[on-hold music] Welcome to the Rebooting show. I am Brian Morrissey.
I'm just back from Puerto Vallarta, where I spoke to a gathering of regional publishing and regional city business publishers. It was a great group and, and also a reminder of how varied the publishing industry is.
I mean, there are still lots of models that work, particularly on niche levels, and I, I consider any publication that's tied to a locality to be niche by definition.
And talking to these publishers, you know, it was clear that, you know, for all the AI talk or whatnot, you know, the secret to sustainable publishing businesses, it isn't that secret.
I mean, it's basically to be essential to a specific audience. And, you know, many of these publishers have an obvious North Star, and they basically just have to serve their local communities.
And I don't necessarily see AI changing that or platforms changing that.
Modernize the businesses, sure, but these kinds of publishers are, while, while not massive, are, are very solid businesses and are filling a clear need in the market.
So big thanks to the American Association of Business Publishers and the City & Regional Magazine Association for hosting me. I really enjoyed it.
We are wrapping up this week our year-end preview series that was supported by Xco. The following is a spotlight episode with Xco CEO Tom Pakis.
Tom and I focus on how the programmatic ad systems that have long underpinned digital advertising, and I've been, I've been covering really since their beginning, have finally begun to infiltrate other media types, um, particularly CTV and out-of-home ads.
I mean, I talk about this with Tom, but I used to have colleagues over at Mediaweek, like John Consoli, who were covering this TV world, and it was just baffling to me.
They had an entirely different language that they spoke.
And what was going on in the internet, particularly as programmatic began and, and held this promise of having an ad system that was more like how Nasdaq operated, that was always the way it was described, was completely divorced from, from the world of TV advertising, that was still very analog-driven.
And streaming changed all that, right? And it basically created similar dynamics that have now allowed the programmatic ad ecosystem to shift over to, to CTV.
And we also go over how digital out-of-home has suddenly become a very vibrant area.
You know, out-of-home was always sort of the most analog of media types, and it has belatedly digitized, and you see in all of the ad spending reports that out-of-home is a very vibrant part of the market.
So we discuss that too.
You know, Tom has a lot of experience really with how the programmatic ad ecosystem has developed, so we talk about the similarities and differences of that system when it is applied to these other media types.
So I hope you enjoy this conversation. Thanks again to Tom and to Xco for supporting the Rebooting. Now on to the conversation with Tom. [on-hold music] Tom, thanks for, thanks for joining me.
My Wi-Fi might be a little wonky. I'm in Puerto Vallarta, where I'm speaking to a, a wonderful, like, local publishers event. So that's my- So-... disclaimer.
Tha-thanks for, uh, having me, and we're all, uh, envious, you being there and us, you know, being- Well, I-... being wherever we are. Yeah. Yeah. Don't, don't be too envious.
I nearly got ensnared in, like, a timeshare scam in the airport. You know, it's like [both laughing] When I heard that there was...
When I, when they started going, I thought I had to get-- They told me I had to get a, the taxi voucher from them.
But then when they started talking to me about the free breakfast that I had to go to, I was like, "Wait." [both laughing] It's part of the- Wait a second... charm, I think. It's part of the charm. Uh.
Oh, it's totally part of the charm. You know, travel. Yeah. I didn't even know that timeshares were still, like, a vibrant industry, but they certainly are here.
[laughs] So I was hoping today that we would talk about, hopefully you'll be game for it, but I was hoping today that we could talk about, you know, how basically the modern advertising systems that have defined, in mostly good ways, but some, like, not so good ways, you know, digital publishing are now finally, finally r- moving to, to TV and to out-of-home.
And I've always found this interesting because, you know, I, I've been covering this and around this for a long time, and I can remember, you know, learning about Right Media and AdEx early on when I was at Adweek and trying to wrap my head around this sort of system that was promising at least to make it more like a Nasdaq and very sophisticated.
And then I'd have these, like, colleagues a-at Mediaweek on the other side that were covering, like, TV, and it was just, like, a totally different world. I was like- Yeah. [laughs]...
they were, they might as well have been talking Esperanto. Like, I'm like... And it-- To me, I was like, "This stuff is so backwards."
But, you know, it's, it's, it's interesting, you know, to-- it's finally really taking off with CTV and then with digital out-of-home.
And so I wanna talk about the, how the dynamics have shifted, and you guys are getting into this at Xco, and how, you know, the learnings of digital publishing, how, how they can be applied really to these new areas.
