Successes of Linear TV, VOD & Streaming Advertising

Oct 25, 2021 10:30 AM11:30 AM EST

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Key Discussion Takeaways

It used to be that families would sit in front of the TV at 8:00 every night to catch their favorite show. Now, parents, kids, and teenagers can each stream a different show from their own device at any time of day. This multiplies the advertising possibilities but also complicates them.

In this virtual event, Bill William is joined by Chris Pizzurro, Senior Vice President of Global Sales and Marketing at Canoe Ventures, to discuss the benefits of TV advertising. Chris talks about how Canoe packages advertising services across multiple platforms, how the new iOS updates have impacted streaming advertising, and how Canoe measures campaign effectiveness. Be sure to tune in.

 

Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:

 

  • Chris Pizzurro explains how Canoe Ventures partners with streaming services to sell advertising
  • How Canoe packages advertising options across multiple platforms
  • What’s the value in budgeting marketing dollars for TV advertising?
  • Chris breaks down the mix of campaigns from top to bottom of the funnel
  • Trends during Q3 and Canoe’s pricing rates
  • The effects of Covid and supply chain issues on advertising
  • Advertising consequences from the new iOS updates
  • How does Canoe measure campaign effectiveness?
  • Chris describes Canoe’s client onboarding process
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Event Partners

Canoe Ventures

Canoe Ventures is a marketing and advertising company that provides software and services to national television programming networks. It is focused on delivering and monitoring dynamically inserted advertising for national TV network programs available on cable operators' VOD platforms.

Connect with Canoe Ventures

Guest Speaker

Chris Pizzurro

SVP, Global Sales & Marketing at Canoe Ventures

Chris Pizzurro is the Senior Vice President of Global Sales and Marketing at Canoe Ventures. Canoe Ventures specializes in VOD, linear addressable, and streaming TV advertising. Chris is responsible for all the company’s sales and marketing efforts. He has over 33 years of experience in national media strategy, marketing, and implementation, focusing on traditional TV and digital media advertising. Previously, Chris was a Principal at Leap Media Group and the Vice President of Partner Relations at Turner Broadcasting.

Chris received an Emmy Award nomination, a Webby Award nomination, as well as being a CableFAX Award recipient, an iTVt Award beneficiary, and a TVOT All-Star Award winner. He also is a Board Advisor to BWG Advisors, eSports Ad Bureau, and VuPulse.

Bill Williams LinkedIn

Founder & CEO at BWG Strategy LLC

BWG Strategy is a research platform that provides market intelligence through Event Services, Business Development initiatives, and Market Research services. BWG hosts over 1,800 interactive executive strategy sessions (conference calls and in-person forums) annually that allow senior industry professionals across all sectors to debate fundamental business topics with peers, build brand awareness, gather market intelligence, network with customers/suppliers/partners, and pursue business development opportunities.

Event Moderator

Chris Pizzurro

SVP, Global Sales & Marketing at Canoe Ventures

Chris Pizzurro is the Senior Vice President of Global Sales and Marketing at Canoe Ventures. Canoe Ventures specializes in VOD, linear addressable, and streaming TV advertising. Chris is responsible for all the company’s sales and marketing efforts. He has over 33 years of experience in national media strategy, marketing, and implementation, focusing on traditional TV and digital media advertising. Previously, Chris was a Principal at Leap Media Group and the Vice President of Partner Relations at Turner Broadcasting.

Chris received an Emmy Award nomination, a Webby Award nomination, as well as being a CableFAX Award recipient, an iTVt Award beneficiary, and a TVOT All-Star Award winner. He also is a Board Advisor to BWG Advisors, eSports Ad Bureau, and VuPulse.

Bill Williams LinkedIn

Founder & CEO at BWG Strategy LLC

BWG Strategy is a research platform that provides market intelligence through Event Services, Business Development initiatives, and Market Research services. BWG hosts over 1,800 interactive executive strategy sessions (conference calls and in-person forums) annually that allow senior industry professionals across all sectors to debate fundamental business topics with peers, build brand awareness, gather market intelligence, network with customers/suppliers/partners, and pursue business development opportunities.

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Discussion Transcription

Bill Williams 0:18

Good morning, everyone. It's Bill Williams from BWG Strategy. I hope everyone had a great weekend. Excited to host a recurring series of fireside chats with my friends supporter partner for a long time at least since the beginning of BWG. Eight and a half years ago Chris Pizzurro. He's the CRO at Canoe Ventures. And if you're not familiar with Canoe, you will get familiar shortly. And we'll have this call focused on really two or three items. Number one, personal share awesome intellectual capital. Number two, you'll get a very detailed familiarity with Canoe in their structure, if you're not familiar with with them. And number three, we'll talk about how the ecosystem works with Canoe as well and see if there's a fit in POST call. And in the coming days, we're always happy to make a connection. So Chris, all that being said, Why don't you spend the first five minutes on giving a lay of a Land on context on who you need to enter is our take five minutes with that? Thank you.

