Canadian Ad Insider

[00:00:00] Dave Forde: Lights camera action. It is the upfront /new front season. You know what that means? Money, money, money. It's the time of the year when the broadcasters digital players and various apps, they put on the show to track media buyers and brands to invest in respective advertising solutions. As part of coverage, we are talking today with Bruce Neve, President of True Media Canada.

He's been around the game for a while. Seen a lot, just made a lot of change. And you've seen the industry grow and grow again. And change again. He's here today to share more insight about what happened over the 2020, 2022 upfront new front presentations, Bruce, how you doing man?

[00:00:37] Bruce Neve: I'm doing well.

Dave, how about yourself?

[00:00:39] Dave Forde: Always good. You know that, so introduce the, introduce yourself to the folks.

[00:00:44] Bruce Neve: Sure. Well, as you said, Bruce Neve, the president of true media in Canada. We are a independent, full service media agency. You know, we, we believe we provide, you know, entrepreneurial spirit and agility and of, a small, [00:01:00] smaller agency, but we've got all that.

The tools and the technology and the data of a larger, hold co. So we've, we've provide, I believe a unique solution in the marketplace for advertisers, especially Canadian advertisers and, uh, challenger brands.

[00:01:14] Dave Forde: So upfronts all about the TV shows. Looking back last year. What were some of your favourite shows of the season?

[00:01:22] Bruce Neve: Well, I'd have to say, although they're not ad supported necessarily. I love Ozark totally hooked on Ozark. I was glad to see that, come, wrap up and I thought the ending was great and okay. Most spoilers not everybody's seen it yet. Okay. All right. And, Squid Games. I mean, that, that was a fun ride.

Unexpected. Um, although I kind of was hoping it would, would've wrapped after one season. I'm not sure how they're gonna follow up with the season. Okay.

[00:01:51] Dave Forde: And now coming up, what are you looking forward to seeing?

[00:01:55] Bruce Neve: Well, I'm a big fan of Hillary Swank. So I hear new show Alaska. I [00:02:00] think's gonna be really good and, uh different.

Okay. And, um East New York looked looked really like a really good ensemble cast. I think from the original producers of NYPD Blue. So going, going way back old school. Yeah. Old school, but looked like a, a great cast and kind of gritty realistic. So looking forward to checking that out as well.

[00:02:24] Dave Forde: Okay. So again, as we look at the upfronts, you know, with COVID, kind of in the rear rear view mirror, we're still in that hybrid model. Some were in person, some were not, what are some of the trends that you notice coming out of this year's upfront?

[00:02:39] Bruce Neve: Well, first of all, I I'd have to give kudos to, to Bell for having a live event.

I mean, couple of thousand people, red carpet celebrities from conventional shows and from the specialty side of things, I think it made them look like a leader. It stood out from the rest of them. I mean, maybe everyone will be back live [00:03:00] next year. They were the only ones live. And I think that the whole industry really fed off that and was a lot of energy.

So I think that was amazing. Okay. I mean the trends, I, I think trends that continued were. All of the networks talking a lot about the data they have, so that they have a deeper understanding beyond demographics of the audiences that their shows delivers. So then I, you know, I think that that's been a welcome trend.

Um, and the other one is the move to having more inventory available for platform based buying, whether it's Sam or Cynch and again, using the data. Which I think is again, is bringing kind of digital, like buying and metrics to the, what, you know, what was, I hate the word linear TV, but to the TV medium.

Right. I think the other trend is just the importance of partnerships for Canadian broadcasters, whether it's, you know, things like partnering, Corus with Peacock Network and bringing in that contact content [00:04:00] are working, bringing Pluto streaming service this fall to Canada. Or, um, Bell Media with their new partnership with the NFL and they did say they are gonna have a lot more opportunities for advertisers within NFL content broadcast and digital.

I think that's great. Um, what I was pleased to see a bit more of is the last couple years, there's been less talk about the shows and the content. Like I still think it all comes back to the content. The quality of the content has to. The audiences and maintain the audiences, engage the audiences. So I was happy to see a little bit more discussion about the stars and the shows and the producers and the schedule and not just about data and technology.

[00:04:48] Dave Forde: Budgets, the things we love to have, the things we hate to be taken away from, looking back, you know, last year, this year, how, how, or let's start last year. How are you seeing, how do you see the adjustment in client's [00:05:00] budgets?

