Media Insights Q&A with Mark Lieberman – CEO, TRA - Charlene Weisler

Mark Lieberman, Chairman and CEO of TRA, is acutely aware of how the market valuates media and how the advances in technology can help advertisers get more information about their media effectiveness. In this fascinating interview, Mark discusses TRA and how it provides greater insight into viewer behavior, how the TV currency is changing, the targeting of swing purchasers, the use of set top box data in measurement and, looking ahead, some predictions for the next five years.

There are four insightful videos in that cover the following topics:
Subject Length (in minutes)
Background and TRA (6:38)
TV Currency (6:02)
Agencies and Swing Purchasers (4:55)
Projects & Predictions (6:53)

Below is a short excerpt of some of the video interview. Direct links to the full interview videos can be found at WeislerMedia blog.

CW: What do you think the future is for television – for broadcast and for cable?

ML: You know I've been in this business for over 20 years and I have never seen a more exciting time with all of the disruptive technologies and disruptive business models. The internet is now a stable platform. And certainly the change continues when it comes to advertising with Over The Top Television and TV Everywhere. I think that the media companies are being smarter and not making the same mistakes as their brethren in the music industry made in terms of how one can create new business models around such things as TV Everywhere. But we need to remember that, at the end of the day, that screen that is in your living room which is getting larger and larger is just a screen and the consumer really doesn't care how they get their content delivered. There is always going to be the need for compelling content such as the Olympics. People are always going to want to watch the Olympics on a big screen. How they got it, whether or not it was over the internet and onto the big screen, remains to be seen. I think the small screen is a lot different in terms of viewing experience. You don't want to watch a hockey game on the small screen but you may want to watch some clips. You may want to watch some news broadcasts. But at the end of the day, they all need to be measured because if it is a free to the consumer service, it's got to be ad supported. If it has to be advertising supported, the advertiser wants to be comfortable and confident that the metrics can provide accountability for the ad dollars being spent and if they are reaching the right eyeballs.

CW: Mark, what are you working on now?

ML: For the past two and a half years since we started the company and made it operational, we have been building our system from the ground up to be as flexible as possible. So one of the things that we have done is to create a system that not only has the ability to run ratings, audience measurement but also enables you to understand ratings by network, ratings nationally, ratings locally and by stations. However, we have always believed that ratings are necessary but not sufficient. When you can also match up to purchase data that provides the key differentiation to what makes the advertisers and the networks want. It can bring more accountability and stability to television advertising. We designed the system to be massively scalable because as we add more data, we want to be able to scale quickly, to not have to change the software architecture. What we have done in the system is to also open up the application programming interfaces – the APIs – to the system to be integratable into third party legacy systems --the media optimizer at an agency, an ad network that is built by some large advertising network. Because we have many active customers, we are working on a new set of features in the system around the ROI capability. We are also adding more databases to the system, other purchasing categories beyond CPG.

Interview conducted by Charlene Weisler, a research veteran, member of the Set Top Box Collaborative executive committee, the CTAM Research and Research Planning Committees and a CIMM consultant. She can be reached through her blogwww.WeislerMedia.blogspot.comor atWeislerMedia@yahoo.com.

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