Chris Pizzurro 1:20

Yeah, sure. Good morning. Good morning, everyone. Hope it's a good use of your hour. I'm Chris Pizzurro. As Bill mentioned, currently, a Canoe Ventures 30 years in TV advertising, mostly spent a lot of my time at Turner Broadcasting for 3030 years on the ad sales side, always under new revenue streams from advertising, or whether 20 years ago that was linear advertising, and how to optimize buys that, that brands and agencies were doing, eventually moved into things like broadband video, and to video on demand. So always about monetization of major programmers ad inventory across multiple platforms. A good 10 years ago, I was asked to come over to Canoe Ventures, which was formed at the time by five cable operators now currently owned by Comcast, Cox, and Charter. And the mission for Canoe is to once again as my goal has always been to monetize for a national programmer, exploit everything that can be done within a cable system to enable the programmers to make money. So as relevant to you all things like big in the ecosystem now of what is AVOD and what is streaming and what is addressable advertising. We are Canoe is an I am by proxy in the in the crosshairs of everything that's going on. So hopefully, I'll have some good perspective about where the market has been, and where the markets going

Bill Williams 3:13

So I think would be helpful for those of you not familiar, how many households are you in based upon your MVPD partnerships, how many impressions you serve, how much ad dollars are running through your pipes in how does it actually work?

Chris Pizzurro 3:29

The traditional bread and butter line of business that Canoe’s had is exploiting the cable, the cable setup box for video on demand. So if you go to Comcast, and you go to the video on demand Info menu, and you pick ABC Blackish, and an ad plays out, that is going through the Canoe ecosystem. Within that there's a lot of different technologies. There's a lot of different players. But that is the Canoe ecosystem is referred to it to Bill's question that is in 38 million homes currently across Comcast cost charter and frontier. That is the bread and butter business. Still doing very robust. We did a 16 point 4 billion ad impressions in q3. So that is across that footprint of 38 million homes. And we have 110 networks that are programs playing out to that ecosystem and therefore as playing out in that ecosystem. So you know, in addition to that example I gave of ABC, NBC and TBS TNT, CBS, you name it. All these folks are running through our infrastructure, again with our bread and butter product of AVOD on a table set top box. There's other things where we're doing to leverage that infrastructure and expanding outside that infrastructure, but those 38 million homes that's that's the bread and butter today.

Bill Williams 5:07

Understood. And you're becoming more open to more players across the loom escape, correct. Whether it's CSP is SSPs. You know, why don't you give a little bit of rundown on how you're starting to work with new ad tech and more tech ecosystem players and where you are in that journey,

Chris Pizzurro 5:29

it is in reaction to the market in general, where you have consumers saying, I now find value in viewing my television viewing on multiple screens and multiple places on my own time, right. So it used to be broadcast television was put in front of the TV at 8pm, on a Sunday night and watch a TV program. And now the consumer expectation is Yeah, I just want to watch my show where I want to watch it when I want to watch it. And people have spoken about that for a few years now. And that we see more and more of the consumer adoption being there. So companies like Canoe and plenty others, and more importantly, both my cable operators that I serve, and the National programmers that I serve, right, we're just a technology sitting in the middle, really, between the consumer behavior, what the programmers are putting out, there would be MSOs. And now virtual MVPs, and others are allowing the consumers to do so Bill, we’re really reacting, like a whole bunch of other technology plays are in order to support that. So first, where it just used to be about a cable set top box, as you know, you would you would know from a cable or satellite operator, that's now transitioned from old what was called qualm technology to in our last report, over 60% of the cable set top boxes that we maneuver and play with are IP, the behind the scenes, the infrastructure, there has gone to an IP technology so much more looks like what's happening on the streaming side. So that's why when now if you're a consumer and you go, Oh, I have Comcast, Cox, or charter, oh, gee, great, I can now get my Amazon Prime app, or my Hulu app, or, you know, my Pluto app, right here on my cable system. That is because the underlying infrastructure is actually a hybrid infrastructure and allows for both the QUAM and the IP. So just kind of by where the technology has gone, and where the infrastructure has gone. Now, you know, everyone, whether you're a programmer, whether you're men VPD, or virtual MVPD, or tech supplier, like in services, like we are, everyone is reacting and trying to, you know, keep the consumer happy in this. So I want my video now. And I want to have it and watch it wherever it's going.

Bill Williams 8:16

Understood. And what percentage of your, of your placements come from upfront versus, you know, spotters, that award scatter type of buys, what's the myths between the two? And how is that trending?

Chris Pizzurro 8:32

First of all, it's good to know the majority of Canoe does not hold any inventory ourselves. Right. But by we are enabling the national program or sales team to sell these capabilities on to the platforms, right. With with that said, you know, we see every transaction that's going through, we see everything that's booked right, where you're running through our ecosystem. So we know everything that's going on, I do maintain a small, actual marketplace of helping some programmers move impressions when they can, but that's a, that's a, that's something else, which also allows us to have some insight into the ecosystem. With that said, we're still looking at a world this has been stable, since you know, as long as I've been doing this, and that is there's always a good 75% that is sold in the upfront market. Still the case you know, whether that's 70% and a network will keep 20% around to sell and scatter and also hold back 10% For any sort of liability issue.

Bill Williams 9:45

So if you want to image worry with price or effects or with you know, whether it's NBC or discovery or CBS or whoever it may be, when they do an upfront as you don't do an upfront is the VOD inventory part of their upfront deals in, therefore 70% of your inventory is secured in advance and 20 to 30% is available on a spot basis.

