Why TV’s AI ad strategies should be more like streaming audio

The rapid introduction of AI-generated content and enhancements in hyper-personalization has created increased advertising efforts and a subsequent increase in ad spend. To address this trend, Theorem Head of Global Accounts Michele Bavitz and SiriusXM Media’s VP of Ad Product Marketing Molly Fuard joined Ad Age Contributing Editor Natalie Zfat at Ad Age’s TV & Streaming Summit in New York to discuss the major issues and opportunities AI presents to organizations, and to share insights about what the TV industry can learn from streaming audio. (See video below.) Generative AI presents a number of challenges to advertisers and brands, such as maintaining brand voice and authenticity, understanding content rights and ensuring that all teams within an organization are future-ready. Both Theorem and SiriusXM Media have launched automation solutions designed to deliver stronger customer experiences and operational scale to address these issues. “What we’re finding is that the front-of-house teams, the content developers, the marketers, they’re ready,” said Bavitz. “But we’re finding that the back end isn’t always prepared.” Bavitz stressed the importance of ensuring that a company’s operations teams have the tools, processes and infrastructure needed to process exponentially higher volumes of work—often 10 times the volume those teams had managed previously. “Once you put the automation in place, there is less friction between sales and ops teams,” Bavitz said. “Teams are able to go deeper into the insight development to drive better performance and to handle much higher volumes of work, so you’re future-ready when the volume comes in.” Last year, Theorem launched a first-to-market solution called Upward, which aims to solve for this by helping TV and streaming companies, among other competitive industries, scale their operations teams faster. Upward helps operations teams automate their entire order-to-cash process, which includes campaign setup, trafficking, reporting and campaign management, as well as revenue recognition and brand safety. What streaming TV can learn from streaming audio SiriusXM Media’s Fuard shared some of her key challenges as an ad product marketer: holistic ad measurement, brand suitability and safety, and the loss of third-party IDs and cookies. “We’re seeing that a lot of our marketers are waking up to the fact that cookies will be long gone,” she said. “It will be key to rely on contextual, first-party data to ensure you’re reaching the right audience and the right consumer.” Fuard pointed to an experiment called Rise of the Machines, which Studio Resonate, SiriusXM Media’s in-house creative agency, launched recently: “It’s essentially taking an AI team, a human team and a hybrid team to create audio ads for a brand we made up.” Unsurprisingly, the ad created by the human team performed best in terms of emotional connection. “You need that human element,” Fuard said, but added that when it came to performance, ads by all three teams scored fairly evenly. “Within this learning, we’ve also seen AI really shines in enhancing and scaling familiar concepts, but not so much in terms of venturing into the unknown,” she said. As both SiriusXM Media and Theorem march toward the November election, both Fuard and Bavitz raised the importance of maintaining brand-safety concerns. Fuard noted that SiriusXM Media has launched an audio brand-suitability verification solution to ensure that advertisers have effective third-party measurement. Theorem also uses automation solutions, which Bavitz acknowledged as essential. “Previously, if Theorem had 1,000 ads, the teams would have to manually review each to determine if there was anything concerning that needed to be removed,” she said. Now, she added, with its automation solution in place, Theorem can run a large volume of ads at once, and then zero in on just the subset that may have issues. “It’s a huge issue with political ads because of the fact that there’s a ton of geotargeting and hyper-personalization, on top of the fact that there’s creative changes that happen on the fly,” Bavitz said. “So actually the political ads are a great case study for what’s to come with Gen AI.” About Theorem Theorem, a digital marketing and tech solutions provider with over 20 years of experience in successfully managing and streamlining ad operations, delivers agile marketing solutions to global media and entertainment giants. Our ethos revolves around humanizing technology, crafting and delivering innovative solutions to fuel sustainable business growth. We take legacy services and embrace modern approaches that ensure futureproof marketing strategies for our clients and partners. Pioneering the future of full-service flexible marketing solutions, we deliver scale, optimize time, reduce costs and increase revenue for our clients.

Why TV’s AI ad strategies should be more like streaming audio

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