Does that sound good? Sounds exactly what we're thinking about all day long pretty much in the past, I would say six to twelve months.
I, I would first, you know, it's, it's very easy to tie or, you know, to couple CTV and DOOH together.
You know, so on many levels, they're almost the same, but on some of them they're, they differ, especially if you look at them from an industry level. Yeah. Right?
I mean, the biggest challenge for out-of-home companies today is transitioning to dig-digital, right?
A lot of the billboards or, you know, things are not even digital at this point, and the ones that are, it's also, you know, sort of interesting.
So you already have a digital screenYou see the videos or the, the ads that you're very used to, but then you realize that they update, you know, the content once a week or once- Yeah... a day.
You know, they have an internet connection available for a few minutes a day that they can send data back to, you know, to themselves, to the advertisers.
So, so I think, you know, while the pipes will probably be exactly the same soon, at the moment, that industry, which I'm fascinated about, is, is a bit different.
And there is no question that the more the time goes by, we'll have more and more and more screens in front of us, and that's why I think out of home is the biggest next thing. But CTV is big already. Yeah.
And, and, and, you know, CTV is where we spend a lot of, of, of our time on.
And it's funny that you mentioned that, you know, the, the, it used to be this side thing and, you know, different lingo, different people, basically not much in common. I think today it's sort of a split.
So about one-third of the budget. So you have in the US, CTV, you know, ad spend in CTV is about ninety billion dollars, or in TV and CTV. It's about ninety billion dollars.
CTV is about one-third, so about thirty billion. So you still have that split.
You still have sixty billion dollars more or less that, you know, are discussed, talked about by different people, you know, in different conferences and events. Yeah.
And the one-third that is highly familiar to us, and that's where Exco is obviously focusing, and I think also why our industry is highly excited, 'cause it's not just natural organic growth that is gonna happen with more people, you know, using connected smart televisions and advertisers spending there.
It's also the fact that we know that all the TV budgets would slowly transform to become CTV digital budgets. Yeah.
It's funny 'cause you mention that, 'cause, like, I always felt like with that divide, you know, the programmatic grew up really it... with, you know, with the open web really at the end of the day.
And it was almost like it's like training grounds, like I almost feel like.
And there's, there's dynamics that the, the internet had, internet publishing had, that made it sort of ideal for, for programmatic as an approach, right? There was...
And, and those dynamics didn't exist in TV, and there was always resistance among the, the, the TV guys, for lack of a better term- Yeah... to adopting programmatic and ad tech because they were having...
I mean, I'm talking about, like, you know, this is not that long ago. I mean, they had these up fronts. They had declining audiences, and they had, like, growing up fronts. It was like [chuckles] Yeah.
It was a great business. And then when you talk about the cable guys, even better, man. They're getting carriage fees, and they're getting, and they're getting, they're getting ads, ads money.
And so I mean, it was, like, less than ten years ago that, like, I was just looking this up where, you know, John Skipper at the time was, like, basically running ESPN, and he was just like, "Yeah, cord cutting. Nah.
We're, you know," [laughs] "This is the best business model." And I'm like, I get it. Like, you know, you had to go out there. You can't go out there and be like, "Oh, shit."
A-a-and also, you know, and I don't know if it's... By the way, you said ten years ago. I think it was true even five years ago.
But I think you know that the transition is scary because you lose control, and also you go into this world that is sort of, uh, self-inflicting when, when thinking about, you know, how the industry developed.
But do we really measure the right things? Do we focus on, you know, what the brand actually is trying to achieve?
So we created all these KPIs that, you know, I, I can talk on behalf of them and advocate, but also there's view ability, completion rate, you know, especially with the definition of at least two seconds.
What, what does it mean, you know, someone has, has watched two seconds of the ad? Does it really bring the impact? Right.
And I think one of the things that I like about television and, you know, sort of up fronts, think they were, because there was a lack of ability to really measure in the way that we do online, I think they actually, in a way, were smarter, you know, about how to operate and spend the budget.
I'm not sure, I'm not sure, you know, but that's a almost a philosophical discussion, but I'm not sure we didn't go too far or sort of, you know, went off rails when looking in advertising online. Yeah.
And I think a lot of the sort of resistance was, I mean, first of all, the, the market dynamics were different particularly then. I think streaming changed all this, right?
