NewsBeat

August 2016 NewsBeat 17 PHOTO OF AN OLD DATSUN AD BY JOHN LLOYD USED UNDER A CREATIVE COMMONS LICENSE. platform and mobile video advertising, which didn't really own any of its content. I think what you're seeing in a lot of the ad tech companies out there is that, if you don't own your content, it's going to be very, very hard to win brands over in this new age of branded advertising, because you don't control it. That's where you're going to see a big push from media companies to really start winning back the brands, and owning their content and curating it, and putting brands in that experience. The one thing that has been difficult for marketers, and it's a fault of everyone in the industry, is mobile. I've worked in mobile since 2007. I was at the pioneering mobile video company since 2008. During that period of time, there were very few companies that were talking about mobile advertising, the audience, the engagement that was there, whether that was video or rich media, full- screen experiences. Only in the last three years has it been this dominant feature. You had maybe a handful of companies that were doing it prior to 2012, and now everyone says they can do it. But desktop has standards — there's the IAB and the MRC. In mobile, there's really no standardization. Everyone says they can do video, but they're not defining what video is. I think where things are trending is the mobile platform. But I think desktop is still that much more powerful. And when you're talking about targeting and reaching that unique viewer from desktop to mobile and then, perhaps, in the future, over the top and connected TV? The media companies will have that first-party data. That's where the power lends itself. Video's the same way. We're really building out our coverage. Internally and externally, we're being very proactive in discussions about ad blocking. (Continued on following page)

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