Join Marlissa of NewsUSA in an insightful interview with John Rogers VP of Business Development of Nexxen, a full-service ad platform specializing in efficient campaign delivery and publisher-advertiser relationships.
Nexxen operates at the intersection of advertiser demand and publisher supply, offering unique technology solutions for both sides of the advertising transaction.
When John was asked what he sees for Ad Tech in 2024, he highlighted that last year was mostly about looking for the best partners to work with, proving their worth and 2024 is mostly on working with these partners with efficiency and adding more value.
Learn who Nexxen wanted to focus working with to make sure they only work with limited no. of partners but could potentially bring more to the table focusing on partners with first party data emphasizing on data privacy and efficiency.
John shares his 30 meetings that are all happening in 3 days–people in connected tv, broadcasting, content distributors and platforms.
John Rogers also discusses shifting TV consumption patterns, highlighting the decline of traditional paid-TV models and the rise of ad-supported TV formats, such as Netflix's evolving approach towards programmatic advertising.
Join us for an engaging conversation about the future of advertising and digital media landscapes.
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00:47All right. What's up, News USA? We are still at CES. It has been a long day, but we've had a good time.
00:54We've had a good time. We are bringing you another amazing interview with an incredibly innovative company in the space of ad tech.
01:02We've got John Rogers with us today. So, how's it going, John?
01:06It's going well, thank you. How are you doing?
01:08I'm tired. Yeah. It has been a day.
01:12But, yeah, let's talk about Nexen. Let's talk about what you all do and what you do specifically for the company.
01:17Sure. So, I work at Nexen. Nexen is a full-service advertising platform.
01:22We work with advertisers to help them deliver campaigns efficiently.
01:26And then my team actually focuses on publisher relationships, so people who are selling ad space.
01:31And what's different about Nexen is that we have both a demand-side technology and a supply-side technology.
01:37So, you work with sort of both sides of the transaction, which is relatively unique in the space.
01:41Awesome. Yep.
01:41So, I do want to understand, and y'all know I am known for asking silly questions, but help me out.
01:47When you say supply-side, so that means the publishers coming to the table with ads and then demand would be advertisers.
01:54Advertisers. Got it. Awesome. Awesome.
01:56Okay. Well, interestingly enough, we have talked to a couple companies about ad tech.
02:01So, it's been pretty crazy here. Like, what's your kind of scope on how things are going at CES for ad tech?
02:08Yeah. There's ad tech people all over the place. Everybody has their sort of unique clients and propositions.
02:18And here at CES, at least, you can meet with everybody all in one shot.
02:22I have like 30 meetings in three days. Like, it is ridiculous. I know. Not including this.
02:27And it's super busy. There is a community. It's a sort of a tight, you know what I mean?
02:32Like, you start to get to know people. You come to these conferences year over year.
02:35You start to meet new people, which is cool. So, you do sort of check in with old sort of friends and co-workers.
02:41But it's a lot of client meetings. Everybody's getting ready. 2024 planning, all that kind of stuff.
02:45So, yeah, it's crazy. And then here in Vegas, it's always sort of nonstop. That's for sure, too. Yeah, right.
02:51It's literally one of those cities that never sleeps.
02:54So, I guess before we go into the rest of ad tech, how do you take your coffee?
02:58Because you probably will. Black and large. I love that. Keep it strong. I love that.
03:04So, you mentioned ad tech 2024, right? And people gearing up. What do you see coming, right?
03:11Kind of what do you see on the horizon, not only for Nexen, but maybe some of your competitors or collaborators?
03:16Yeah. So, a year ago at this conference, it was all about my partners limiting and finding the most efficient partner.
03:26Well, the best partners to work with.
03:28And there was an optimization that happened around, like, if they were working with 50 different partners,
03:33they had a goal to make that 20 or 10.
03:37And they've done that. It was actually a pretty good year for efficiency.
03:40They call that, on my side of the house, they would call that demand path optimization.
03:43They want to streamline the number of people that bring them advertisers.
03:48Now, it's about being efficient with those partners that you're working with.
03:52So, the efficiency of the partners that you're bringing or the partners that you decide to do business with
03:58is what I think 2024 is going to be about, which we're excited about because we have that demand-side technology.
04:04So, we're bringing new advertisers to our publisher partners, ones that they wouldn't be able to get anywhere else.
04:10So, that keeps us in very productive conversations.