Because TV always struck me as almost like supply constrained, whereas, you know, the limitless nature of, of digital publishing, it was more demand constrained, right? I mean, when you have...
You had instantly incredibly liquid, you know, markets that a, a programmatic system would, would be ideal for, whereas in TV, you know, they... And look, I, I mean, that's great.
Scarcity is pretty good if you're a seller, right? [chuckles] Like- Yeah...
but the reality of the digital world, you can only hold that back so long, and the reality of the digital world is, like, scarcity goes out the window. I mean- Yeah...
it does exist in some areas, the Super Bowl, et cetera.
But, you know, when, when you could, when you could keep supply capped, you know, you didn't need to, to adopt these kind of more sophisticated systems because, you know, I feel like broadly speakingLook, the power of, you know, digital publishing, and I think a lot of people in TV saw this it shifted to, you know, to the, the demand side, to the buy side.
You know, there's like tons of inventory out there, and they were going to use these technologies in order to find the right audiences for their message.
Whereas in, in TV, I mean, just the fact that they could have an upfront. I don't know how long, you know, the, the IB was trying to push this idea of like a digital upfront, you know, for, for websites.
It was ne- it never, you know, really took off except for in a few small categories. But like, what do you think? I mean, was it streaming really and that taking off that really broke this open?
Because, I mean, first of all, it's being done over IP. So getting the systems over, you know, trying to re-architect the technology of TV that... I, I don't know. Is it still running on Donovan?
Like, I mean, it's not exactly the most [chuckles] sophisticated from what I- I, I would say, you know, so if you look...
So I think, by the way, in terms of, you know, where, where is the constraint, supply or demand, I think that is already we-- that, that train has passed. There is so much content going on CTV- Right...
and new companies, you know, coming up, which is refreshing. You know, we haven't heard... When was the last time you heard of a big publisher coming out of nowhere, right?
When was the last time you heard a group of people, you know, entrepreneurs opening a new publisher and now, you know, they're trying to make it online?
So it's actually quite refreshing for CTV that these things are happening, and with it comes more inventory and already, you know, from, again, there are special buckets that, that this isn't true for, but you know, currently set in CTV, seventy-five percent of spend is done programmatically.
So even... and, and you know, we're talking to very big companies, and e-even for them, there is much more supply than demand.
So again, if it's not the special event or, you know, very special slot during the day, you still have already, quite quickly, to be honest, more supply than demand. And that's where...
That was one of the reasons we decided to go into that market. And to answer your question, it's actually very, very similar to online and, and, and on many fronts, you know.
From the same SSPs and companies that we know, identity solutions, similar companies. There are obviously special ones, but similar, the protocols, if we're talking about Vast and RTB and so on, it's the same. Right.
They didn't, they didn't... There are a few, I would say, fundamental differences. The first being this world has much more budgets and, and has gone much less of the scrutiny that online did.
So we do see a lot of waste, and we can touch that, you know, where exactly and so on. And we do see also some of the things that they, you know, in CTV, it w- it wasn't adopted in the same way it did on web.
And I would say, you know, I'm hope, uh, I hope I'm not upsetting people, but you know, they share... It's a bit of a chaos. The, the SPO is a big thing online. I think it's a big thing that the- Path optimization Yeah.
Supply path optimization. Flow and program. Which is, which is, which is basically has a economic value to it buying from the person who's selling. That's it. It's- Yeah...
it makes much more sense to buy from the person who sells versus going through five hoops and, you know, ten different resellers.
I have to say that the first immediate thing that we've seen going into this space that somehow that area is not yet... No one is talking about it, and it's a problem.
I feel like there are a lot of hoops and, and hops and inventory sharing, and everyone is monetizing everyone's inventory in a way that is dilutive. Yeah. We analyze... Yeah, we analyze just, you know, to give a sense.
We analyze what's the impact of having a single candy. I have a single candy to sell, but I have hundreds of people trying to sell this candy, different prices at different locations.
What's the impact on the economy of essentially inflated virtual sense of supply while the demand is static?
And I think that's one of the big differences in s- in CTV that we see, is that there is too much of that inflation, and I think it's not helpful both for the publisher and obviously the buy side advertisers. Yeah.
So is that just the immatur- one, I don't want to say immaturity, but is that just the fact that... Yeah, it is, I guess. I mean, this is not as, you know... It's being transferred over.
I mean, as you said, like, a lot of the dynamics are the exact same, right? But some of them are, are different.