[00:05:02] Bruce Neve: Well, it's not the same. I mean, every client's different obviously, and, you know, retail clients, you know, had us more of a challenge during the COVID years, especially if they had, you know, bricks and mortar.

Know, if they were closed for certain periods of time or doing curb site pickup. I mean, there was an acceleration by a lot of clients in terms of their own ability to deliver on, you know, eCommerce, curbside pickup, and delivering things. And along with that, there was a reallocation of, of some dollars to digital platforms.

Away from offline. I mean, outdoor and transit obviously suffered the most during COVID. People were streaming more content. So, you know, connected TV, started to accelerate in terms of, of audience delivery, but also the ability to connect with those audiences. So those are some of the, the bigger trends.

I mean, some clients. [00:06:00] Reduced budgets. Most clients or every client wanted more flexibility, cuz it, at certain times they didn't know what the next three months are gonna look like. So, you know, they didn't wanna be locked and loaded for six months or nine months with, without the opportunity to perhaps pivot to a, a different strategy.

[00:06:18] Dave Forde: Again, you've been around the industry for, for a while. So you've seen lots of change and probably one of the biggest changes that's coming is this idea of a cookie-less world. How is your agency preparing clients for that?

[00:06:31] Bruce Neve: Well, you know, the, we've been for about three years now and in anticipation of the quick list world, we've been testing and learning, you know and overall, I think it's a positive thing.

I hope it will be. I hope it leads to more engaging creative, creative formats. I think it, it definitely re will reduce the focus on things like last click and click through rates and shift to more business metrics and brand metrics. So yeah, we've been looking at different strategies. [00:07:00] First party data, obviously more and more important.

Not every client has it, wealth, the first party data, which obviously has to be, um, anonymized and encrypted to use. Probably more spending with walled gardens like Facebook and Instagram. And we've seen the growth recently of the vertical players, retail players, such as Walmart Connects and Loblaws and Instacart.

And several more Amazon because they can track the customer, you know, obviously within their own wall garden. So a lot of testing and learning and I, I think even though CPMs maybe higher, we should focus on business metrics and, yeah, I think there's gonna be an impact on. Maybe a better user experience, maybe less clutter, the perception at least of increased privacy, less ad frequency.

So I, I think overall's a good thing and we're [00:08:00] not waiting for it to be totally cookie list. We've been testing and learning and, and trying different things over the last three years.

[00:08:06] Dave Forde: So you're ahead of the game. So what impact has the pandemic had on consumer shopping habits?

[00:08:15] Bruce Neve: As I touched on earlier. I mean, a lot of consumers for the first time were, were forced to, to shop online. I think a lot of them got, you know, got, got used to the, to the convenience and, and, and the speed. And, some of that, behavior is gonna stick as we come out of, out of the, the pandemic.

But I do think a lot of people. Miss the retail experience and the mall experience. I mean, I think it really depends on the category. I mean, certain things, low interest things that you can just order it or online and get delivered to your door. It's great. But I think, some people miss the experience of shopping in person, especially if you know the retailers and, provide a, you know, a good experience when you're at the store or at the mall.

I think you. You have to give them a reason to leave their [00:09:00] home and, and go shop, whether it's, you know, engagement, whether it's interactivity, virtual experiences, product sampling. So yeah, I mean, I think it definitely accelerated online shopping in Canada, we were behind really dependent on the category as well. And a lot of that will continue. But I do think that a lot of people miss that experience of shopping in store. And so it's, it's gonna be continued to be a mix of both, right?

[00:09:34] Dave Forde: The the term nuclear family. It seems to be a thing of the past as again, the definition of family has changed really, maybe forever, who controls the household budget and how to brands target that person. Today and tomorrow?

[00:09:48] Bruce Neve: That's a great question. I mean, yeah. I mean, the, the, what, what we visualize as a family, you know, 20 years ago and, and who made the decisions was, was a lot simpler than the complexity that we deal [00:10:00] with today. So I think it comes back to using research and, and data and planning tools that we have.

To identify the audiences specific audiences and priority audiences for your specific brand and your client, you know, where's the volume gonna come from, you know understand their behaviors, their lifestyle, their relationships, to technology, their media habits, and pay to a much richer pitcher. And the beauty of, you know, of, of a lot of the digital platforms is, is you, you can, engage your different personas and audience segments with different creative, which I think, you know, media working very closely with creative so that, you know, the creative message reflects the audiences that you wanna reach and reflects their lifestyle and their interests and their affinities.

