TV & Digital Ad Teams Must Come Together: Hulu’s Davidov
TV & Digital Ad Teams Must Come Together: Hulu’s Davidov

SAN JUAN, PR -- Despite the apparent coming-together of television and digital video advertising, ad buyers are still too often divided in two two teams, according to one publisher hoping for change.

In this video interview with Beet.TV, Hulu director of ad sales research Asaf Davidov complains that differences persist.

"When we're talking to TV teams versus digital teams, those conversations are still very fragmented," he says.

"I think (the industry likes) to pretend like we're buying and selling across all of those, and I don't think that we truly are.

"The way that TV looks at reach and frequency is much different than the way that digital looks at reach and frequency.

Different even within digital, video versus social versus display.

"And so, I think there's a lot of work still to be done to figure out how to connect all of those pieces.

ACR (automatic content recognition) data is the first step in being able to kind of connect across all of those platforms, but I think we're still a little bit a ways away." Last year, Hulu launched a new ad format, “Pause Ad“, and claimed to generate 68% increase in brand lift associated with those campaigns.

Whilst Hulu offers an ad-free subscription option, ad-supported viewing remains a major part of its business.

Next up, it wants to offer advertisers certainty.

"We don't guarantee on reach and frequency today," Davidov says.

"We are working closely with a lot of our measurement partners to figure out how to do that, and working with third-party vendors to be able to do cross-platform de-duplication." Davidov was interviewed by Furious Corp CEO Ashley J.

Swartz at Beet Retreat San Juan 2020, where he was a participant.

This video was produced  at the Beet Retreat San Juan 2020 sponsored by 605, DISH Media, NBCU, Roundel & Tubi.

For more videos from the series, please visit this landing page.