Data

The Time for Advertising Interoperability Has Come

By Harold Geller, Chief Growth Officer, Ad-ID

In the world of video advertising, smooth and automated workflows have been one of the most neglected areas in our business for years. Practices that have been in place for decades have stubbornly remained. Manual re-entry of data has been accepted as “the way it’s always been,” and something that simply couldn’t be avoided.

There have always been short-term fixes and stop-gap solutions. We throw labor at our problems—tons and tons of checking and error-correcting. But our workarounds have become institutionalized bad habits that have evolved into permanent practices that are a barrier to innovation and creativity. There has been consensus throughout our industry that this is an area desperately in need of solutions.

In order to enable change, particularly something as dramatic as the replacement of manual advertising-related workflows with automated ones, the proper motivation is needed. This doesn’t come from vendors, or a few people with a good idea. Motivation must come from those who feel the pain the most: the users. When more must be done with fewer re-sources, it’s necessary to examine automating processes. The economic situation of the past several years has led to resources being reduced, with those that remain being stretched to their limits. In addition, there has been pressure for broadcasters to employ their assets more profitably.

Advances in alternative methods of delivery to consumers, such as mobile DTV and over-the-top television, have opened up new avenues for broadcasters. However, advertising is a key element in monetizing these new channels.

So the flow of advertising from creation to consumption to billing is actually increasing in volume, but there are fewer resources to manage it. To some, this may sound like a looming disaster, but to others it has meant an opportunity. Bob Liodice, President of the Association of National Advertisers (ANA), encapsulates the situation perfectly: “Workflows are critically important.

The simpler we make the workflow, the more efficient we’re going to be, the more capable we’re going to be, and the more productive we’re going to be. That’s what frees up dollars to be reinvested in the plethora of new and emerging media.”

Metadata central to workflows

Advertising workflows can be categorized into four areas: operations, administration, residual management, and measurement.

When just a few media platforms were available, there were a few hundred channel choices and nearly all media was consumed on a linear basis. Now, media is also consumed on an on-demand basis, through a multitude of media platforms and tens of thousands of channel choices. This explosive growth in the number of channels has created a vastly more complex ecosystem.

But we’re still using the same manual, analog, labor-intensive processes that we developed more than 20 years ago. We are at a historic juncture in our supply chain’s history.

Screen shot 2016-01-12 at 12.06.26 PMThe entire advertising supply chain sees the need to increase speed and efficiency in the production process, enable multi-platform campaigns, and reduce cost. We must also enable interactivity and addressability, and improve cross-platform measurement.

To take full advantage of the technologies that are available, new processes, procedures, and standards must be leveraged to gain maximum efficiency. The registration of ads through Ad-ID as the central authority establishes a source for standardized metadata, and is the foundation of process improvement. This registration is generally done by the creative agency or the advertiser.

The metadata about ads (advertiser name, product name, commercial title, length, and so on) is exchanged and recorded inconsistently today. A variety of analog methods are used, and on most digital platforms it is non-existent. Where the metadata does exist, it often bears little resemblance to the information associated with it at asset inception.

Why is there a need to register metadata about ads? In a 2014 survey of media outlets and vendors in the cross-platform video space, the North American Broadcasters Association (NABA) found overall that “Metadata management was the most challenging issue that they face.”

That same NABA survey resulted in a report that distilled the following “user stories” that outline the importance of the transition to file-based advertising workflows, and the centrality of metadata to those workflows:

Ad Agency: I want to be sure that the commercials I produce are seen by the right consumer, in the best quality possible, on the correct channel, and during appropriate programming using the metadata that I input into the Ad-ID system, so that clients will make more money, sell more products, and spend more on advertising.

Commercial Distribution Vendor: I want the establishment of an industry-wide high-definition file format for ad delivery with Ad-ID metadata embedded in it, so that file handling and delivery can be more efficient, saving time and reducing errors for everyone.

Media Outlet: I want the establishment of an industry-wide high-definition file format for ad delivery with Ad-ID metadata embedded in it, so that file handling, transcoding, and cross-platform delivery can be more efficient, saving time and effort and reducing errors for everyone.

Today, metadata about ads gets rekeyed up to 25 times, and is distributed in a variety of analog and digital formats. In some cases, the metadata about ads is received second- and third-hand through many different parties.

This institutionalized chaos needs to be straightened out and simplified. The registered metadata about ads must be available to all those who need it for operational purposes, but in such a way that it can’t be rewritten every time it’s touched by new hands. Advertising metadata can be exchanged two ways: as a “digital ad slate” embedded into the file that contains the finished ad, and through application programming interfaces (API), or Web services, developed and distributed by Ad-ID, which facilitate machine-to-machine communications. “Digital ad slates” are a central element of fully digital file-based advertising workflows.

The ad file itself contains all required components, such as the audio and video content and information about displaying the ad, like the format (HD, SD, 3D), aspect ratio, and closed captions. The descriptive business metadata related to the ad, like the advertiser, product, brand, commercial title, commercial length, and language, are metadata in the digital ad slate component of the file.

These digital ad slates are standardized formats that are vetted by engineering and production associations. They must become ubiq-uitous over the next 18 to 24 months, in con-junction with API access to standardized advertising metadata, if we are to solve the workflow problem.

There are two such standards:

1. The Society of Motion Picture and Televi-sion Engineers “MXF Ad-ID Digital Ad Slate” (SMPTE RP 2092-2:2014) and 2. “Ad-ID Schema for XMP,” which was developed by Ad-ID in conjunction with the Interactive Advertising Bureau.

This universal metadata availability enables supply chain partners to establish standardized and repeatable processes that promote supply chain excellence, which is when partners have fulfilled their roles, adhered to industry best practices, and made way for the other members of the supply chain to focus on their own roles.

Supply chain excellence relies on a company’s ability to make decisions quickly and effectively. Furthermore, these decisions must be based on what is best for the entire supply chain rather than just for one specific organizational component. There are a variety of advertising industry initiatives calling for more granular, more timely, and cross-platform audience measurement, which requires the ubiquitous availability of ad metadata.

These projects include:

* The Association of National Advertisers’ “Measurement Mandate,”

* Making Measurement Make Sense (3MS),

* Coalition for Innovative Media Measure-ment — Trackable Asset Cross-Platform Identification (CIMM-TAXI) and

* SAG-AFTRA’s Commercials Contracts

Innovation linked to automation

Consumers have a multitude of choices in relation to content, including subscription and ad-supported.

The ability to innovate in the ad-supported space is inescapably linked to automation, which makes processes more simple. The trend towards programmatic platforms continues to grow.

These platforms enable dynamic and targeted ad insertion, which underpin one-to-one targeting of relevant advertising through automated and connected systems that use a consumer’s preferences and historical media consumption. In order for these platforms to scale, they must embrace standardization and supply chain excellence.

If we develop standard industry operating procedures regarding how to get information into order entry, asset management, workflow, and measurement systems, then innovative business models will emerge, and cost savings will be generated — possibly even additional revenue.

We need to shift responsibility to the right place in the supply chain, away from downstream parties who have no ownership or primary knowledge of the accuracy of the information.

We must move from fixes and make-goods to improved accountability and transparency, which allow more robust measurement and real-time placement of ads that are precisely targeted. We must adopt this as a mantra: “If you can’t identify it, you can’t operationalize it or measure it; if you can’t measure it, you can’t monetize it. Identity is a key enabler for operational orchestration and measurement as well as management.”