Chris Pizzurro 10:09

That's exactly it. And then, you know, that's the way it's been. With us having our AVOD product with our programmers, that really has been the way it's been for the last 10 years since we've been doing that. And the real shift in the last, really COVID, right has has expedited a lot of what I'm about to say. And that is, whether you're my Disney client, and you now have Hulu, or you're my Viacom client, and you now have Pluto, where you're my Fox client, and you now have to be all of my major programmers were in there upfront or their scatter buys before it previously in a bunch of years. They were like, oh, yeah, you can buy my linear product. Oh, and I'm going to package in you know, Canoes, VOD into that, and then maybe some other things in their in their package. Well, now, their package is okay, I have my linear product. And I have my VOD, that's on Canoe. Oh, and if you're Disney, you know, you're going to roll in your Hulu. Or if you're Viacom, you're going to road run in your Pluto. So there's, there's clearly now by programmers have adopted those pro platforms or you know, even bought them outright in some cases. Now, you see the big guys? Well, there they are. Absolutely. Their buys are now back to that consumer demand, right? If you're a consumer, and you want to watch Blackish, well, you know, you want to watch it on ABC linear, or maybe you want to watch it on can do VOD, or you say, hey, I want to go on Hulu, I want to watch it. So you know, that's what everyone is, is the porting. And that's the way the buys are going. And yes, you know, that that gets packaged into the upfront in the normal of front or back is packaged into the scatter buys.

Bill Williams 11:58

Understood, just because we do have a lot of the loom escape type of players on this call that just a quick sort of lightning round of questions. Can vsps purchase directly and have connections to your inventory? And then second part is, do you open up any of your inventory? Or give avails to SSPs?

Chris Pizzurro 12:20

The answer is yes. On both. Going back about a year ago, they we did not open up No, basically our walled garden infrastructure to SSPs or DSPs. But we perfectly understood that though, if you're one of my large customers, your decision easier Viacom serve your NBC News, and you are selling your multi-platform deals to the trade desk or to Horizon BDR, or whatever it may be. From a Canoe point of view, we absolutely want that inventory to be a part of those deals. Awesome. So we'll flat out the answers. Yes, from a strategic level. In the last year. We have been working on the SSP side with the folks that Freewheel and with the folks at Beachfront. And with Google. I don't think benchmark

Bill Williams 13:19

Beachfront

Chris Pizzurro 13:20

Beachfront Yes. Sorry.

Bill Williams 13:23

Be thankful. We've done this a few times together. Chris.

Chris Pizzurro 13:27

Maybe you want to answer the questions, though? Yes. So at Beachfront and that, so that's on the SSP side. And the reason why that is, specifically those companies is because my my programmers use those campaign managers as sort of their brain. So you know, there's certain of my programmers that use Freewheel, and they just want to input their campaign once in the Freewheel, and then Freewheel makes the decisions on Okay, am I you know, what platforms Am I sending that out and all of that. So Freewheel has an SSP module that my programs same thing for some of my customers that use B trust, and they have their marketplace SSP. And some folks who use Gam, they've also wanted to enable the programmatic guarantee module that's within Google. So on the SSP side, that's why we've chosen to work with those partners, because they're their campaign managers who are programmers are using and then on the DSP side, really, whoever those SFPs are either currently connected into or how they're enablement going with those, those current customers. So you know, it's really sort of up to them of who and when they're plugging into on the DSP side. It's going well, there's certainly and the folks on the phone, you know, from the DF Beside will will know this, there's a certain expectation of what a DSP wants in order to transact. And because of our walled garden, well, we try to be as accommodating as we can. But there are some rounds round pegs in square holes situations that the guys at Beachfront. And at Freewheel are working through in order to have things move more smoothly. So for instance, certain folks are going expecting an IP address, and you know, Comcast Cox Charter, just don't let the IP address of their household go out to the open Internet. So there's ways we have to sort of trick the system to hash things. And so the DSP can get what they expect. So there's, there's work that's being done, transactions are happening, things are going on, but I would not call it robust scale at this place. Because all the parties are really working through both the business rules and the technical rules. But everyone's absolutely working towards, hey, if I'm a major programmer, I want to have one deal ID, I want to put that into my SSP. I want that to talk to my DSP. And I want that to be multiplatform. So I think we're well on our way, Bill, but I would not classify it as you're totally baked at this point. Got it.

Bill Williams 16:23

So what is right, I mean, ultimately, people want the lowest cost, conversion or branding, regardless part of the funnel, generally speaking, how are marketers ultimately the money leveraging VOD, as compared to, you know, Legacy Linear to, to Abod? What do you know what you are to see TV? I mean, what budget do you actually fit into, in competing against to provide cost of a marketing dollar, right? I mean, give us give us the value of a VOD, and how people should think about it and the midst of their video allocations.

