Canadian Ad Insider

[00:00:00] Dave Forde: Lights camera action. I'm your boy, Dave Ford, the connected one. We are here for another rundown. Another edition, another look back at the 2022 upfront new front season. And today we have with us in the hot seat, Jennifer Young, who is a Director of Media Buying at M&K Media. She's gonna help share her thoughts, her impressions.

And really talk about what happened over the last couple of weeks, Jennifer, how you doing?

[00:00:32] Jennifer Young: Good. I'm great. How are you?

[00:00:34] Dave Forde: You know what. Life could not be better this whole, last couple of years. And every negative thing that it brought is all in the rear view, the sun is shining. We're gonna have some hot conversations was a great discussion here, so let's get right into it.

But before we go too deep, Jennifer. Yeah. Give us a little context, little background. What is your role at M&K Media? Explain it for the people.

[00:00:54] Jennifer Young: No problem. I am head of M&K's buying group. So a big part of my job is [00:01:00] making sure strategies built by our planning team are executed perfectly, and our clients achieve optimal results from high value media within their budget.

So I take, you know, whatever the planners give me, I run with it. All

[00:01:14] Dave Forde: right. So you are definitely a critical asset for the team over there. I now on the entertainment. Yes. What are, what are some of the shows that you really enjoyed last season?

[00:01:26] Jennifer Young: Okay. I love Below Deck Down Under I am. I'm not a huge, real reality person, but I love this franchise.

I watch all the regular Below Deck, Below Deck Mad, Below Deck Sailing. And Below Deck Down Under was a great addition. I love the cast and I personally get sea sick easily. I got sea sick on a huge cruise ship. So I'm fascinated that they live on this yacht season and have to deal with ridiculous charter guests. So I love.

[00:01:52] Dave Forde: Alright. So we just got a, a sneak peek at new shows that are come up the fall. What are you looking forward to this

[00:01:58] Jennifer Young: The Resort [00:02:00] it's from the creators of Palm Springs and Mr. Robot, which were fantastic series. It's a dramedy about vacationers at a resort in a Mayan Riviera and they encounter unsolved mysteries.

So it sounds similar to a White Lotus, which I loved, but I feel really bad for these vacationers. I'm assuming this is right after COVID and they're so excited to go away to beautiful resort. And now they're dealing with mysterious criminal activity. So I'd be seriously bummed if I were them, but it's gonna be really entertaining.

[00:02:29] Dave Forde: Alright. Here we go. So, alright. It's around lunchtime that we're having this conversation right now. So if you could have a meal with one celebrity, who would it be?

[00:02:39] Jennifer Young: Jeremy Strong. He plays Kendall Roy on Succession. And I'm wants us with that show. Love it.

[00:02:45] Dave Forde: Are are you up to date?

[00:02:46] Jennifer Young: Yes, a hundred percent.

So I'd love to hear his perspective on his character firsthand. Yeah, he's an incredible actor and I, he seems very intelligent. So I think it'd be really interesting.

[00:02:56] Dave Forde: Alright. So coming out of the upfronts, are there [00:03:00] any trends that really sort of popped for you that you really, you noticed this year?

[00:03:04] Jennifer Young: Absolutely. There are lot, there's lots of exciting information coming out of the upfronts. Innovation was a huge theme of these presentations. The broadcasters are now able to layer their first party data with advertiser zone data in order order to really hone in on the audience. And since it's first party data to the broadcasters and advertisers.

Broadcasters aren't using third party cookies anymore. So they're making sure they're what Roger's called future proof or compliant with upcoming regulations and the broadcasters plan on making these tools self-service which will allow advertisers to take direct control of targeting methods, which as a control freak, I really appreciate.

Another theme was the strength of omnichannel campaigns. Linear is very strong. Corus mentioned 78% of TV viewing is linear. But linear can only get you so far. So the broadcasters discussed how layering on streaming [00:04:00] digital, and even digital audio to linear buys can significantly extend the reach of a campaign.

And if advertisers have the budget, I agree. This is the strategy they should employ. And of course, content is always a theme at these fronts, right? Corus is launching Pluto TV. This fall. It's an AVOD out of the us. And it has, I believe over 20,000 hours of content TOB, which is Roger's AVOD asset. They have 14 original productions being launched this year, which is pretty exciting.

And we saw many new shows introduced, especially on CORUS Specialty channels and Bell CTV network. I saw the number of us shows was somewhat limited. So it appear the broadcasters cherry picked the most compelling ones and we saw lots of drama type shows, and I think we'll be seeing a lot more content on the streaming side, as well as the year progresses.

