Data science is the new frontier in media research, TiVo executive says
A paradigm shift from media research to data science in television advertising bodes well for marketers trying to target major media spend. Information is also more readily available, in part because of acquisitions like TV data company Rovi acquiring set-top box outfit TiVo, a deal valued at $1.1bn.
With brands now reaching audiences via different channels and an improved understanding of the consumer, buyers and sellers are investing more in big data and digital platforms, says, Joan Fitzgerald, vice president of product management and business development at TiVo. She also said it was becoming a much more process-oriented system, in a recent interview by Beet.tv.
“One of the main shifts is from what I’ll call media research to data science,” Fitzgerald said, “We are at the tip of the iceberg in helping marketers understand more in the context of their media spend."
The investment at the agency-level, media brands in enterprise software and the integration that has occurred means that audience measurement will enable more value for their advertisers. As marketers invest more in big data and digital platforms, it is a much more process oriented system now.
“Most notably, NBCUniversal, Turner, Viacom have all made huge investments in … enabling those systems to generate more value for the advertisers. On the advertising agency side, you see the same investments – they’re investing in big data and new people to make those operational systems work for them," Fitzgerald notes.
This shift is just the latest in line with a common trend – the boosting of traditional human analytical skills with computer science, allowing customers to do more of what they did before, better and better.
And that’s something the new-look Rovi-TiVo is going to do, partly after the acquisition that involved the TiVo Research and Analytics (TRA) unit.
“We’re able to combine the assets that TRA built over a number of years with our enterprise software system,” Fitzgerald adds. “For example, they were really the first to market with audience targeting.
“Your whole buying and selling process is just more closely aligned with the marketer’s goals. So we’re really at the tip of the iceberg in terms of helping marketers understand targets in the context of their media spend.”
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