While CES 2022 actually did go on as planned, and there were people who actually did make the trip out to Las Vegas, Omicron put the travel plans of most of our Thought Leaders Circle members on ice. That said, everyone seemed determined to make the best of it and there was still much to be learned.

David Berkowitz, Mediaocean’s new SVP Corporate Marketing & Communications points out that the benefit of a virtual event is that they were able to have more people attend. (And they still managed to get Sir Martin Sorrell to speak!)

As much as we missed getting together with our colleagues and clients in Vegas this year, we managed to connect with a much wider audience with our Mediaocean Retreat pivoting to virtual. More than 1,500 people registered to catch two days of sessions, including speakers such as S4 Capital Executive Chairman Sir Martin Sorrell, Twitter Chief Customer Officer Sarah Personette, author and futurist Rishad Tobaccowala, and CBS Chief Research & Analytics Officer Radha Subramanyam. Catch the recordings on-demand, and then download our new report that we released at the event, the 2021 Market Report and 2022 Outlook assessing the state of play in advertising and media.

Nick Cicero, Conviva’s Vice President of Strategy reflected on the need for streaming services to have a strong retention strategy and how many CES-related conversations seemed to focus on the need for better content discovery experiences, of the sort that lead to better retention rates.

In 2022 we’ve spent a year with every major broadcaster having fully entered the streaming market in some meaningful way, and now consumers have a problem with content discovery. There are so many platforms and applications that streaming marketers and programmers are having to look deeply at their retention strategies to promote content consumption and regular usage.
I think the most interesting insight I took away from CES (and conversations that would have happened at CES) is that this year we’ll see more streaming applications and TV/device manufacturers work collaboratively to optimize content discovery and retention, both AVOD and SVOD, to keep delivering quality viewing experiences across the multitude of platforms, devices and applications that exist today.

Jessica Hindlian, TVSquared's SVP of Identity & Partnerships was all about the data—and how the industry is waking up to the benefits of greater collaboration between buy side and sell side to solve issues like frequency capping.

The proliferation of data, combined with industry-wide collaboration, is opening up opportunities for the entire converged TV market. Buyers and sellers alike are working toward the same goal to make all sides of the trade win – a large focus is the ability to deduplicate audiences and identify frequency caps across video inventory supply sources, consistently and at scale.

And finally, Jonathan Steuer, VideoAmp’s EVP, TV Strategy & Currency, was there on the ground. He loved the absence of taxi lines and the opportunity to investigate the smaller companies and start-ups that showed up at CES with big ideas about how to reshape TV’s future. (Not to mention the chance to see Simulmedia’s own Dave Morgan.)

Seeing Vegas so empty was surreal! But it was great not having to wait on any taxi lines. And while many of the big companies did not show up, there were a lot of smaller companies and startups who did. It was also great to connect in person with VideoAmp colleagues and clients after so much time meeting virtually.

And I ran into Dave Morgan!”

For our part, we appreciated the opportunity to watch Mediaocean’s luminaries from the comfort of our home office (okay, the couch in the den) and there were some excellent insights to be found around the current state of advertising—people are more eloquent when they know they’re being filmed.

We agree with Nick about the need for a better discovery process—this was a conversation we often had that week too, about how many streaming interfaces were designed for an era when there wasn’t a whole lot on streaming and users went in with a specific target in mind and the goal was to make it easier for them to find it. These days however, with so much on streaming, the ability to help consumers find shows that surprise and delight them is going to give whoever does it best a massive edge.

Jessica’s point about the benefits of greater collaboration is spot on (the enemy is digital, not other TV companies) as is the need to do something about overfrequency, especially on streaming. CES week conversations on that front tended to focus on how there’s never been a more opportune time for the industry to start working together rather than at cross purposes. Here’s hoping that spirit continues to thrive.

As for Steuer’s experience, a Las Vegas without taxi lines is something I can only dream of, though I can say I have run into Dave Morgan at a full attended CES, which may be even more random. On a more serious note, CES is indeed a great venue to find out about new companies in the space, many of whom don’t stay small for very long, and I missed the way they can get me to look at things from a totally different POV.

Next year, then…

Keep an eye out for our new special report: “Getting Granular: Why ACR Data Is Winning The TV Measurement Game” next week