Advertising on content made for kids can be risky business.
Targeting options are limited due to the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), which is finally teething thanks to the FTC. Because COPPA prohibits sites and apps from serving personalized ads to children under 13 without a parent’s permission, many advertisers avoid made-for-kids content altogether.
That’s why Future Today, a streaming platform with a portfolio that includes entertainment content for kids, is trying to rebrand itself to marketers and agencies as a “family-friendly” programmer that also has content designed for viewers over 13 years old.
The goal is to convince media buyers that content for young audiences is “not a scary place to be,” said Jennifer D’Alessandro, head of ad sales and marketing, who helped build the company’s ad sales team when she first joined in 2019.
Later this year, Future Today plans to host its second-ever NewFronts presentation to continue making its case to marketers.
D’Alessandro spoke with AdExchanger.
AdExchanger: Can you expand on why it makes sense for Future Today to rebrand as a family-friendly programmer?
JENNIFER D’ALESSANDRO: We’re trying to change the perception that we’re just for kids by focusing more on the word “family.”
And when we do run ads on kid-focused content, we’re not really talking to the children; we’re talking to the parents. Over 90% of videos streamed on our HappyKids app [which has content made for small children] is co-viewed with parents.
Families are a target audience with a huge amount of purchase power. Parents and children have conversations about the brands they see in TV commercials, and children’s opinions influence purchase decisions.
But is it difficult to sell ads within content that is made for small children?
Some ad buying platforms simply won’t touch content that’s made for kids.
The Trade Desk is one example. It won’t transact on children’s programming, so when we work with brands that prefer buying programmatically through The Trade Desk, we have to switch to direct deals for them.
How does ad targeting work?
We use SpringServe as our ad server, which passes audience targeting data through video ad-serving templates for audiences over 13. We also work with LiveRamp’s data marketplace [which provides access to third-party data sets].
What about measurement?
We work with Samba TV for audience measurement. We also just started working with another alternative measurement provider. [Editor’s note: Future Today declined to share the name of its new alt measurement partner publicly until the deal is finalized.]
For younger audiences, we rely on survey data from research firms Kids Insights and MRI-Simmons. Future Today also gives buyers show-level transparency.
About a year ago, Future Today was selling most of its media directly. Is that still the case?
Now, about half of our media sales are done programmatically.
Traditional media buyers are getting more comfortable buying ads on kid-focused content programmatically when it’s done through a controlled environment like programmatic guaranteed or private marketplace deals.
Direct sales are more suitable for deals that include channel sponsorships or more interactive ad formats.
We do sell some ad supply in the open exchange, but only inventory for audiences over 13 because the open exchange is a less controlled environment. It’s still a bit like the Wild West.
This interview has been lightly edited and condensed.
