• by Charlene Weisler , Op-Ed Contributor, May 31, 2016

Pete Doe, chief research officer, clypd, is an expert in data fusion and TV currency audience products both in the UK and in America. He moved to clypd from Nielsen, where he helped launch the company’s data fusion efforts, which has brought him great satisfaction. “Data fusion is no longer seen as something unusual or unacceptable,” he said.

Charlene Weisler: What is the state of data fusion in the U.S. today?

Pete Doe: What’s happened in the last decade is that data has come to us from all angles… We all walk around with cell phones, and that is generating data every second of the day. The need to understand consumers through data has existed for decades, but now there is so much more data available.  That means we need to integrate data to make sense of what consumers are doing.

Several years ago, when life was simpler and you had one database measuring television audiences, you could probably get away with that if all you cared about was TV advertising. But now the world is a lot more complicated and so integration of data is a fact of life now…

So I think that there is an acceptance that you have to work with integrated data sets, whereas a few years ago people were questioning that. Then the question arises, “Well, what does that mean?”

If you integrate data sets, what data sets do you integrate? Who owns those data sets? What are the privacy concerns? What issues are there around coverage and research integrity? It is a very interesting world that we are living in now.

Weisler: Tell me about your work at clypd.

Doe: Clypd is really exciting because for so long, TV has been bought and sold using age and gender. We are bringing automation and data to the buying and selling process, working primarily for the seller.

I think that makes us fairly unique because there is a lot of demand-side automation that is happening. [But] we’re helping media owners to make the best use of the inventory to reach the right people at the right time.

We believe that if you can make TV advertising better targeted and more automated, then that is going to be good for the buyer, it’s going to be good for the seller an at the end of the day, it will be good for the viewer as well because they are going to see ads that are more relevant to them. In this ecosystem, everyone should win by using data in a smart way.  

Weisler: What is your definition of programmatic?

Doe: We define programmatic at clypd as having two elements: automation in the work flow, and the use of data in decision-making. I think the origin of programmatic in digital and the use of programmatic in remnant inventory suggests a bargain-basement approach to advertising, but that is not what it is about for us.

Clypd is primarily working with media owners to make better use of linear TV inventory. Many people think of programmatic as being primarily digital, but what we are trying to do is to make the process of buying and selling traditional TV campaigns a more automated and data-driven process than it has been up to now.

Weisler: What is your definition of television?

Doe: That is a difficult question. Television, what it means to me, is sitting down with my family, and it is more the shared experience--whereas digital is more of a personal thing.

That said, I can sit down and watch YouTube videos with my daughter. I try and introduce her to music I like, and she introduces me to music she likes. So it can also be a shared experience there, too….