By Alexandra Bruell
When Linda Yaccarino, head of ad sales for NBCUniversal, pitched
a room full of advertisers early this week, she hammered the theme
that television is a better destination for their ad dollars than
fast-growing digital services.
"What the hell is a view anyway?" she said, speaking at an
annual presentation of the Comcast Corp. media unit's programming
for the fall TV season. "Has a view bought any of your products?
No. Viewers buy products. That's why TV works. It reaches real
people."
Later in the presentation, NBCUniversal struck a different note.
The company touted its investment in digital darling BuzzFeed and
its partnerships with Snapchat and Apple News.
In presentations this week to promote programming for the
2017-18 season, sales executives from major cable and broadcast
networks had to pull off a carefully orchestrated balancing act.
Bigwigs from Fox, NBC and CBS took aim at Facebook, YouTube and
other digital platforms in the hopes of wooing commercial dollars
back to traditional media.
At the same time, they talked up their own digital chops, as
well as partnerships with and investments in digital companies.
Indeed, that has become a key message, as they find little to brag
about to advertisers in terms of ratings and hit shows.
"There's certainly some hedging going on," said Ben Winkler,
chief investment officer at Omnicom ad-buying shop OMD. Today's
media companies need the digital platforms to reach young people,
he said, "and there's just simply too many advertisers trying to
reach young people to ignore that reality. So they're covering
their flank."
As the rivalry between TV and digital media players intensifies,
the trend line isn't good for traditional media: digital ad
spending surpassed TV ad expenditures last year and is expected to
reach $83 billion this year, about $10 billion more than TV,
according to eMarketer.
Their TV pitches come as Facebook deals with a series of
measurement errors, and Google faces advertisers concerned about
their ads appearing next to violent or otherwise inappropriate
videos on YouTube.
"There's always tension, but media brands feel emboldened this
year with the brand safety issues," said Lyle Schwartz, GroupM's
president of investment for North America.
Google and Facebook had no immediate comment.
CBS, which presented its fall lineup late Wednesday at Carnegie
Hall, did not hold back. "[There are] real people watching your
commercials in hit shows with zero fraud, all from a source you can
trust, unlike some digital platforms," said Jo Ann Ross, head of ad
sales at the network. Ms. Ross then showed an ad for a cruise line
that appeared near a video of a sinking ship on Google-owned
YouTube. "At CBS, we don't let this kind of ship happen to you,"
she said.
CBS Chairman Leslie Moonves also mentioned that CBS is available
on "online bundles of every size" and said, "no service can exist
without CBS programming." Google's YouTube TV is among the
streaming services that feature CBS programming.
"Apple, Amazon and Google are all about mass audience and so are
we," he said.
Ad buyers don't think TV executives are talking out of both
sides of their mouth. "I think you can criticize Google and
Facebook but still invest in digital media without being
hypocritical," said Mr. Winkler. "They're unique, distinct
platforms."
At its presentation, Fox spent little time championing the
characteristics of traditional media and more time touting its own
digital prowess.
Fox "dwarfs Facebook and Youtube in delivering your message,"
said Joe Marchese, the network's new ad sales chief. "On any given
Tuesday, Fox primetime delivers 700 Facebooks," he added. Fox later
touted the network's large social "footprint," in effect crediting
the social media platforms for helping it deliver its message.
Fox's aim was to persuade advertisers that a traditional network
like Fox can meet and beat digital ad giants at their own game. Mr.
Marchese, a veteran of the ad technology industry, is backing an
initiative with rivals Turner and Viacom Inc. to allow more
sophisticated types of ad targeting in TV. The goal is for
marketers to be able to reach soda drinkers or home buyers instead
of just men or women 18 to 49, for example.
Sarah Hofstetter, chief executive at ad-buying and marketing
shop 360i, said TV networks have had to evolve their case against
digital as online advertising has matured.
"For years, Facebook, was trying to compare themselves to TV,
and TV was like, whatever we're big," she said. "Now they're seeing
[digital companies] and saying, oh they do have scale so what do we
have that's different."
Mr. Winkler of OMD says touting TV's strength without embracing
digital won't get the networks anywhere with ad buyers.
"The future of video is one that's rooted in the creativity and
innovation of digital, plus the content of TV, and focusing solely
on the content and traditional distribution of TV does not feel
like a sustainable strategy."
--Joe Flint contributed to this article.
Write to Alexandra Bruell at alexandra.bruell@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
May 19, 2017 06:14 ET (10:14 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2017 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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