LiveRamp’s Adam Paul On How Data Boosts The Value of Tentpole TV Events

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist–or a data scientist–to know that the Super Bowl or the NBA Finals are valuable properties for media companies and advertisers.

Harnessing data can make them even more valuable and create new opportunities for marketers, Adam Paul, executive director, media alliances, at LiveRamp, tells The Measure.

Paul noted that as advertisers and media buyers leaned into audience buying and programmatic technology, some of the value of being associated with a tent-pole property got overlooked. One could reach a golf fan while they’re watching pickleball or some random online video just as easily as with a commercial during The Masters or British Open.

But the impressions generated that way are not nearly as contextually relevant, integrated or thematically connected to the golf fan, Paul said.

“To the consumer, there’s a lot of noise and I don’t think the brand comes through. They’re just random, isolated impressions that aren’t connected to the content or to the cultural moment or integrated in any meaningful way,” he said.

The current upfronts are showing the value of live, tenpole events to advertisers. Demand has been strong for sports and specials, while general entertainment on broadcast and cable languishes. The reasons for that are clear.

Live events have a highly engaged audience, you can't skip the ads, they’re culturally relevant to a passionate fan base, Paul said. On top of that, “data can build on the already intrinsic power of live to make them more valuable, with more personalized and relevant messaging to the specific audience." 

With an increasing number of sports and live events migrating to streaming and connected TV, the opportunities to use data and targeting have grown.

“As so much has moved towards connected TV, including the bigger tentpole events, we have to be thinking more strategically about how we use data to take advantage of streaming for cultural moments, for bigger tentpole initiatives,” he said.

Paul provided an exmple. “I can use data to inform a holistic sports strategy that goes beyond just the British Open. I can use it to figure out what fashion events, what music events, what other big events are going to be relevant not just to my niche audience, but to my strategic target audience,” he said.

Streaming opens myriad ways to use ad tech to maximize the value of big-event sponsorship.

“There are smarter ways to use data within tentpoles. I can serve different relative greetings based on strategic target audiences for that specific advertisers,” Paul said. “I could show Coke Zero to this family and Sprite to that family. With dynamic ad insertion there’s all sorts of creative optimization opportunities.”

There are also opportunities to retarget consumers who are exposed to an ad during a big event, such as an NFL game on NBC or ESPN.

“I can optimize my frequency against that person by retargeting them with other Peacock inventory or other Disney inventory. That’s another way to try to maximize the value of those tentpoles: creative optimization, retargeting, and then,measurement and optimization, tied to more deterministic data sets and real world outcomes,” he said. 

“Using data and ad tech can make a live event not just a branding play, but a performance channel as well, driving performance KPIs,” he added.

Some of this value can be extracted using programmatic technology, through private marketplaces and programmatic guarantees. 

“Programmatic is just a more efficient buying mechanism between a brand and a publisher,” Paul said.  “We absolutely think there's value in programmatic for real time decisioning, audience based targeting and dynamic creative optimization.”

All of this is not just good for the advertiser. “We're seeing more and more interesting use cases around how partners can come together to drive viewership,” he said. 

Paul pointed to the longstanding relationship between Peloton and NBC. The relationship not only drives Peloton KPIs, but also attracts viewership to properties like the WNBA.

Going forward, Paul expects to see more event sponsorships supercharged with audience data.

“It’s really about bigger strategic partnerships, both for ad sales use cases, but also, strategic investments that work both ways," he said.