by Charlene Weisler

 According to Gabe Greenberg, CEO and Founder, GABBCON (Global Audience Based Buying Conference and Consultancy) it might be winning an ABBI (Audience-Based Buying innovation) Award. 

“At a time when audience based buying is critical in the TV and video market, we think it is critical to recognize and award those who are leading the market with success and innovation.”

This year his organization received over 100 entries, and winners were selected by judges from such companies as Nestle, L’Oréal, Hershey’s, Columbia Sportswear and agency leaders from OMD, Ocean Media, RPA and Assembly.

I sat down with Greenberg and asked him the following questions:

Charlene Weisler: What makes a company the best in advanced TV and audience buying?

Gabe Greenberg: The judging for all our awards was done by brand and agency leaders, so I cannot speak for them and what they were looking for. For GABBCON this is also a hard question to answer because it will vary from local to national from broadcaster to adtech provider. 
In my mind, what separates the wheat from the chaff is the sophistication of the data they apply, the level of automation they deliver and the inventory quality they offer — but that is my opinion, not that of the judges.  

Weisler: Have the criteria for the best changed over the past two years?

Greenberg: Yes, they certainly have. During last year’s awards, we judged on a combination of crowd-sourced industry voting with GABBCON voting. This year 100% of all voting was done by [brand and agency] executives… with a total of 12 judges.

Weisler: Where do you see advanced advertising right now in the marketplace?    

Greenberg: Advanced advertising is at a very exciting tipping point, where more and more companies are taking advantage of advanced data, technology and AI. TV itself is probably the best it has ever been and with the complement of advanced advertising may finally begin to see dollars move back from digital to TV….

As the ANA (Association of National Advertisers) and others put digital under the microscope, advanced advertising lends a nice alternative in a medium that has proven to deliver and is fraud-free and brand-safe….

Weisler: Where do you see it in five years?

Greenberg: In five years, I think we will no longer be calling it advanced. We will just be talking about TV and video.

Weisler: How can advanced TV buying improve — and who needs to be the change agent?

Greenberg: Just like brands and agencies led the wave to digital, they need to lead again. Fortunately, many are. 
The move to advanced advertising has not been entirely because of its value and quality. Initially much of the interest and change was driven by necessity because of walled gardens who were improperly scoring their own homework, digital properties delivering non-human traffic and fraud or large players publishers delivering non-brand-safe impressions.

The market is improving every day and there are any number of leaders paving the way with the intent to harmonize data and technology. We still have a lot of work to do together. 
However, some examples of progress, although early, are OpenAP, new addressable players like Spectrum Reach or expanded efforts from Comcast NBCUniversal and live solutions that allow for DAI from Hulu and Sony. Every month we have