an API environment as we get
closer to AI your media to optimize it in real time.
My end goal would be to get marketers smarter and
(23:05):
marketers like a lethal weapon, to be honest in the
C suite, to be able to justify what we do.
Speaker 1 (23:12):
It's a long road ahead, I'm sure, but it sounds
like let's have a good, good plan of attack. I
want to thank you again for joining us today and
thanks for great conversation.
Speaker 3 (23:22):
Thank you, Tyler, I really appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (23:24):
Thanks for listening. Please leave a review at the podcast
platform of your choice. We love to hear from listeners.
Speaker 1 (23:31):
Please go to Variety dot com and sign up for
the free weekly Strictly Business newsletter, and don't forget to
Speaker 2 (23:37):
Tune in next week for another episode of Strictly Business.
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