Long before joining AdExchanger, I started my career in entertainment journalism.
Funnily enough, though, this is the first year I’ll have the pleasure of covering TV Upfronts season – albeit from a more ad tech focused perspective than I would’ve back in the day.
Still, old habits die hard.
So when Executive Chairman Peter Liguori kicked off VideoAmp’s “Vampfront” presentation on Tuesday by encouraging more people to sit in front with a joke – that contrary to the popular idiom, he does bite, actually – of course I started thinking about my favorite pop culture vampires.
I mean, come on. How do you not? “Vamp” is right there in the name.
But the comparison isn’t meant to be a dig – far from it. Modern vampire stories often involve David versus Goliath dynamics, with clans of young disruptors pushing back against established dynasties and long-held traditions.
If that doesn’t fit nicely into VideoAmp’s current narrative for itself as a viable Big Data alternative to Nielsen, I don’t know what does.
Welcome to the Masquerade
This year marked VideoAmp’s second-ever Vampfront, and its first at the (slightly migraine-inducing) Mercer Labs, which Liguori said “embodies the intersection between tech and art” in the same way that the TV measurement world often does.
If Vampfront 1.0 was VideoAmp’s call for others to join in the “currency multiverse,” as EVP of revenue Bryan Goski described it, then 2.0 was a celebration of that multiverse’s continued growth.
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In particular, Goski and Aaron Lily, EVP of client success, cited VideoAmp’s partnership with Paramount in Q4 2024, during which time the publisher allowed its contract with Nielsen to lapse for a record-breaking four months.
“We think that the increase in demand for audience-based buying will continue to strengthen our partnership [with VideoAmp],” said Travis Scoles, EVP of Advanced Advertising at Paramount, in a taped segment.
“We also believe that the overall marketplace, even on the demo side, is going to continue to shift into a multi-currency space, and we’re here to support that,” Scoles continued.
Batter up
As the incumbent to VideoAmp’s challenger brand (or the Camarilla to their Anarchs, if you’re interested in some really deep-cut vampire lore), Nielsen loomed large during the night’s proceedings, although not always by name.
Rather than make the whole event about punching up on “The Big Guy,” as Ligouri put it, VideoAmp also had its own news to announce, too. In addition to renewing its multi-year deal with TelevisaUnivision, the company will also soon begin the auditing process for MRC accreditation later this spring.
“One of the closing pitcher’s most dangerous weapons is the change-up pitch,” said Chief Commercial Officer Pete Bradbury, using his own baseball metaphor to round out the evening. And the best way to combat it, he said, is to “swing for the fences.”
I guess I could try to combine analogies (vampires do like baseball, as we all know), but you know what? Let’s let VideoAmp have this one.
After all, they’re not wrong: the game as we know it is changing.
Enjoying this newsletter? Got a question? Drop me a line at victoria@adexchanger.com.
