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Mastercard Technology Television

MasterCard's media chief: 'Technology has moved a bit quicker than the ability to create relevant content'

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By Laurie Fullerton, Freelance Writer

November 21, 2016 | 4 min read

With the paradigm-shift away from mass media to 'advanced' or 'addressable' television already underway, some aspects of the industry are ahead of others when it comes to taking advantage of the opportunities it poses, according to MasterCard senior vice president for media Ben Jankowski.

The audience shift away from traditional TV viewing towards watching their favorite content anytime on a variety of devices, means advertisers can no longer rely on traditional TV buys. Although, it does pose them with the ability to show different ads to different households while they are watching the same program.

Speaking in an interview with Beet.TV at the Beet Retreat conference in Miami, FL last week, Jankowski said the technologies enabling advertiser to deliver such dynamic creative have “probably moved on a bit quicker than the ability to create relevant content”.

Jankowski added: “We probably have to figure out new innovative ways to create, whether it be tapping into partners, or look at different ways to create, that includes media owners. How do we get them to create content for us, whereas they never did before?

"That even includes consumers … it used to be a one-way conversation, where we used to tell you what you should know about us, and now it needs to be a two-way conversation. Those that continue to deliver a one-way conversation are probably not delivering a lot of engagement."

The challenge companies like MasterCard face, however, is that with the advances in television viewing comes the dilemma of reaching tightly defined markets ­– like individual TV-viewing households – and maintaining a balance between scale and targetability.

Jankowski explained that despite the seismic shifts in the dynamics of the TV advertising industry, some of the core tenets marketing remained the same, especially for a mass market brand such as MasterCard, where the onus on the marketing team is still to drive mass awareness through reach and frequency of its messaging.

However, commenting on the iterative changes it is making in its approach to marketing, he gave some insight into how it assesses the effectiveness of MasterCard’s long-running Priceless campaign among test audiences.

“We have some tests going on in some geographies where we’re doing some real-time marketing so we can prove to our customers that we’re providing more value than their current marketing efforts … we’re also doing things around understanding long-term value,” he added.

He also went on to say that MasterCard now has more marketing, ad agency and tech partners than ever before, and that despite gaps currently existing in the market. All constituents provide an important role.

"Back in the day, we had a very small group of agency partners who did everything," Jankowski noted. “No one’s figured it out yet, and all the different constituents that were here – the sell-side, buy-side, and technology providers and marketers – help you understand what’s going on.

Many brands hope that this chain gets shorter as consolidation happens in the ad-tech space, as testified by Adobe’s latest acquisition of automated buying outfit TubeMogul.

"Our overall marketing objective is that we need a strong brand and we need to drive business results. Within that, we look at the short term and the ability to engage," concluded Jankowski. "Understanding customer value - how to take a kernel of information and make it scalable is something we are working on as well.“

The Drum was the official media partner of Beet Retreat 2016, and will be report live from the event. For more videos from the Beet Retreat event visit Beet.TV. Similar issues and topics will be covered during The Drum's Programmatic Punch event in London next month.

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