Chris Pizzurro 17:11

Sure, sure. And the answer is, we always had years ago, when I worked with a few others, we basically just set the AV hog market at that point of the value should be around it is as valuable as your primetime inventory that you're paying on linear TV. So if you're buying a certain program in primetime, and you're paying a higher CPM, really because of consumer engagement, like the reason why going back to linear TV from 40 years ago, the reason why people paid a higher CPM for primetime was because the family was sitting around the TV at 8pm together watching a program and they were engaged, or whether it was The Mary Tyler Moore Show or you name it. So you translate that to today. And it's still about sight, sound and motion and engagement. So if we made the made the argument and VOD 10 years ago, and the same argument is actually holding for CTV today, and that is, especially when it comes to VOD on CTV or my VOD or any Avon is, the consumer chose that program. At that point in time, they made a conscious decision to say I want to scroll through this menu, I chose this program, I'm going to watch it, of course, they're engaged, right, they made a cognitive decision to do something. And they're obviously going to be engaged in the program. And therefore, they have this theme engagement as you do on primetime TV. Plus, bonus is, there's a lighter episode, linear TV, you could have eight ads in that pod. And in any Avon, you don't have more than four. So let alone you're getting the same engagement, and you're getting a lighter ad load. Therefore, the CPM should be at least as high as the highest CPM, you're paying on linear. That's always been our argument on the Canoe side and AVOD. And that is that is holding to us to a very good extent. So that now you're my major programmers, and again, your Disney or your NBC, and you say, you know, hey, if you want to buy the mass finger on Fox, well, you can buy him as linear at you know, your primetime CPM, and you can get it on Tuesday at the primetime sneezy CPM. And you can get it onto the VOD at the primetime CPM because it's all about sight, sound and motion and engagement. So that's the value and that's the argument Bill and that's that is that is fairly holding in the marketplace.

Bill Williams 19:59

Got it. Did you know I mean, ultimately, you know, I mean, weren't currently let me rephrase what is VOD used for how would you break down the mix of campaigns top mid bottom of the funnel.

Chris Pizzurro 20:14

VOD my VOD has held steadily in 15% of the buy you know, if you have 100% of a buy, that's going to, quote unquote PV multi platform TV, my TV is defined as Sight Sound emotion across multi platform. We've we've been added, we've actually held at 15% of the viewing and the the ads, what's really changed in the last COVID year is really CTV and I know it's all the buzz I'm sure there's plenty of your folks on the line. But the consumers clearly have seen the value of the services. And that's, you know, there's any Freewheel report that's out there, I think is a pretty good report, Bill. And I know I made reference to that before they do a quarterly report to about what they see across, you know, non linear platforms. And, and that's what picks up as you know, our Canoe viewing to the VOD has always been 15%. But really what's jumped is the CTV. And that's come at the expense, at least in their report of other nonlinear platforms such as desktop video or mobile. And certainly a me shoot, you could probably look at Nielsen or other reports of you know, has that chopped into linear a bit. But at least in my world, you know, our avold is, you know, went from zero to 5%, has held steady around 15% For the last six years. And that's even with CTV, there's this folks who my product is free, it's included in your cable subscription. So well, these are folks who perhaps, aren't going to buy a Disney plus, or aren't going to buy Hulu, they can just say, Well, you know, I can get pretty much the same programs over here for quote unquote, free in my cable, got it? Calendar, q3,

Bill Williams 22:11

but Right, I mean, we're just not done with October. Give me the quick rundown calendar, q3, as far as your bills, bill rates, yield pricing, Where were your observations in calendar, q3 for your programmers relative to expectations? And then after that, how are the October trends specifically this far? And what are you thinking about q4

Chris Pizzurro 22:39

was was good, it was strong was consistent. We saw a lot of called them the direct to consumer home meal kit wars, where you know, you've got Hello Fresh and a whole whole bunch of those guys all buying up a whole bunch of inventory. Same thing with you know, when I call the mattress wars and direct to consumer is happening of Kaspar against this thing. So, we, we've seen that as COVID if there's retail that's not open, or that's going out of business, we see that getting that inventory being maintained, at least on our side on the seller side because of things like DC CDs, and you know, apps and all that sort of stuff. So you know, if retails at the location going away, we're seeing that come up with folks who are, you know, so new, the new retailers, and these direct home companies. So that's, that's absolutely a trend that's just happening happening more and more. And I don't see that slowing down whatsoever. I think that's a major, just shift in everything. And then as far as q4 our agency and campaigns coming through booking, a lot of holiday specials furniture, stuff, again, kind of direct to home, furniture is coming up, but you know why go to a furniture store, retail and then have to wait six to eight weeks for your furniture to happen. You know, you can buy it online and they can get shipped to you within a week. So I do see a lot of holiday stuff that's already been booked in and coming through. So yeah, q3 was, q3 was strong CPMs were where we were just talking about and q4.

Bill Williams 24:29

Got it so q3 you really start competent calm. So if you had to give me a directional growth, I mean, I was q3 year we are in quarter to quarter

Chris Pizzurro 24:37

is it is certainly something last year was just a wonky, wonky crazy year.

Bill Williams 24:47

The CompuCom some, you know where you plus and plus zero to five, five to 10 10% plus and, you know, in total revenue, you know, revenue year over year.

Chris Pizzurro 24:57

Yeah, you know, we're basically flat Last year by you know, over overall your your path can be just as crazy as a wild ride as it was. Right, you know, basically flat. And and this year, I see us finishing up certainly up from the wonky years last year. I see still slightly off from you know, 2019 levels, but certainly headed back up in that direction after, you know, the wonky year of last year.

Bill Williams 25:25

Got it. And, and you price on a CPM basis is that correct?

Chris Pizzurro 25:33

No, yeah I based on a CPM? Because, my, my, my program is based on a CPM. So yeah, our level is all based upon the CPM?

Bill Williams 25:41

Yeah, yeah. And there's inflation everywhere for many different reasons, we'll get to some cookie deprecation stuff. And, you know, how that benefits you? Or if there's some angle where it doesn't I don't believe so. But directionally, how are your CPMs? You know, year over year or quarter to quarter, you know, are they up? Is it big? You know, I mean? Are you in option type of environment, give us a bit, peel back the pricing a little bit more?