Like, I mean, I just know just in personal experience, like, you know, just basic stuff like frequency capping for a while was like, I don't know, maybe it was the stuff I was seeing.
I'm like, "I'm seeing like the same ad like constantly." [laughs] Like, I was like, "Is this like a situation where like people are just going to where the measurement hasn't caught up?"
Like [laughs] and there's always some of that. Yeah. Yeah. I, I mean it, by the way, the, you know, seeing something like that could be s- many different things. It can relate to exactly what I mentioned.
So, you know, the, the same slot or, you know, the same user was now sold by nine different mediators and, you know, the buy side thought it's a different user, right? It's a different device. So it can be that.
It can also be buyers that aren't that sophisticated about how they're buying and how it all works.
It's always funny to me when, when we as in our in- small industry talking about transparency and why I need to know where it's running and, you know, everything, all the signals.
I'm not sure who is actioning on all of those things, right? In the end of the day, you have, uh, a system, I don't know, you know, it's almost we need to expose how a DSP looks like.
You, you don't have a lot of, you know, controlsUnless you open in the advanced section, which no one understand or, you know, the, the average eighty percent of the people don't and you still continue to transact in the same way, even though you created a much more transparent environment, the transaction is done the same.
Yeah. So what are some, like, of the key differences that you saw, like, when you, when you guys started, like, looking at expanding the space? Like, as you said, like, a lot of people who...
A lot of the players of programmatic that we all know have, have moved a, you know, their businesses over into CTV, right? And that's, that's an obvious evolution.
It's also maybe, maybe it's because, you know, the publishing [chuckles] sector hasn't, like, been, like, gangbusters exactly, and TV is TV, right?
Like, I mean, the, you know, the internet was built o-off of display ads, and I don't know. I mean, they never, they never reached, like, the same... Pe- advertisers love sight, sound, and motion, right? Yeah.
I mean, that's why- Yeah... the internet, for the most part, you know, has become, I think, a performance marketing channel.
You know, there's some brand, you know, and obviously, those things are not completely bifurcated.
But, you know, with the limitless supply, with, you know, creative that, you know, wasn't great with display, then we started getting video. I mean, you guys do that, and, like, so- Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm...
advertisers love, love sight, sound, and motion. They always have. And, and they know that it, it, it works, right?
But what were some of the sort of dynamics that you saw that were really different, like, in CTV versus, like, digital publishing? Okay.
So I'll, I'll say, uh, you know, and we're going a, a few levels deeper, you know, I'm not touching the different experience from a user perspective and, you know, how activations exactly- Mm-hmm... work.
But I'll say from, from our perspective, you know, Xco has been, uh, building quite sophisticated machine learning engines to try and extract the most value for the inventory.
For us, the transition to a CTV took some time, so it's, it, it, by the way, not, not at all because we feel like publishing isn't, you know, booming or anything like that. It was mostly because of how we operate.
So we need data. So one of the things that is very, was very clear that CTV is a data-scarce environment. There is barely any of it.
When you compare it to online, the amount of signals that describe both the user, right, the, the who's watching- Mm-hmm... the type of household and so on, the show itself, the value, where am, where am I?
Am I at the beginning? Am I, you know, at the, the, the best slot where everyone is, uh, s- leaning, you know, on their chair and so on? There is none of that information. So for us, it was how to...
how can we still bring value in an environment that is missing a lot of the key parameters to increase the value of the inventory?
There is just no easy way to describe that this slot, this ad slot, is more valuable than that ad slot. And it's true not only within a specific app, it's also true cross apps and tr- cross platforms and so on.
And that's very different than online.
Online is standard, and in CTV, every player SDK, every platform, every device send different signals in different formats and, you know, not all of them, s- some of them, some platform has new ones that no one else is using.
So I would say the first and foremost, the biggest difference would be standardization and lack of information, and that's a big problem. When you think- It is... of the buy side, it's a big problem.
But does that mean that you, they, they, you can't be as targeted? Like, I mean, there's a few... Like, I mean, you, you generally don't have the same number of creatives, right?
Like, I mean, creative's the actual thing, not the people. But, like, you, you have fewer creatives than you would, like, if you're in a... let's just say, like, how it, it's different, like, with display.
I mean, display, you can have dynamic creation. And, like, now, maybe AI solves this. AI solves everything. But, I mean, does that, like, mean, like, you cannot be as targeted in a CTV environment?
