The Challenges to Converged Media Buying Are Organizational, Says Xandr’s CRO

A recent survey from AT&T’s specialist media unit Xandr found that only half of all media-buying teams are truly converged once marketing campaigns move beyond the planning phase. Xandr presented the findings, based on a survey of 200 U.S. video buyers, today as part of the virtual IAB Newfronts series with CRO Jason Brown echoing earlier presentations that asserted that audiences don’t delineate between TV and digital.

“As we look across the different advertising phases, we see television and digital are working closely together,” Brown said. “But once we pass the planning phase, we see about a 50-50 split between truly converge teams and those that are separated but continue to collaborate.”

Brown added, “The challenges to converged buying practices, we found, are more organizational than they are individual.”

He went on to observe that marketers increasingly request converged campaign reporting and often claim that fusing TV with digital is their biggest challenge.

“The results on this slide, tell us that the industry solution needs to be about unifying automating and measuring across screens,” Brown said. “And that will take insight inspiration and transformation.”