Chris Pizzurro 26:07

Sure. No, ours is ours is a service, they, I mean, we're, we are essentially, for lack of a better term, a and a utility, right within this, this ecosystem. And we, we keep it all running. So no matter what the, what the programmers, what programs they have, or what ads they have, or what technology they have, and same thing, you know, whatever technology or services are at the MVPD level, our jobs to keep it all up and running. And we don't charge a platform fee for that we don't charge overall service fee or reporting the, it's literally just based upon volume, based on a CPM basis. So that's why it's, you know, it's very much just like Con Ed or something Bill, you know, it's just like, hey, if you're using your electricity, I'm charging, you know, 15 kilowatt hours at 15 cents, then, you know, yo, me $23.52. I mean, it's, it's very much now very much utility business that way. Unless just like, just like utilities, right, you might get a notice from Con Ed of, hey, you know, the board of whoever has said, we can raise your rates by a couple pennies, you know, this coming year. We, we haven't done that, since, Gosh, 2016, maybe, but we're gonna, we're gonna do a slight overall increase in 2022, just because of we're put a lot of man hours in work and having to hire some folks around all of these multi platforms, right, whether it's a and we now have to help people on streaming or help people on linear addressable. So long story short, yeah, it's totally based on a volume CPM basis, but we are just raising, you know, raising our rates lightly in 22.

Bill Williams 27:57

Got it, you know, relevant or not? For you, I would imagine it is there's a little thing called supply chain tightness, you know, snap reported last week talking, you know, consequences from the cookie deprecation plus marketers and want to get a conversion on something that they can fulfill, you know, what we're actually ship. So, my question for you is, are you seeing any philosophy consequences on ad dollars, because of the supply chain and lack of ability to fill a conversion? You know, if you had to quantify it, how would you quantify it in any category read throughs?

Chris Pizzurro 28:42

Yeah, I sure. There's, there's absolutely I mean, I'll use, I'll use, perhaps Auto is an example, where you would normally have national auto, which is very much branding, branding, branding, right, there's no specific call to action. Or then there's, you know, your local tri state Honda dealer for, you know, the New York area if you're watching a local broadcast station or something, and that is that's usually a separate budget. And that is driven by the franchisees giving a pool of money to the local guys, and they do local stuff that says, you know, hey, if you're buying in New York, you can get an A Honda lease for $250 This month, because of auto has hit the supply chain issues that we all know about. And those guys don't even have cars on their lot to sell. That money is a little bit constrained and tighter than it has been in the past. But those companies are just not going to go dark. Right? If you're Honda. You don't want people to sort of forget about you. So some of those dollars has actually shifted over to the national side, which Canoe and others services. So yes, absolutely. You're impacted. And same thing to that other example I gave Bill of, you know, if you're a furniture company and you know you you don't have actual furniture, your showroom because of supply and demand issues and stuff that's backed up in the harbor in Los Angeles, or he's in Long Beach, you know, those dollars, but a Lovesac, or someone on the furniture side sees that opportunity and, and eats up that inventory. So yes, those dynamics are absolutely a play, but also just pure market. share and, and capitalism are at play. And there's folks who are going to see that opportunity and put budgets to plug that hole.

Bill Williams 30:42

Clearly people that clearly the people that do have inventory, trying to backfill it, but if you had to quantify on a, you know, on an overall basis by q3, for instance, would you have been better than flat year over year? If there was no supply chain tightness? Would he have been plus five plus 10? I mean, if he had to give me your guesstimate, right, I mean, you're not in the walls of every marketer in all the intelligence. But if there was a consequence for video advertising in q3 because of the supply chain issues, was it? Was it? Was it still no consequence? Because it was backfilled was zero to five, five to 10 or 10? Plus?

Chris Pizzurro 31:25

Yeah, gotcha. Yeah. Right. I don't have insight into everything. And if I claimed I did, then your folks should hang up the phone. Right. But but the overall question is, is, and that kind of goes to 22, of when those issues are cleared up? I see, there's no reason why we couldn't be back to 2019 levels. Right. So you know, if we were flat last year, and I'm not quite back in 2019, once, once all of those supply issues are cleared away, then yeah, we should make back up that that 5%, and then, you know, even be up 10, up to 10, or something like that, with going back up to those 2019 levels. Yes, that's the session after you

Bill Williams 32:10

are how loudly are you actually hearing about campaign velocity consequences because of the supply chain issues?

Chris Pizzurro 32:19

The spenders, the activity still there, I mean, the campaigns campaign amount is still there. The dollar volume may be down a bit cancellations happen. That's, that's, that's mainly the main culprit. And I see that on miss, like I mentioned another part of my business where I just run a little marketplace and to help folks backfill inventory and all that. And over there, I think the main culprit is cancellations, where someone says, Hey, you know, you're gonna, you're gonna have my budget for q3, and, you know, I want 40 grand a month, and it's gonna run, and then, you know, sometimes by the end of the month or something, they're like, oh, wait, you know, what, cancel the last two weeks of October, because of, you know, some some, some supply demand issue, or because of some law that came up just just the just what's happening now, you know, mask laws, and people aren't coming out, you know, sort of COVID related things, and people go into retail. So, I think it's more the consequential effects of people canceling of budgets that were previously registered just for a week or two, and, you know, then that's what adds up to, you know, being flat or 5%. Down, it'll be 5% up, that's really, that's really what it is, the campaign volume is overall, but they might cancel a few weeks here and there, just because of the the craziness of the market stuff, or the craziness of the consumer market, you know.