Which would sort of make sense because, like, in some ways, like, I don't know, sometimes constraints are, like, good- Yeah... I feel like- Yeah... in, in a lot of areas.
And I keep going back to, like, podcasting and, you know, we're doing a podcast, we have to talk about podcasts for a little bit.
But, you know, I think a lot of the strengths of podcasting is how, like, frustratingly behind it is compared to, like, regular digital advertising. Like, you can't do basic stuff [chuckles] like, in, in podcasting.
So- Yeah... those kind of constraints, like, sort of made it evolve in a, in a, in a sort of different direction. I'm not saying it's better or worse, it's just different and it makes it, like, stand out a little bit.
Like, it's not- Yeah... it's, like, the least sophisticated. [chuckles] Um, but it's- Even, even though...
Yeah, it feels like, uh, uh, s- I don't know why, but I'm not an expert in, in audio and podcasting, but it does feel to be a bit like digital out of home, right? So you have the- Yeah...
you know, it can be the up-fronts. You know, we'll, we'll manually plug it in, then we'll tell you what happened. I mean, I get Spanish language, like, audio ads, like, all the time.
[laughs] Like, like, that's what I'm saying.
Like, maybe I'm not, like, getting into the pipes and going through the reports and stuff, but I'm like, if I'm getting Spanish language, like, audio ads all the time, it's not that sophisticated. Yeah, but it's also...
But it also can be, you know, it also can be... And that's the, uh, that's the funny thing. It can also be that, you know, DSP, they just forgot to click a button- Yeah. [chuckles]... or something like that. And it's...
We get that a lot. You know, there, there is always these cases that, uh, a publisher calls us, there is a black ad, okay? Like, there is s-s... You see nothing. Basically, there is an ad and you see nothing. And m-m...
the tech team goes in there and it's like, "Okay, what's happening? You know, it's our product. We can't allow that," and so on. And then you realize the creative is brokenOkay. Yeah.
And, and I always, you know, when always this happens, obviously we'll, you know, tell the publisher, potentially block that campaign, which is funny, right? You block a campaign because it still pays money, okay?
It's still... It... There is still money be- And I'm thinking of who's on the other side- Yeah...
that, you know, is now showing their agency or their brand, you know, all these impressions everywhere and, you know, they're making big waves while it's all black, no one is seeing [laughs] anything. Yeah.
Um- Maybe the click-through rate's higher. [laughs] Potentially. [laughs] We might have a bigger problem on our hands. The viewability- No, but like if, if- The viewability is great.
The completion rate as well, just, you know, no one is buying, and we'll need to figure out why. Yeah. So. They have no idea what they're seeing. But what is... What...
So what is it like, just like is, is it like harder 'cause you have fewer signals, right? Like... And, and you're... They're not...
Like, so I feel like, you know, programmatic went to au- an audience targeting direction, right? Yeah. And it was about finding a person, it was the needle in the haystack, and it was...
And, you know, in some ways that hurt the, the media owner, I think went because it sort of commoditized the context to a degree. Yeah. And, you know, TV is very, it has been very, very different. So how... I don't know.
How, how does that- It's actually- How is that different there? Yeah. So it's actually, again, it's surprisingly quite similar, and I'll, I'll say the differences again from different angles.
But you still have an IP, so you know who it is. They can still target according to that IP if they have knowledge.
And then essentially buyers can actually be smart and, and, and do what they do on web, which is buying in places where they recognize that user or that device.
The context might not be as great, but it's still a 30, 15-second ad in front of the, you know, people they, they wanna see the ad.
So in that sense, I think that CTV publishers should be a bit smarter about what they pass and how they pass it, and we're talking to them.
And no one does today, but we're talking to them about segmenting their inventory in ways where you obfuscate, where you don't pass some information in order to sell for a lower value.
So if you want to get the best of the best, you also get the information, and so on.
But if you wanna run and not, A, not teach, I guess, the buy side, keep the data in a way where you can control it and you're not being sort of, you know, quote, unquote, "abused or used," but B, also be able to level and segment your inventory for different prices.
One thing I'll say is the technologies that are being used today in the CTV space are not on par with what we see online.
And, you know, without mentioning names, I'll say that things like unified auction, which is essentially a way to call all your demand connection in parallel and be smarter about the result of the auction, they're not standard in CTV.
