Ben Staves is Head of Digital, Sky Media Ireland. With a background in computer science he joined the digital media industry 10 years ago and has worked with companies including Dentsu and the Daily Mail before joining Sky in 2021.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Tina Nielsen: How does your background in computer science feed into your role today?
Ben Staves: I have always had a focus on data, which is a significant element in my role at Sky – and in digital advertising generally. I got my start in e-commerce working on programmatic due to my background in computer science and IT.
TN: In your time in the media business, how has the digital advertising landscape shifted?
BS: When I moved into the industry, I started off on the programmatic side and that is an area that has changed a lot. It's only really in the last six or seven years that I think advertisers have taken programmatic more seriously and begun putting more budget into it, but at the same time also demanding more transparency and measurement. I think that’s the key development for the last couple of years: advertisers are putting money into digital and demanding transparency and measurement. Ten years ago it wasn't such a big thing because the ad tech wasn't really there.
Similarly, 10 years ago mobile wasn't that big, but I think ever since Covid, things have changed significantly. There has been a huge shift in media buying, the way we distribute our content and how we monetize it.
So I think what's changed over the last 10 years really – the demand for digital's absolutely grown. I suppose the big shift that we're seeing is a lot of advertisers and agencies asking about programmatic.
TN: How are you navigating the social media panorama?
BS: We didn't distribute a lot of our content on social media, which for me includes YouTube. I suppose TikTok hasn’t been around for that long, but even Facebook wasn’t a big part of the mix and that comes down to the content licensing.
Recently we have seen the big advertisers want social media as part of their media plans – six or seven years ago, that wasn't the case, they were steering clear of social media platforms because they were worried about where their ads would appear. The media industry has loads of examples of scandals where big brands have pulled content from social platforms and we’ve seen challenges every single year, whether it's around brand safety or transparency or clients wanting to know the return on their investment.
We’re focused on making sure we're producing the content that's suitable for each of those platforms. There is still a lot of learning to be had and we have to be on the ball and keep moving with the social media scenario.
TN: How is the role of programmatic changing?
BS: Programmatic is already big in the digital industry; in the TV broadcast industry it’s bigger in the US; they are slightly ahead of us. I come from a background in traditional print media and programmatic was huge. That is now expanding and today programmatic is already significant for media agencies and it is the future for advertisers as well.
It all comes back to the digital activity, it has to be measurable. Clients want to be able to see and attribute sales to their activity cross platform. So I think programmatic obviously gives the power back to the buyers. For agencies, it consolidates a lot of their headache and simplifies things for them. And I think it is the future for a lot of us.
TN: What are the main drivers of your strategy decisions?
BS: Our strategy is seeing where our viewers are. We have all the data from our live TV. So even two years ago, we were not producing the same volume of Premier League clips, for example, but now we see a lot of that content being consumed on Snapchat and TikTok. This year, we've increased the amount of content going out on those platforms. So a lot is down to what our customers are viewing and where they're viewing the content, and then investing in the distribution of the content and being able to educate our clients and respond to briefs with innovative solutions.
Our audiences are fragmented. So they're viewing our content everywhere, they're watching it on connected TV, live TV, mobile, and on all different platforms like YouTube social.
TN: How do you see the looming scenario of the cookieless environment?
BS: Speaking from the media owner's side, it's something that we've been conscious of the last few years. And I think most media owners have been investing in the technology to kind of work around that. So I think the biggest challenge is going to be the right measurement, whether we’re trying to measure the return on investment or sales.
We have invested in technology to lead the market with our first party data strategy. And that involves taking data from TV and all our touch points, or Sky Mobile and Sky Broadband, and housing it all in the one place, making sure that it is safe, and it's GDPR compliant, obviously.
There will be a challenge around attribution and being able to target audiences by interests, so we're going to have to look at contextual targeting, which may not be as effective. But I think the investment in first party data strategy is key. Cookieless will bring innovations and new market entrants; stuff that we haven't even thought about coming.
At Sky I think we've already put a good strategy in place to kind of take on the challenge. And I think we're in a good place to work with this. But there are definitely going to be opportunities for innovation for all sides; media owners, buyers, agencies and brands.
TN: What are the watchwords for companies contemplating the future for digital advertising?
BS: Artificial Intelligence (AI) is obviously a huge buzzword at the moment. And I think there'll be a lot more automation in media buying and possibly the way we sell our media as well. But programmatic is going to be key; it's what the advertisers are asking for, and I’ll say it again, good and reliable data is going to be massive. So possibly AI and machine learning can help to get more value out of those big volumes of data and use it more effectively for advertisers.
And then we've got more smart technology coming down the track. We talk about shoppable TV, the ultimate goal would be that a user sees an ad on TV, and is able to quickly purchase something with the click of one button. I think it's going to be complicated, but AI is definitely going to help simplify the journey for users.
The other thing is content; the market is saturated with large amounts of user generated content and I think there might be more of a skew towards premium content. There are concerns around things like fake and fraudulent news and conspiracy theories. A lot of brands we deal with don't want to associate themselves with that, whether it's on social channels like YouTube, or Snapchat or TikTok, and I think that might drive a change in content.