Bill Williams 33:53

Got it. Got it. Um, how about autos, specifically, that, you know, I mean, do you sort of typically attribute the same as for local you know, for you know, for local elaborated, you know, programmers, it's, whether it's national, local or local, I mean, auto can be 30% plus or minus of, of, you know, of spend Where does auto for VOD? And what are you expecting for auto velocity to return? Going into next year? Are you thinking about?

Chris Pizzurro 34:28

Gotcha, um, I don't have the exact auto category, spend to VOD at my fingertips, or even in my mind to give an exact number. I mean, I, I can just say I've absolutely seen, though campaign information data going across, like I alluded to earlier of national campaigns are absolutely still running. I mean, I know of a linear addressable Volkswagen, campaign that's currently running up on AMC. So it is it is absolutely happening. I just don't have the the percentages in front of me. But certainly go. I mean, I yeah, I mean, I've seen they're absolutely, like, again, back to that point of some of those budgets directly shifted over to the national because of the supply chain issues on the local.

Bill Williams 35:23

How much of your you know, it's actually I don't know the answer to this. So it's not a loaded one is VOD, on VOD, only viewed on a television set connected to a set top box, or is VOD reaching MVPD subscriber that is logging on to their iPad or, or hands or handset? Or hands, or smartphone.

Chris Pizzurro 35:50

Excuse me? Yeah, no, great question. The answer is, it's multi platform. And, and that goes back to kind of why I need to raise my rates a little bit need to keep up as we're, you know, we're doing a lot of not that it was easy, 10 years ago, when just VOD played out on a cable set top box. But now, it's certainly more complex when you say, okay, you know, if I'm supporting, if I'm supporting NBC on charter, and now the charter spectrum app is available on your Roku box, right, you can download the spectrum app, if you're a spectrum customer, and you can watch it on Roku. And there's a good amount of people that do that. We're servicing that. So that's what I meant early on in the conversation of like, where we just, you know, our job is to keep this stuff up and running into services. In the answers, yes, where, you know, years ago just had, you know, 20 different various sub top box to worry about now, just like a lot of other tech companies, a lot of the service companies, you know, I need to worry about 100 networks across 38 million homes, and 200 apps that they might be playing out on across all these devices. Yeah, it's gotten extremely complex. But the, you know, if you're, if you're an ad buyer, take it all the way back up, because who's got the money? Right? They, they want to reach these people, they want to reach them on every platform, but they don't want to know about the complexities, right? They just want to go, hey, you know, ABC, I want to buy Blackish across all those platforms, you figure it out, and I'll pay you the high CPM. But yeah, absolutely. We are now into, you know, streaming and linear addressable, and all these other platforms, by necessity, just to be able to serve as the ecosystem.

Bill Williams 37:38

So that being said, Do you have consequences? Do your marketers have consequences of the consumer viewing on iOS devices? Because of the ACT, in that tracking changes that they made? Are you beneficiary? Or do you have the same consequences as a social publishers and others within within mobile devices? Yeah.

Chris Pizzurro 38:06

So right now, as far as TV is concerned, for good or for bad, and people have argued this good or for bad, you know, 40 years, Nielsen is still the currency. And they just read the papers and you know how that's coming quite under fire. And both of the like, of, you know, you name it, whether it's a comScore video ampere, innovate or eyespot. All those folks, smart people who are seeing this opportunity to be face, those folks have always been compliments to Nielsen in this space. So, again, if you're, you know, big programmer, and you're selling across your linear and VOD, and now your streaming platform, you will say, Okay, well, my Nielsen rating is this. And, you know, I may be a little wonky on the rating points that are over on this platform or this platform. So you know, I'm going to give you a comScore report or we're going to work with video ampere and avid and I spot and give you a complete package of how that campaign did. So it is certainly almost almost going to get forced, until it gets better Bill right. You know, years ago, it was Oh my Nielsen did a 12.2 rating on the site sound emotion on TV and everyone was good. Certainly, now things are getting shaken up. And ultimately, that's a that's a good thing. But it will get a little blips gonna get a little messy before it gets better.

Bill Williams 39:49

So simplify for me. Marketers that advertise in the consumer is viewing how much of your campaigns are won against the TV in the total mix? performance review your ad. Do you know how much from your VOD campaigns are viewed with someone watching? You know, a TV set?

Chris Pizzurro 40:07

On the TV on the on the TV set? We are still a good 70%. Yeah, it's, it's what do you say? What's the delivery to the, to the TV right that the delivery to the system may be a traditional Quonset type box or it may be an IP box from Comcast or like I said, it could be a Roku attached to the TV. So the delivery is still very much on the TV, the platforms have split up into, you know, 10 or 12. Certain things if you got an Apple TV box connected to your TV, or if you have a Roku box. So that's mainly what's changed, but the device is still the CD for the majority.

Bill Williams 40:53

Got it. Got it. But you have for those campaigns that want across a TV set, you have zero consequence from anything cookie related from from a mobile browser, correct? That is correct. That is correct. So so if you have any exposure to targeting or row ads, or attribution, it's the 10 to 15% of that that are viewed across other platforms other than the TV, does that correct?