And that's, that was actually a surprise for us because on online with the scrutiny of you really need to be the best of the best, it's obvious. A lot of the things that are so obvious in online just don't exist in CTV.
So from unified auction to signal loss. On web, again, we make sure that the SSP and the DSP are getting all the signals. We-- In CTV, there is, uh, uh, not...
I think, again, it goes back to scrutiny and competition, but there is not enough attention to these things, and there is a lot of wastage that comes from not making sure the signals are being passed, not running an auction- Hmm...
in the right way and actually calling all your demand partners at the right prices.
Even yield itself when you compare it to online, every ad ops, uh, team in every publisher will tell you they split prices and floors between devices, regions, times of day, much less exist in CTV. Hmm.
There is sort of the very naive, almost, uh, you s- you said 10 years ago? Yeah. How the internet looked like 10 years ago from the publisher side.
Now what's upsetting, and that's why Exco is here, but the buy side is very sophisticated. The buy side is employing the exact same tools they employ online, but the publishers aren't. So- Ah, that's interesting.
Uh, yeah. And, and, and, you know, that's where we saw that we have...
There is a market to what we're doing, and that we can definitely, uh, succeed quicker than we thought, to be honest, 'cause we thought we'll need to refine our models for... It takes a long time.
We have big data science teams. But still it takes, it takes months to years to refine models.
But out of the box, we already saw great results just because of the very naive way CTV publishers have ran their programmatic auctions. Hmm.
I mean, has that just, uh, been a technological like limitation, or is that like... I don't know, I always follow the incentives, Tom. Like, is it [laughs] you know, like I, I'm just wondering why...
Is that just like the, the, the market hasn't matured? I, I think it's a combination of lack of knowledge.
While there are very knowledgeable people in the industry, there's also an new people to this industry, maybe people that, you know, historically worked at TV and now- Hmm...
they're in this new space and there is a, a lack of knowledge there. Think there is definitely lack of technology, and also there, there are a lot of budgets.
And in an environmentYou know, sort of constraints and limitations make you better. Yeah. You know, you, you need to be just more efficient, smarter, faster.
When there are a lot of budgets and all you can do is supposedly connect, you know, a pipe or connect the plug and suddenly money is flowing, you potentially can, from a positive perspective...
You know, from a negative view I'll just call it, uh, laziness in a way, but from a positive perspective, you're just missing out on a huge opportunity that you can tap into. Yeah.
So let's talk about, let's talk about out-of-home, right? 'Cause we talk about like a market that was sort of behind the times, and like it really was. Like, I mean, I... It was billboards, right? Uh, it was static.
Like, uh, [chuckles] this is like the internet circa like 1997 or something. Yeah. Right? [chuckles] And it's funny, the US out-of-home market I always felt was, was even further behind.
I would go to like, you know, Europe. I'd go to like Cannes and like JC Decaux would have like... I mean, just the fact that they were swapping in different billboards, like, [chuckles] you know, like...
I was like, "Wow, that's like really sophisticated," and that wasn't that long ago.
[chuckles] But now, like, you know, I, I know when like the New York City subways first got like digital, like, signage, you know, everyone was like, "Oh, they're gonna get broken constantly" and like they're fine.
Like it's normal now. [chuckles] It's like you go around and you're like, "Oh my God," there's like, there's screens everywhere, not just in billboard places, but there are like there's screens like all over the place.
And, you know, and this was... It seems like this is an industry sector.
That's why I find it really fascinating 'cause when you go down, you know, ad spending reports, you know, it's like flat for publishing to up a little bit.
You know, m-magazines, you know, obviously the platform's doing fine. Retail media is growing tons. And like digital out-of-home is like, it's growing like nicely.
Like, I mean, I saw one report that, you know, on a compound growth rate of the next five years, these are always like, you know, forecasts, so take 'em with what you will. But, you know, compound growth rate of 18.5%.
So, you know, is this just catch up i-in some ways because this was an analog medium that was like decidedly old school for, for a long time? I think there is a lot of that. I think there is...
Similar to, to the transition between TV and CTV, so you see that grow... By the way, incredible growth for that industry, but I think it's nothing compared to what it's gonna be.
But a lot of it probably comes from just migr-migrating, you know, an old billboard to now become a, a screen, and now I call it the digital out-of-home, and that, that's growing.
But just more of it also comes from the fact there are more, and more, and more screens. I think very soon we're gonna drop all these terms, I'll be honest. We, we just...
