Paramount replaced its usual razzle-dazzle upfront presentation this year with fancy client dinners instead.
But that doesn’t mean it’s not also making a bunch of product announcements in hopes of winning ad commitments for the next broadcast year.
Each product addresses a marketer passion point: streaming, programmatic and live sports. Paramount is also merging the ad tech stacks behind Paramount+ and Pluto TV, releasing a new performance product, offering more control over ad placements and introducing dynamic ad insertion (DAI) in live sports.
Following the merger between Paramount Global and Skydance Media last summer, Paramount hopes to prove its post-merger prowess by addressing what a “modern marketer” needs from their connected TV media investments, Paramount CRO Jay Askinasi told AdExchanger.
And what does a “modern marketer” need? Mainly, he said, to more efficiently “plan, activate and optimize” media that “drives toward an outcome.”
When two stacks become one
Paramount has been vocal about its intentions to unify its ad tech stacks since late last year, part of its efforts to improve streaming monetization.
Now, Paramount says the tech stacks behind Paramount+ and Pluto TV, the company’s free ad-supported streaming service, will be fully merged over the summer.
By concentrating its viewing and identity data and ad tech within a single stack, Askinasi said, buyers and brands can better target streaming ads and make more personalized content recommendations, including across free ad-supported TV titles on Pluto. Roughly 65% of Pluto’s library is Paramount-owned content, he added, making the merge all the more logical.
Better ad personalization should also drive better outcomes and performance, he said – and performance is arguably what marketers care about most of all.
Speaking of performance, Paramount is also launching a new ad performance product called Precision+. (Because what streaming product doesn’t have the word ‘plus’ in its name?) The tool matches Paramount viewing and audience data with an advertiser’s first-party data and, using an algorithm, helps a buyer create a media plan with better odds of driving an intended outcome. The Precision+ product will also soon include a conversion API. More and more streaming platforms are launching CAPIs to help brands measure outcomes.
Buyers are in control (right?)
In other news, Paramount is heavily promoting what it calls streaming fixed units, or the ability for marketers to place an ad in a specific pod position within a streaming TV episode of their choice. For example, an advertiser could call dibs on the first pod placement in a particular show for the first seven days after a new episode premieres, including the “Yellowstone” spinoff “Dutton Ranch” when it premieres in May. The offering also applies to live sports.
Paramount originally launched streaming fixed units in the fall, including within popular shows “Tulsa King” and “Landman.” But the format is playing a big role in Paramount’s upfront pitch this year because it addresses another dire need among CTV buyers: the desire for more control and transparency.
Control over ad placements wasn’t a concern during the heyday of linear and broadcast TV. But for streaming, ad placement is “mostly rotational and not always as transparent,” Askinasi said.
This is nothing new. Marketers have been bemoaning their lack of transparency and control over their streaming investments for years – and they’re frustrated. Makes sense why Paramount is betting on streaming fixed units to woo media buyers at the upfronts.
Last but not least: live sports
Appealing to demands for marketer control, Paramount is also pushing a DAI initiative for live sports.
Paramount first rolled out DAI within UFC events in January after it secured a seven-year deal for exclusive US streaming rights to all UFC events. In the fall, Paramount will extend those DAI capabilities to other sports within the CBS Sports digital portfolio that it considers to be “marquee sporting events.” (Paramount declined to share specific examples.)
The expectation is that easier access to live sports streaming advertising paired with digital-style targeting will attract smaller brands that want to invest in live sports, but don’t necessarily have the budget for broadcast or linear TV.
That’s a lot to chew on, but there’s more to come.
Paramount is hosting intimate client dinners in Los Angeles, New York and Chicago ahead of upfront week in mid-May. AdExchanger will be attending Paramount’s client dinner next week for an on-the-record presentation and off-the-record conversations.
Stay tuned for more as we barrel straight into upfront season.