04:14A year ago, it was about proving sort of our worth, proving sort of our value to their business.
04:19And now, it's about driving more value for them.
04:22Fantastic.
04:22So, when you mention, I guess, decreasing, right?
04:28The number of folks that are bringing you advertisers, does that mean that you are working with people with more scale, companies with more scale?
04:35So, I want to find people with high quality.
04:39So, I want to find people where they're directly contacted to end users, right?
04:45So, I want to work with people who sell directly to people like me, but also have the end users logging right onto their websites.
04:52There's people that are like intermediaries and stuff.
04:54They're a little less valuable.
04:55But then, those people that have that and have scale are probably the most important ones that we want to meet with.
05:01And they're the folks that I'm meeting with here, for sure.
05:04That's awesome.
05:04Yeah.
05:05If I can get $5 million in one place instead of $1 million in five places, I'll take it.
05:10I'll take it.
05:11Hey, y'all.
05:12Marlissa Collier here for NewsUSA TV.
05:14We are at CES 2024.
05:17And we got our good friend, John Rogers, here with Nexen.
05:20Ad tech is a hot topic here at CES 2024.
05:26And I know, you know, we were talking earlier, you said you had 30 meetings in three days.
05:31You take your coffee black and large.
05:32Good to know.
05:34So, talk to us about who you're meeting with, what you all are talking about.
05:37Sure.
05:38So, Nexen's, I would say, streaming first.
05:42So, we're video first.
05:43So, a lot of the partners that I work with are in connected television.
05:47So, broadcasting clients, content distributors, platforms, people anywhere where the eyeballs
05:55are going to be watching connected television as opposed to sort of traditional linear television.
05:59Those people are really valuable to us.
06:01And then my team manages their partnerships already.
06:04So, it's about building those relationships and finding out what their goals are for 2024.
06:08So, we're meeting with those guys.
06:10And then we also meet with traditional kind of internet companies.
06:13So, display advertising and online video advertising, we're meeting with those guys, too.
06:19Again, with quality and scale.
06:22And then one of the hot things right now is people that have first-party data.
06:24So, people that register, have people that register on their sites.
06:29We want to work with them because data and privacy and efficiency of targeting audiences
06:35is becoming the hot topic here now, too.
06:37So, those are a lot of the meetings, new publishers as well as existing ones.
06:42I'm sort of meeting with the whole gamut, for sure.
06:45Yep.
06:45As someone who is a cord cutter, and you just mentioned talking to streaming platforms and
06:53distributors, content creators, things like that.
06:55Do you see paid TV on the decline and ad, you know, affiliated type of TV on the increase?
07:09Or kind of talk to us about that market because I'm interesting, especially in this economy,
07:13like where people are going to go and then how your business will play a role.
07:16Sure.
07:16So, well, so the traditional sort of cable bundle, which I still have because I'm old
07:22and that's just, I even have a landline.
07:25But we talk-
07:26You have a landline, John?
07:27I do.
07:27I have a landline, okay?
07:28I have a landline.
07:29Can we-
07:29I don't know whose house to come to if there's a disaster.
07:31Yeah, but there's a disaster.
07:33I'm hardwired.
07:35There's still people like me, but there's less of people like me.
07:37And that's why you're laughing.
07:38Um, but, uh, yes, so the eyeballs, I don't know the specific statistics, but clearly
07:45people are starting to cut the cord or they're supplementing their cable subscriptions with
07:49all the online services.
07:51And then you have subscription-based ones like Netflix, say, where you pay a certain amount
07:55and you have less ads.
07:56Even Netflix, though, is starting to do an ad-supported model.
07:59I saw that, yeah.
08:00And then you have ones that you may pay.
08:01So even Hulu's got ads and everybody else.
08:03So, um, just like when cable first started, and maybe because I'm, uh, old, I remember
08:09when cable started, my dad thought it was a fad.
08:11He thought my cable was going to go-
08:12It's a weather takeoff.
08:13That's a whole other interview.
08:14Um, about my dad's vision of the future.
08:16We- we had a satellite dish in my backyard.
08:18Really?
08:19So, hey, the TV.
08:20All right.
08:20VCRs and cable were, um, fads that my dad was not willing to invest in.
08:24I'm with me.
08:26But, um, what the- the eyeballs are certainly headed to digital.
08:30Okay.
08:30And then that allows you to do, you know, um,
08:33programmatic advertising with those providers.
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