You know, a nice startup company reached out to us. They're selling these smart devices on carts in the supermarket, right?
So you'll take like the shopping cart and there would be an iPad, like an, an, you know, a device on it. Oh my God. And, yeah. And- [laughs] And b-by the way, the- I don't know how I feel about this. Yeah.
The- I wanna see it first, but I might. [laughs] No. The funny thing I'll say first is they've built a wonderful product that, that brings value without ads, okay? Which is unheard of to some, some of us.
But, but- I'm imagining a si- uh, a sound on autoplay when I'm going to the Publix. [laughs] Yeah. Fair.
Just be careful that the pu- I mean, they've solved the, they've solved the, the one wheel, like, not working problem it seems like. Yeah. So yeah, maybe this is the next step. Yeah. Yeah. So that's the next step, right?
How ca- how can we show you more ads? But, but, but really it's... So they've built out a great app, you know, helps you buy on the ri- you know, if you're searching for a product- Yeah...
you get the right aisle for it, and so on. And, and now, you know, they reached out and they wanna do some video content and, and video ads. Great, you know, XCO can, can work out of the box. All, all great.
But what is it? Is it native? 'Cause, you know, it's, uh, it's an Android device. Only a single person is now in front of it. Is it out-of-home? You know, it's not one-to-many. Is it c- what is it exactly, right?
So I think all this- Could be retail media. Retail media, right. Could be retail media. Uh, if I, if I want to increase valuation, then it's definitely retail media.
[laughs] With AI, but, but, yeah, that is very friendly with curation. But, but the- [laughs]... it's a real question, right? It's a real question of what is it.
And, you know, going back early to the conversation, it's, it's a lot up to the buy side. I think, I think we can look at all these things as sort of location-based advertising.
You know, it almost doesn't matter who the user is, you know, what screen it is, is it small, is it big. I know the location. There is a lot of value in that, and I...
One of the things that we talk about at XCO a lot is that we really wanna bridge the huge gap between supply and demand.
I think that if companies like XCO and others would really have a sit-down with the buy side, I think we'll be able to push this industry much faster to the right direction versus the sort of church and state separation and blame games- Yeah...
that, uh, we currently have. What, what are the supply and, and demand dynamics in, in like digital out-of-home, and how... You know, what are, what are...
Uh, is, is there a difference there when it comes to CTV or is this similar? Wow. That's, that's a risky question you just asked me. I don't know.
[laughs] Uh, the guy, the guy on the supply side can't re- Doesn't seem that risky. Ah, well, hold on a second. There are, there are funnels and paths that are dedicated for out-of-home.
Everyone on these value chains know exactly what it is. There is a way, you know, the impression multiplierThere are vendors that measure that and so on. The...
It gets a bit more blurry in all the cases in between, and when you have real connected devices, let's take the example I just gave, I'm not only gonna call the out-of-home SSPs, I'm now gonna call all the standard normal SSPs, and I'm not sure what the definition for that is.
Is it out of home? Is it native? It's definitely not CTV, right? No one is, uh, sitting at their home watching. I don't know. A lot of people, a lot of people try to stretch the [chuckles] CTV, uh, definition.
I, I mean, not... Look, there's, there's a financial interest in it, in, you know, stretching it as to what qualifies as CTV. I mean, 'cause the, the IAB has been, been battling with this, right?
There is, there is definitely a financial incentive, which by the way, is what I generally I think that the buy side is really dictating a lot of the behavior, the good and the bad, right? Like the- Yeah.
Well, incentives drive everything, right? Exactly. But show me the incentives, I'll show you the results. Exactly.
But also when you start asking, the, the reason I said it's a risky question, when, when we started very naively, and by the way, we're not, like, strong in the out-of-home space, uh, yet. Yeah.
But when we started asking the most naive questions, you know, what is it? The range of answers that I got, including, let us go and check, and I'm talking about big SSPs, big DSPs, it's like no one knows.
You know, no one knows, and it's like, it's sort of, you know, do it until someone tells you to do something else. Okay.
And that's, you know, that's the sort of thing that I would hope that we'll solve quicker, and we can decide later on to change our minds, but we, we shouldn't leave these areas as blurry as we do. How do I put this?
Is there, is there, is there more opacity in these areas? 'Cause I mean, look, the, the history of a lot of, like, digital publishing is, like, there's...
It's so vast that where opacity lists or exists, you know, there's all kinds of different characters who enter in and there's, you know, look, there's, there's, there's money to be made. Like, is there a lot?
