Spend Less, Make More — It’s Time to Trade TV Audiences Like Digital

By Steve Reynolds, President, Imagine Communications

In the realm of advertising, significant technological advancements have revolutionized the way ads are traded and automated.

Today, television advertising can be traded using the same principles as internet advertising, defying conventional notions that these two mediums are vastly different. However, to fully embrace this transformation, a fundamental shift away from ratings is necessary. While this might not be well-received by certain industry stalwarts, it is a crucial step. 

Impressions vs. ratings

Instead, the focus should be on trading TV audiences based on impressions. This entails understanding the viewership demographics, grouping them into specific audience segments, and effectively leveraging those segments.

In the broadcast world, this approach has been proven successful in various global markets, including the UK, Australia, and South Africa. By transitioning from ratings-based trading to audience-based trading, companies have experienced dramatic improvements in their advertising yield, resulting in increased profitability, while substantially lowering their operating costs.

Audience trading success story

One notable example comes from TelevisaUnivision in Mexico — the world’s leading Spanish-language media and content company — with whom we’ve had a fruitful partnership over the past few years as they’ve migrated 400 channels to our Landmark™ Sales ad management platform.

Recently, I had the opportunity to sit down for a conversation with Gregorio Meza, TelevisaUnivision’s Chief Data Officer and Senior Vice President of Ad Tech, and Rodolfo Pous, the company’s Executive Director of Mexico for Content Distribution, to discuss their successful implementation of audience-based trading and the modernization and transformation of their ad sales operations.

You can watch our conversation in its entirety online today.