[00:04:55] Dave Forde: Interesting. So M&K Media you guys have been around for, I believe this this year will be your [00:05:00] 21st anniversary. So congratulations to you and the team for, for all the accomplishments over the years, coming out of the upfront / new front season, are there any channels or platforms that your team are really excited about this year?

[00:05:12] Jennifer Young: Absolutely definitely streaming on the bigger small screen streaming is a very effective method of extending reach to linear buy, and we all know that building incremental reach can be a challenge and streaming effectively increases brain awareness. Plus digital streaming reaches viewers outside the home, and it could be applied to multiple parts of the funnel.

And these first party data services that are coming out directly applied to streaming. So this allows us to hone in on our target audience, and now we can more easily refine targeting tactics and build on the results. Plus there are more ad supported streaming options in Canada than ever before. So advertisers have the opportunity to test and learn with various services to really understand what will work best for a particular client [00:06:00] and streaming services are continually adding new programming.

So there's increasingly a lot more content to utilize there.

[00:06:06] Dave Forde: You talked a lot about measurement. Is there something different that's happening this year compared to prior years that makes this such a hot topic?

[00:06:13] Jennifer Young: Well, broadcasters are now able to layer their first party data with advertisers on data in order to really reach the target audience, which is extremely advantageous.

To advertisers. And by using this first party data, it circumvents the real need for third party data. So it's compliant with the cookie-less world, which is now more prevalent than ever. And broadcasters are collaborating to join, to develop joint reporting on key metrics, such as reaching frequency, impressions, and GRPs.

Although I'm not sure how far these collaborations will go since they are all direct competitors, but it's definitely beneficial as a buyer. And I'm looking forward to seeing how these innovations will evolve over the next year or several years. I think it's a really exciting time to be in media.

[00:06:58] Dave Forde: Alright. There seems to be more [00:07:00] and more of almost a divide between traditional broadcasters and streaming services. Can you talk a little bit about that?

[00:07:08] Jennifer Young: Yeah, sure. I think when streaming first surfaced, it was predominantly SVOD such as Netflix and Amazon prime and not owned by the broadcasters.

So initially streaming was to their detriment, but we've noticed over the past several years, AVOD has significantly grown and viewers have been very receptive to it. In fact, Rogers mentions only about 3% of streamers in Canada, exclusively access SVOD. So the broadcasters are playing a significant part of this increase in AVOD services.

So they've really flipped the table and now it's become a growing piece of their revenue model. So as we've seen in the past, several upfronts, broadcasters are investing heavily in refining their streaming services to make them essential tools for advertisers.

[00:07:54] Dave Forde: Now speaking of Netflix, they're going through a lot of changes for the first time.

In what I believe is [00:08:00] 10 years, they had a negative quarter where they were losing and subscribers I believe they also announced that they're now adding an ad supported level tier. What impact do you think this will have on number one, Netflix. And then number two, the industry overall.

[00:08:14] Jennifer Young: Well, yeah, it has definitely affected Netflix's revenue.

And, Disney Plus already announced we'll be introducing ads and other major USL platforms are following suits. And of course this will spill down or I should say up to Canada. AVOD is definitely on the rise. So Netflix is taking advantage of this, and I think just the streaming environment as a whole is going to shift toward AVOD away from SVOD much like linear TV.

[00:08:41] Dave Forde: Right now, this is not your first upfront. You've been doing it for a couple of years now. But at the same time, this year was quite different with four broadcasters presenting upfront, but only one had an in-person. What do you see as the future future trends as far as upfronts?

[00:08:57] Jennifer Young: Yeah, it's interesting. I think like the emergence of the [00:09:00] hybrid work home office model. It appears that broadcasters are applying this as well. And from my perspective, I like this hybrid model. Cause you get the virtual upfronts, they're less time consuming. You can pause or take notes and rewatch and really focus on the content.

But you know, live upfronts. We all love the added fanfare and discussing the upfront over drinks with other people in the industry and seeing some labs. So a mix to me is the best of both world. But I think the focus on these fronts will be technology and innovation over the next several years. As we continue to move toward developing addressable TV.

[00:09:41] Dave Forde: There you have it boys and girls, the one and the only Jennifer Young from M&K Media sharing her thoughts. Jennifer, appreciate your time today.

[00:09:46] Jennifer Young: Thank you so much. Thanks for having me.