Media Buying Briefing: Some media agencies will expect media to work through clean rooms this upfront

By Michael Bürgi

If you thought last year’s upfront marketplace was weird, this year looks to be quite the doozy, in a wholly different way.

Where pricing was all over the place during last year’s upfront selling process to secure ad time across linear TV, connected TV, streaming and digital video options, this year’s main negotiating issue will revolve around measurement systems and currencies to evaluate TV. At least that’s what major media buyers and chief investment officers told Digiday. The problem is, there isn’t widespread agreement among them on which measurement systems should be supported, and which currencies to give weight to. And one-holding company operation is looking to make clean rooms an inherent part of the negotiation.

“Our key themes in this upfront are optimization control and interoperability,” said Megan Pagliuca, chief activation officer at Omnicom Media Group, who’s working closely with OMG’s chief investment officer Geoffrey Calabrese to coordinate negotiation and activation for their clients, including CPG brands like Clorox and Brawny to VW. “We think with the launch of clean rooms, we can pull analytics into those clean rooms to inform investment in a smarter way. And using our CTV standards initiative, we can really get more transparency and more standardization, enabling interoperability through that.”

In other words, OMG will ask media sellers to work through clean-room technology, which essentially ensures that the data and analytics being used are safe and privacy-compliant. Both Pagliuca and Calabrese said those networks/platforms that don’t agree to sharing their data in clean rooms could see a diminution of investment directed toward them.

“We’re really pushing for all media partners this year to join us in opening up their data streams to really diagnostically work through our clean rooms, based on how confident they are in their inventory,” added Calabrese. “The only reason you wouldn’t participate in a clean room is if you lack confidence in what you’re selling in your inventory.”

Another buyer agreed clean rooms should factor in more and more to the negotiating process, but cautioned that “the majority of transacting significantly in that way is still a ways off, like maybe next year’s upfront or the one after. You don’t just turn on a clean room and then two days later you’re ready to transact.”

Beyond clean rooms, all buyers Digiday spoke to agreed on the need for better cross-screen measurement, given the bouillabaisse of TV options — from linear TV networks to streamers to connected TV players, to social platforms — they have to purchase. The need to better track the viewer migration across all these options is key to ensure their clients show up where they’re supposed to, but there’s no clear path forward just yet.

“There’s no doubt we need cross-screen measurement — it needs to be done,” said Dani Benowitz, president of IPG’s Magna Global. “There are a lot of factors that we look at when measuring campaigns such as incremental reach, high-value audiences, outcomes or attribution for that matter. There’s a ton of testing going …read more

Source:: Digiday