And I think that that can be, you know, very powerful. I mean, you might. Kind of a halo, more mass message for [00:11:00] across all your audience groups, but the ability to more razor sharp targeting with media. But I think you also need to be testing creative as well, and have a variety of creative to test the impact and connect with the consumer in a way that's meaningful and authentic for them so that they, they feel that they're being engaged.

With an understanding of who they are and what they believe in and what motivates them. And what's different about them.

[00:11:27] Dave Forde: You you talked about measurement, you talked about first party data, but at the same time, you also did say that some clients, some brands, not necessarily clients, we won't say that part.

Some brands are not necessarily collecting first party data. Why not? It seems like it's an important thing for them to be doing, but they're not

[00:11:47] Bruce Neve: Well as much. They're not I just think in some cases it's just the scale of the first party data, you know, isn't big enough to, you know, rely on that, you know, it's part of the solution, but I mean, they've, they've gotta scale up [00:12:00] their first party data obviously opted in.

And then you have to, you know, you know, match. You know, find them mm-hmm on other platforms, you know, using live ramp or other, other, other partners. But yeah I think, a lot, a lot of a lot of clients, you know, we're behind in that in terms of building a scalable large first party audience pool, and it's gonna be critically important moving forward.

In the cookie-less world the, you know, increasingly private world. Yeah, I mean, and you have to, you have to give people a reason to, to wanna be part of your first part of your data.

[00:12:40] Dave Forde: Now you're obviously a Netflix user cuz two of the shows, two of your favourite shows are on the net on Netflix. What impact are you noticing at streaming services are having on broadcasters, traditional broadcasters?

[00:12:54] Bruce Neve: Well first of all, the traditional broadcasters are, you know, streaming all their content now, too. So, I mean, [00:13:00] that's the good thing is that, you know, you can, and we talk about buying total TV. So if we're buying TV from whether it's Rogers or Bell or Corus or CBC besides buying, you know, their linear feed, you know, we're, we're gonna buy Gem.

We're gonna buy Sportsnet now, or we're gonna buy on the, you know, TV apps and City TV apps. So, you know, they are reaching people that prefer to stream or Corus with their Stack TV are now Pluto, which they're, they're bringing to Canada. So I think it's been good. It's accelerated innovation by the call, them traditional broadcasters.

You know, whether they're gonna get there or not. I mean, I also believe that it's, it's, it's impacted content. In some ways, I mean, the content on Netflix and other other streamers, non ad supported is edgier, the language they [00:14:00] sexuality, that it, they, they take some more risks. I I'm seeing some of that reflected in the content coming from traditional broadcasters.

Not all the time. A lot of the traditional broadcasters, it's all about a proven format. So you get, you know, Law and Order times five and NCIS times five and right. Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, rather than trying something brand new. And I mean, and clients want, you know, reliability and, and that's part of that.

But I think the, the innovation that you're seeing from, from Netflix, from a user experience and from navigating their platform, I think that's having an effect on the traditional broadcasters in a positive way. Okay.

[00:14:45] Dave Forde: So the big you know, industry buzz news is Netflix and how they're now gonna be adding an ad supported tier.

What impact do you ha do you feel that that will have number one on Netflix and then number two on the overall streaming industry? [00:15:00]

[00:15:01] Bruce Neve: Well, as a advertiser, I'm really excited about Netflix. Having an ad supported offer. And Disney Plus as well. And, and I'm sure there'll be others as a consumer would be less so, but that's gonna give us access to lots of, of audiences and lots of time periods, lots of engaged viewers that we don't have access to right now.

So that's, that's extremely exciting for me.

I was talking earlier about Netflix is some of the content will it's Squid Games or, you know, Ozark and, and some of the right, frankly, the language, the violence of sexuality. What I hope doesn't happen is some advertisers maybe somewhat reluctant to be near that type of content. So will Netflix then start to water down their content somewhat to make it more accessible to the masses?

I hope not. OK. I also hope they don't just. Take a conventional broadcaster approach and start loading [00:16:00] 10 or 12 minutes of ads an hour. I mean, right. I think they can charge a premium to have fewer ads to use the data they have to better target our ads. And I also think they can be innovative.

