Dive Brief:
- Turner created the Turner Ad Lab Advisory Board and stocked it with buyers, professors and technologists who will help the cable company understand the future of linear and digital video advertising in the evolving TV marketplace, according to Adweek.
- Board member and Turner Chief Research Officer Howard Shimmel told Adweek, "We're going to let the committee guide the money we're investing in research."
- The board’s first meeting is set for Thursday at New York’s Time Warner Center.
Dive Insight:
Just the existence of Turner’s board is indicative of the challenge facing the traditional TV advertising market, a market that multiple analysts and groups see being passed in spending by digital no later than next year, if not this year. The board was created in January and has already been testing Turner’s reduction of ad loads on some of its cable networks earlier this year.
"We obviously don't have all the answers, so we're getting a lot of really smart people in a room to help guide the development of what the next phrase of ad experience will be on television and in digital video and then do research to help quantify what it is we should do and what it is we shouldn't do in terms of bringing stuff to market," Shimmel added. "We're better incorporating their thinking than thinking we have all the answers ourselves."
What’s interesting is the board’s findings will be somewhat open-source. Shimmel said the plan is to be transparent and open within the industry by presenting at different industry events with the goal of making the TV advertising ecosystem better and more cohesive.