An Exciting Return: Advertising Week New York

After countless virtual events, Ampersand was thrilled to rejoin our peers IN PERSON at this year’s Advertising Week New York. This time, with a new mantra: The Total TV Company.

Following our recent webinar, How to Move Your TV Strategy Forward with an Audience-First Approach, our team answered questions from attendees eager to make this shift in tactics.

If the Truck is King, could the SUV be Queen? It may seem so—

Ampersand's recognition by Ad Age as part of "Best Places to Work 2021" was a great way to kick-off the year and was also incredibly humbling.

It's all TV. The walls between linear and streaming are starting to crumble. Don’t be surprised if 2021 is the year when our industry truly integrates linear and streaming buying, creating a more unified, seamless multiscreen TV ecosystem.

Covid-induced shifts in scheduling have created an unexpected smorgasbord of overlapping live sports programming that is both exciting and maddening. So what does this mean for ratings and viewership?

The menu of live sports content is arguably as varied and rich during the pandemic as it has ever been, which presents brands an unexpected opportunity to builder greater engagement with their core audiences. An audience-first approach enables brands to do just that,  in the current live sports landscape.  

It’s been quite a year since Advertising Week New York 2019, where we unveiled our rebrand from NCC Media to Ampersand. We’re excited to now announce our 2020 partnership with Advertising Week, which will take place virtually, October 5th – 8th!

Even without the excitement and emotion of  live audiences, the NBA, MLB and NHL collectively accounted for over 100 million total impressions since they restarted in June.*As major sports continue to ramp back up, brands need to view their live sports investments through a more creative and flexible lens. Why? Although the state of live sports continues to evolve, advertisers can still reach their intended audiences.

Advertisers must develop new ways to find, engage and motivate audiences. The power of TV remains unrivaled: unmatched scale + reach, quality + professionally-produced content, + an unequaled level of viewer engagement and emotional connection. Discussions around the Upfront business model is a symptom of this larger opportunity.

In May, Ampersand launched our first Partners + Insights Series: MOVING FORWARD TOGETHER, to educate and connect the TV advertising industry as marketers navigate the COVID-19 pandemic.

In our final Partners + Insights Series with Kantar’s US Chief Digital Officer, Stephen DiMarco, summed up the session in just a few words, “We’re all trying to figure out the ‘right way’ to communicate during a pandemic.”

On our latest Partners + Insights Series, the VAB’s EVP, Danielle DeLauro, joined our SVP, Agency Partnerships, Marion Hargett, to discuss the latest COVID-19 viewing trends and solutions for current challenges that marketers are facing.

Last week we invited Foursquare to the stage for our second Partners + Insights Series! Ariel Segal, Director, Insights and Analytics at Foursquare shared the top trends around location data during the current COVID-19 climate, and how to strategically use location to plan, reach and measure media buys.

In our premier session, our VP, Data and Research, Justin Rosen, was joined by TVSquared’s President, Jo Kinsella, to dig into the trends in DTC that TVSquared is seeing in the current COVID-19 climate.

Today Ampersand and Verizon announced a strategic TV partnership to bring further national scale and unification of addressable TV to advertisers. With this announcement, Ampersand will now serve as the exclusive seller of Verizon Fios’ addressable TV inventory.

Earlier this year at CES we launched our tagline “Moving TV Forward.” Our CEO, Nicolle Pangis, expanded on the messaging and its importance during her interview with Carat’s CMO, Robert Schwartz.

“Moving TV Forward” was chosen to represent the progress we’re making as a company, and an industry. Today, the concept of “moving forward” couldn’t be more applicable to both the business and our personal lives. While initially a market-facing message, it’s now become an internal ethos to make sure we come out of this stronger together.

Last month the International Olympics Committee (IOC) announced the postponement of the 2020 Summer Olympics, with rescheduled dates of July 23rd - August 8th, 2021.  

The AND Platform is a huge step in bringing audience-based buying and automation to clients through a single interface that supports both local and national TV buying. Fueled by viewership insights from nearly 40 million HHs, with activation on hundreds of cable networks across 85 million HHs, The AND Platform provides unparalleled scale in TV for executing multi-screen, audience-based buys.

It’s official, 2020 is here! Before we all hit the ground running again, we wanted to pause and share what we see ahead for this year. It’s safe to say that 2019 brought about both transformational changes at Ampersand, as well as foundational work. While there is no shortage of opportunity, it will take a “focus on focus” to deliver the solutions that will make a difference to the industry.

During Advertising Week New York in September 2019, Ampersand and its partners, co-created ten hours of content for the TV industry with a focus on the evolution of TV advertising and the broad perspectives that come with it. We’re now able to make this content complementary, through our partnership with Advertising Week.

As privacy regulations evolve, the industry is bringing data collection and data sharing practices to the forefront for the protection of consumers and organizations.

While audience planning tools have historically focused on national TV buys, Ampersand is bringing audience based buying to local TV for the first time.

Whether you’re a local, regional, or national advertiser, chances are it’s been challenging to buy media across MVPDs, primarily due to a multitude of TV offerings with different product names, technical jargon and even disparate data sets.

Our President, Andrew Ward, joined Carat’s podcast, “The Human Element,” hosted by their CMO, Robert Scwhartz, alongside Amplifi’s Dave Sederbaum, EVP, Video Investment and Brad Stockton, VP, Video Innovation.

Two of Ampersand’s advanced TV experts illustrate how brands can harness ‘the power of AND’ to launch addressable campaigns that reach their intended customers.

The vision for NCC Media was born by a couple, Linda and Bob Williams, in Boston in 1981.