I mean, why not sell sponsorships of different genres or, you know, when a new program comes out and all the episodes are, are released at once. I dunno what the number is, but maybe 70% of the people watch the whole season in like two weeks, you know, why not have an advertiser bring that whole season to you for that two week period and, you know, reaching, you know, millions of people and then drop off.

I know that there, there are some programs on Netflix that they've purchased where they don't necessarily have the rights to have midstream ads. That's gonna be interesting, you know, some people think they may, they might also look for global partnerships and, and, you know, they may go to the top 20 average global advertisers and say, let's, let's do deals, which, [00:17:00] which might reduce our opportunity with some of our Canadian only clients to get involved.

Again, I hope not. So so I'm excited. They got great content. They got great targeting. Keep the data it's reach extension. It's an engaged audience. Let's see what the costs are and the CPMs I'm sure will be very premium. Yeah. Look looking forward to it as an advertiser effect on Netflix. I mean, as we've seen their subscriptions have been leveling out, if not declining people share their logins.

They're spending billions in content which they can't, it's not sustainable, so they have to have another revenue source. So I'm, I'm sure. Some smart. Person's able to do the numbers to say, okay, if we, if we offer Netflix at $9.99 and, and X percent of people take on that $9.99 add supportive model with this inventory at this price, this is the, the amount of incremental revenue that we'll be able to generate.

So I'm sure someone's tumbling those [00:18:00] numbers and. Hopefully that means they continue, continue to invest in great content and, and different content like they are now. But, uh, it didn't seem like it was sustainable. I mean, there's so many streaming options now. I think there's gonna be consolidation.

There's just, there's just too many, too many of them. Consolidation in ownership or maybe it's consolidation in, in packaging. So maybe they, maybe you can get three different streaming services ad supported at X price versus buying them individually with no ads at triple interesting.

[00:18:34] Dave Forde: So being the president of true media, Canada, you're in a unique position where you not only see Canadian brands, but you also see American US ones and global brands typically.

Canadian marketers don't have as big budgets being the position that you've been in for, for these years. You probably see things at a different point. So what is it that Canadian marketers can do to reach global audiences? Any [00:19:00] tips, advice?

[00:19:03] Bruce Neve: For them to reach global audiences out of Canada? Well great question. I mean, I've, we've seen a lot of Canadian companies stumble when they started to expand to the us just cuz the cost of entry is, is, is so high. I think the approach needs to be obviously a, a test and learn approach.

So you, you minimize the initial investments, so you get more learning on, on what works or what doesn't work. Obviously digital, you know, search social has opened up opportunities to expand, out out of Canada in a more cost affordable way, you know, versus, you know, 20 years ago, trying to buy a big TV campaign in the us or, or, you know, go to Europe.

So, you know, Facebook and Instagram and LinkedIn and Google them, take it, take you global. And take you there in a, you know, incremental steps. So you can test and learn, find your [00:20:00] audiences and look to expand your business. That way..

[00:20:03] Dave Forde: Okay. My final question for you today. Gonna a tough one. Now I want you to put on your future your prediction hat on, if you will, what do you see as the future of upfronts and new fronts?

[00:20:13] Bruce Neve: That's a great question. I mean, a couple years ago I might have said that they're getting, they're less important than they used to be.

You know, perhaps they are, as I said, clients are looking for more flexibility. They want, they wanna have solid business plans before they're making commitments too early in the upfront co COVID kind of turned things a little bit on their on the head. So I still think the, the upfronts are important, but I, I think they're important in, in that they, they should be celebrating.

What's wonderful about our industry, which is the, I believe it's the content. It's the celebrities. It's the shows. It's the opportunities to engage audiences in big, [00:21:00] exciting platforms that reach Canadians from coast to coast. That's why I think the, the live fronts are important. I mean if the broadcasters aren't excited about their content, The agencies, aren't excited about the kind of, why do we think that our clients are gonna be excited or the audiences are gonna be excited?

So I think it's more important in, in perception that we are in a, the entertainment business, we are in the creativity business, and that we should be, like I said, excited, celebrated, energized, informed, So that our, our clients and audiences feel that way. And, our creative agency partners as well.

[00:21:38] Dave Forde: There, you have it, The man, the living legend, Bruce Neve, sharing his insights.,

thank you time, sir. All right, we'll see it. The next cocktail reception.

[00:21:47] Bruce Neve: Sure will live. All right.