Chris Pizzurro 41:22

That That is correct. And you go, you kind of go back to what I said about programmatic fail. And that is, listen, we we have never given out our IP address. So we've never made it so someone can cookie whatever, right? We we we've never played that game and our walled garden closed system. And that's why it's so pristine. And that's why it's still quality. And that's why people still don't money here, because it's a safe environment. So yeah, that's, that's why we're actually not impacted is because we've, we've never played that game in the in the first place.

Bill Williams 41:54

Understood. So how does, you know? Have you run any case studies on the effectiveness? White for like for a marketer running a campaign on VOD versus Roku versus Samsung ads versus traditional linear, regardless of the part of the funnel? How does your efficacy compare? On on results? VOD versus other video forms?

Chris Pizzurro 42:24

Yep. So the answer is yes. In the early days, early days being 2012 2013 2014 2015. Yeah, we certainly ran Brand Lift studies and attribution studies and all that all those sorts of things to give the brands and the agencies confidence that if they shifted money, at that time from linear to VOD, that, not only was nothing bad happen, but actually other good things could happen. So, so yes, back then there are certainly things of brand list can go up 7% and brand recall can go up 15%. And if we, you know, did it actual attribution studies to some stuff moves off the shelf, and we did at the time with the, with the VAV, with the video ad Bureau, and they're certainly published reports and all that sort of stuff. So yeah, in the early days, especially go back to when I was saying, hey, my, my CPM needs to be as good as the primetime of linear TV. Well, of course, yes. People said, Well, you know, prove it. And certainly, you know, that's what we did. Fast forward to now in terms of, have I run studies of how our platform, you know, may compare against the Hulu, or? No, I haven't. And mainly, that's just because I really do just have them in our, to my program, or if you're a Disney, it should just a matter of how the consumer wants to access it. So if they want to access that Disney show on Disney Plus, you know, God loves them. If busy launch, the consumer wants to watch it via ABC, on my VOD platform with ads. You know, God love them. Your business basically like, look, I got them. I got them either way, right? If I got into platforms, and my program is on all the platforms, and I can put an ad in front of them. So no, we we really haven't pitted us against these other platforms. Because, you know, my, my customers are just putting it all into the package. Anyway, so I really don't find it easy to have to say, Well, mine is better than that one, because I'm just servicing the programmer who's selling both of them anyway.

Bill Williams 44:41

Understood. So, let's so SSDs today you're only working with Freewheel and Beachfront, but you're in discussions with other SSPs and you're open to that connectivity, true or false.

Chris Pizzurro 44:59

It's true It's true. Certainly, certainly. I mean, I have an instance. And Bill, I actually think it came up came out on one of your calls where someone reached out. And they basically said, hey, you know what, I already have a deep relationship with this other program. So, you know, in my world, that programmer may already use Beachfront or may already use Google or may already use Freewheel. But if my customer, my programmers saying yeah, but you know what, in my digital world, I already use this FFP, or just DSP, or sfsc, as my as, you know, as my conduit. And I want to try to make it all work together. In which case, again, from a, from a Canoe point of view, I just want to move the volume. So we do have an instance where we're trying to make that work right now is to, you know, have one of those first SSPs do talk to another SSP because the programmer may data requirements. So yes, the answer I know that's a long answer. But the answer quickly is yes. Yeah.

Bill Williams 46:05

So just so we have SSPs was to me, by the way, anyone that wants to chime in ask a question, whatever it may be it first getting answered. He will press *5 would love to, we have about 10 minutes left, love to get others. Everyone's still on the line listening. So it's gonna be people are getting value here. So please press right. So in SSP wants to monetize in partner with what's the onboarding process? You know, what is the sort of cradle to grave process there? You want to partner with them? They want to partner with you? Is it 60 days, 90 days, 180 days? How you gonna? HOW LONG Isn't it how big of a lift from a resource standpoint?

Chris Pizzurro 46:49

To answer the question, but 90 days, maybe read I think maybe it was 90 days ago, we actually had this conversation Bill and someone picked up a phone and said, Hey, how about what if, and, and we're almost enabling that to happen. So yeah, I'd probably say 90 days what's involved? So it is basically the, the programmer who you have that relationship with, and one of my SSPs and Canoe, to, you know, just start to work out. Okay, basically, what paper, you know, what legal do you have in place? And how can that be leveraged? And what technology do you have in place? And how can that be leveraged? All the 100 sort of ventures that I work on Bill, it always comes down to that right? What's What's your existing paper? And what's your existing technology? And you know, the answer to how long will it take? It's like, well, it's kind of like how, you know, how willing are each of those parties to get something done? And I do find, you know, if someone tells you that can get done in a month, they're lying. They if someone tells you that gets done in the year, then that's not a partner you want to deal with. So you know, 90 days seems realistic.

Bill Williams 47:55

Understood. And relative to DSP, you same question.

Chris Pizzurro 48:00

Yeah. Like I said, it is it's a matter of really the DSPS they sort of thing, you know, if they have existing technology, if you know, they're on the mobile side, or on the broadband side, or on the banner side already plugging into a Freewheel or Beachfront, Google or something, then okay, you know, can that be leveraged for this this purpose? So, you know, same thing they're of will do they have a major customer on their DSP side who says, hey, you know what, I want to do this, therefore, your job is to just enable it. So they, you know, it's sort of the same thing on their side of, you know, what legals in place and what technology is in place? And can both those things be be leveraged?

