How WarnerMedia became a leader in TV advertising

I. FINDING THE RIGHT AUDIENCE

TV has long been beloved by marketers for its mass reach. While that works for some products (think, ketchup) it’s not the right solution once the target audience narrows (think, a hybrid cloud data storage solution).

This is where Xandr comes in.

Named for the de facto founder of AT&T, Alexander Graham Bell, it’s a collective of media, tech, and data experts charged with developing a data-driven marketplace comprising traditional TV, addressable TV, digital inventory, and OTT.

The ultimate goal: Combine the reach of TV with the precision targeting and personalized creative of digital.

“Television is still the most powerful medium for marketers,” says Donna Speciale, president of WarnerMedia Ad Sales. “With the advent of new data-driven methods to reach audiences on TV, there is now an even smarter way for advertisers to get their message to the right audiences and drive elevated business results.”

It starts with understanding who’s watching what, when, and where. AT&T’s vast data pool, paired with Xandr’s analytics, will help WarnerMedia deliver on this promise to narrow down audiences for particular advertisers.

For example, Volkswagen worked with WarnerMedia on a recent campaign for Atlas, its midsize family SUV.

In the past, a conversation around buying ads on television would’ve started and ended at what demo the client wanted to reach: men or women, aged 18-49, etc. Using WarnerMedia’s audience solutions – now bolstered by Xandr’s insights from AT&T’s 170 million consumer relationships – Volkswagen set a more targeted campaign goal to reach people in the market for a new vehicle and, even more specifically, those who’ve shown interest in SUVs. The result was a 6.5% increase in dealership visits. And thanks to Xandr’s enhanced insights, they came in a matter of weeks instead of months.

II. REEXAMINING TV’S ROLE

When evaluating TV advertising, “attribution” has been a dirty word. Television is fundamentally different from digital, which up until recently has been able to more easily connect ad exposure to consumer actions and, some would say, has taken outsized credit for its effect on moving consumers through the marketing funnel.

But WarnerMedia is embracing the challenge of not only tying its television campaigns directly to advertiser results, but also doubling down on using those attributable insights to inform and optimize future campaigns.

There’s plenty of nuance in the effort to measure the short-term impact of what has traditionally been used as a mass awareness marketing vehicle.

“Just because we can now measure lower funnel impacts from TV advertising doesn’t mean we should just treat TV as solely a lower funnel vehicle. Every marketer is different – different products, different business goals, and so on – and there’s no one-size-fits-all approach to how to measure,” says Dan Riess, EVP, Ignite, WarnerMedia Ad Sales. “Accurately attributing the impact of television must start with a collaborative discussion with the client to understand realistic short and long-term business goals, as well as having the right mix of premium content, branded opportunities and insights to execute on that strategy.”

The goal isn’t to replicate digital advertising on TV, he says. It’s to optimize TV’s place in the ecosystem and use new data sets and measuring tools to unearth its true potential. WarnerMedia sees itself as uniquely suited for this exercise. Between AT&T’s data pool and cross-channel distribution points ranging from TBS to HBO Now to CNN.com to Bleacher Report’s massive social footprint, WarnerMedia can not only validate every aspect of the funnel, but it can also run campaigns through it top to bottom.