Jenny Wall is a veteran of the TV and CTV industry but tends to specialize in what she calls “disruptive” companies. She worked at HBO when cable was still new, at Netflix and Hulu when streaming TV was nascent and she spent the last three years at VideoAmp, one of several companies trying to challenge the standards for TV measurement.
Now Wall has a new role as chief growth officer of Swayable, a creative optimization and research company that uses a combination of AI-driven algorithms and human-led consumer panels to test advertising effectiveness.
Being able to bridge that gap between creative and performance is more crucial than ever for the digital advertising crowd, she said.
“We got so obsessed with programmatic that we kind of forgot there’s this creative in the middle and the top of the funnel that you need,” said Wall. “You can’t just go to the bottom of the funnel; you need to create the demand.”
Swayable’s goal is to help marketers create that demand, said Wall. The company also recently hired Brian Lawrence as chief revenue officer, which she said will establish a “three-legged stool” of success with her as the brand marketing lead and with CEO James Slezak as the research lead.
I spoke with Wall about where she thinks the TV and CTV advertising industry is heading and what role AI has to play in that trajectory.
Streamlined: What do you think are the best use cases for AI within TV advertising?
JENNY WALL: I have to be honest – I’m a little scared of the AI creative that’s out there. I’m really nervous that it’s going to bring down that creativity that I’ve always been a part of my entire life.
That said, I think the tools themselves help us get to the answer faster. I have several agents myself, but I’m not at a point where I’m going to deploy an agent to buy media right now for me. What I am going to do is use our tools to help us make better decisions.
I’m still a huge believer in talking to real people. A brand is not a logo; it’s not a color; it’s not a tagline. It’s a gut feeling. Creatives and marketers still understand that you need to talk to real people. So, I think that the role AI plays is going to be more about giving us options for decisions that will create efficiency and better outcomes for both the brand, the consumer and the advertiser.
One of the biggest trends I’ve seen a lot of publishers talking about is content analysis, using AI to analyze a scene and make ad-buying decisions based on that – showing kitchen appliance ads after a kitchen scene, for example. Do you see that as a fad or do you think it’s going to become more workable over time?
I think it’s going to become more workable, but I think it’s in its infancy. The example you gave seems like it would make sense, but it’s still a person watching. So, if that person isn’t in the market for a kitchen appliance at that time, then, to me, that’s wasted dollars.
We have so much data right now that we need to just be careful of how we analyze that data and not make really quick decisions based on it yet.
What do you think are the biggest challenges that TV and especially CTV advertisers have to tackle right now?
I think it’s still measurement. And I sound like a broken record, but it’s proving outcomes. Every advertiser wants to know: Did what I place turn into sales? With attribution methods, like mixed media modeling, that’s usually after the fact. You’re not optimizing in real time. You’re looking backward. CTV needs to help prove that being within the customer journey is going to provide lift versus just programmatic.
And then, I also just think the pricing models are still a little out of whack in regard to digital versus streaming. You have a very low CPM on some digital, and then, you know, Netflix comes out and Amazon comes out, and you’ve got a $30 or $50 CPM. It’s really proving that, to me, those are not digital. That’s TV, and I think bucketing CTV into digital actually underpriced the value.
There’s been a much bigger focus on performance with TV lately. Is that all hype, or are CTV advertising platforms actually able to demonstrate better outcomes than they used to?
Oh, 100%. With clean rooms, you actually can create an ID graph that ties media to outcomes, which I think is the biggest change in the last three years.
I think media companies still are bucketing things into brand and performance, and it used to be that brand had all the money. Now, performance is getting the big spotlight on it, because it’s at the bottom of the funnel where you can actually really see the sales. CTV still fits in this middle part for me in most cases, but they have the data to match identities to outcomes.
Looking ahead, what excites you about the CTV advertising landscape and where Swayable fits into that ecosystem?
I see the most opportunity of using AI in companies like Swayable is in working directly with brands and working directly with the people that are buying the media and making the creative.
CTV is where everything has been moved. The only thing that’s keeping the broadcast table alive is sports, and that’s changing quite rapidly with Amazon getting Thursday Night Football and Netflix getting the Christmas NFL game. If we can harness getting the CPMs right and getting the targeting right, that mid-funnel is going to become just as or more important than programmatic.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
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