Bill Williams 48:40

are you prioritizing your own product roadmap? Are you looking for candidly, how would you rank and file? Are you looking for new mvpds? In the US or in other GIOS? Are you looking for agency for direct? You know, for direct deals? Are you looking for SSPs? VSP is what's Where are you actually prioritizing your sort of initiatives, you know, initiatives slash partnership outlook?

Chris Pizzurro 49:11

What's like, what's the priority? Question? Yeah, great question Bill and look what like, like so many folks, it's, you do have to prioritize. There's so much going on and and you do in order in order to have quality you need to prioritize. So going back just to this previous conversation, right, what prioritizes things for it per Canoe is usually a Venn diagram of, you know, what do my programmers, what are my programmers asking for? What will my MSOs or my virtual mvpds Now, you know, what can they support? And we'll, and thirdly, of course, you know, what is the financial upside for Canoe? It's sort of that Venn diagram So yeah, we're not a company that goes, Hey, you know, I created this widget, let me go out and sell you a widget. It is more of, of Okay, so what platform do we have to deal with now in support? And if, if NBC and Fox and Viacom want us to kind of work on the same thing across, you know, this MSO, then sure, that gets prioritized over the flunking network on some streaming service. So certainly, I mean, that's just, that's just the way it goes. So that's kind of the priority process. We certainly are in Latin America, we were just announced last week on stage by total play major cable operator in Mexico, that we're going to start to enable the programmers on their advanced system in in Mexico, and that's part of the larger Latin America play for all of us, we see that as a huge. It's a very fragmented market right now. And we do think that current IP IPTV technology can sort of help solve for that fragmentation.So we are spending not a killer amount, but a good amount of resources, developing Latin America, and we've actually down there for two years now, and certainly just coming to fruition. So that's certainly we see as a as a growth market. And then certainly in the US, it is more about just sort of trying to keep up for our programmers with all their platform changes and other places that they're, you know, go into this streaming service or this service. And that's

Bill Williams 51:46

understood. Even relative to how does how does Canoe play with the device companies? Whether it's Apple Roku, or Amazon or the TV OEMs, LG, Samsung Vizio go down the list? Are you is it frenemy or you have integrations? How does it work?

Chris Pizzurro 52:09

Yep. Great question. So I'd say it's frenemies. So for instance, you know, you kind of go back to again, if so, I'll just use a solid example. Right now, AMC is a VOD customer of mine. They're also a linear addressable customer of mine. And they also are a linear addressable customer of a Dish and direct the satellite side, because they have those advanced addressable capabilities. So he, we are not part of what's happening over on the satellite side. But because we have a shared sell to support in AMC doing these addressable campaigns across this larger footprint, we absolutely will cooperate, and just try to have the, you know, to separate walled gardens work to the extent possible, so that AMC isn't duplicating work. Right. That's the that's, that's the answer right now, Bill, you know, will that will those turn into interconnects? And, and, you know, other years and consolidate? You know, all that sort of stuff? Yeah. But right now, it's basically frenemies. But, you know, again, we'll we'll, if we're, if we are supporting a buy, you know, same thing over on the streaming side, again, if I'm supporting Disney, and they go, hey, you know, we're doing this over on Hulu. Can you adjust your system so that it technically does this? Well, to the extent if we can, of course, we're going to do that, because we want to make it easier for our customers to sell cross platform video buys.

Bill Williams 53:44

Where do you get to work? We're gonna wrap up here in two minutes, less, less, two questions, one minute each, how much of your fills are done? You know, are you all programmatic? Or do you have how much is done through the old IO? way of doing business?

Chris Pizzurro 54:01

That my q3 report that we just put out, is up 10% is now programmatic. It was up from you know, three to five to seven.

Bill Williams 54:13

And that report. Do you mind sharing that report with me and Corbin by the way and we'll share it with all the listeners as well? Okay.

Chris Pizzurro 54:22

No, no, that's I mean, that's it it's still 90% is still it's still transacted, that 10 You know, 10% That's, that's still a pretty darn big numbers right when you're talking about the scale of where we are, but anyway, yes, it is. It is currently 10% up from seven in previous quarter.

Bill Williams 54:36

Got it in final one here. Because we above you know, a lot of people and a lot of you know, the DSP is SSPs we have retargeting companies, people that really run retail media networks go down the list of you know, agencies. At the end of the day, the people that should talk to you offline, in prioritize their time as well as yours. You are interested in talking SSPs DSPs people and other GIOS agencies. I mean, you know, how should people think about follow up conversations with you? And we'll wrap up.

Chris Pizzurro 55:11

Yeah, exactly. It is all of the above. It may not be a direct deal with this, right? But it just comes down to, hey, give me a call, who are you? What do you do? And how, you know, how does it fit in? And again, if the existing partners, that basis may just be where, you know, I'm facilitating this inventory to rise up and existing things that you have. So yes, but certainly anyone willing to have a conversation, I want to seize the opportunity. But, but that that may actually not be a direct deal with me. But certainly we can back to your thing about frenemies, right. You want to make want to make sure this stuff goes as smoothly as it can for my, you know, major TV programmer customers. So we always want to, we always want to support that anyway.

Bill Williams 56:01

Chris, you're good man, my friend, we're right at 11:30 I always want to keep everyone's calendar on time with listening since everyone did say the whole time so hope everyone enjoyed it as much as I did. And we're happy to facilitate those connections with Chris in the community. Thank you.

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