Is there too much opacity in these areas just because of they're immature or the way they're, like, structured? I'm, I'm not sure, you know, and maybe I'm too primed with my own thoughts of...
I think that the lack of communication between the buy side and sell side- Yeah... and the anxiety of the sell side asking basic questions in fear of, you know, negative impact.
Just the fear of them asking the question or presenting what they're doing that would negatively impact them has created this, this situation. And, and I don't think it's...
Obviously, as time goes by, you get smarter and you are able to touch topics slowly and gently, whether through conferences, cocktails, you know, IAB meetings and so on.
But I think it's mostly the, the lack of communication that currently is putting us where we are.
So final thing is, will these, like, areas becoming more sophisticated and, like, you know, moving to, you know, programmatic in the regular sort of way that digital advertising is, is transacted, 'cause I think it's very obvious that, like, it's like how the internet was is going to, like, kind of swallow everything.
Like, it, it- Yeah... it really already is, and the internet won as always. [laughs] It's good to bet on the internet [laughs] 'cause it, it's got a good track record. But
is, does this put l- a lot of pressure on, quote unquote, "traditional," like, digital publishers, right?
Because, you know, a lot of that sophistication is now more broadly available, and some of these other, however you wanna define them, you know, these other, like, formats and, and these other types of media have some advantages that a lot of, you know, a lot of digital publishing doesn't have.
'Cause it seems like, you know, it, there's gonna be even more competition 'cause, I mean, already I always think, like, look, all that retail media growth can't just come out of, like, shopper marketing budgets.
You know, all the CTV growth can't just come from, from, you know, traditional l- or linear TV spending. I mean, how much is this going to impact digital publishers? That's a very good question.
I think for sure we're talking about a zero-sum game in the sense that while there would be very efficient outlets to spend budget and so on, there is still, you know, a finite am-amount of budget every year that goes- Yeah...
into all of these channels together. The role of a publisher needs to evolve.
It's something that we're talking to our partners a lot, and also our role as a company, as a vendor, as a partner that helps publishers monetize better, I need, my responsibility is to do that cross-platforms and mediums.
In, in-- If I do my job well, it would be an easy or an easier decision for the publisher to now expand beyond, you know, the domain that they currently own, definitely into CTV, and I actually think into out-of-home as well.
We also think about that as from a user experience perspective, so we're gonna launch soon a product that we believe would dramatically improve the consumption of video for publishers, 'cause I think the way it's done today is, uh, suboptimal to say the least.
There is a lot of room, and I hope publishers won't miss that window to collaborate with both retail media, CTV, social.
One of the things that, you know, I'll say it here, I call out to publishersThere is a lot of great creators out there on social that all they want are eyeballs.
These are people that all of us are watching and following. And, and, you know, I'm not talking about dogs riding skateboards. I'm talking about political analysis, economy, ad tech. Yeah.
They should collaborate and bring these guys in. I think the publishers' role should evolve.
They're great at creating content, at covering, you know, from news to entertainment, and they should explore just like we, we went from, you know, the print to digital.
It's time for them to think, "How can I be on every screen?" And people like XCO would help on the revenue tech stack, uh, side.
Other companies could help with other things, and some of that would go back to their core and how they do that. But there is no question, so I tried... You know, I colored everything in a very positive, uh, way.
If we'll continue for online publishers to just be that domain, not expand, not explore, not try and see how we can get our content out there in different forms and shapes, I am worried that the budgets that they'll see would go down year over year 'cause there will just be more outlets, just, just, just mere volumes, not even quality or- Yeah...
just mere volumes would be more options out there outside the www dot. Yeah. That's a great point. Just a final note on what you said, 'cause you brought up the dog on the skateboard.
I actually, I actually met the dog on the skateboard one time. [laughs] At, uh, just some Mashable awards. But I, I... For some reason, I, I, I needed to share that.
[laughs] That's awesome, and, and, you know, it's, like, nice to say that for every two high quality, you know, pieces of content, we need that dog on a skateboard. And that's also something that- Yeah.
Unfortunately, unfortunately, that dog passed away from my understanding. Oh, so rest in peace. So bull dogs have, have short lives. [laughs] Yeah. I'm, I'm sorry. Yeah. I'm sorry to hear. Awesome.
Tom, thank you so much. This was really fun. Brian, thank you. [outro music]