Content Is King Again as CTV Advertising Evolves: Hershey’s Vinny Rinaldi

MIAMI – Many households have shifted their television viewing to streaming video, leading advertisers to set aside a bigger portion of their media budgets to connected television. Determining whether their ads are being seen is a key need for marketers of consumer packaged goods.

“Content is definitely king again,” Vinny Rinaldi, head of media and analytics at Hershey Co., said in this interview with Beet.TV at the Possible event. “One of the most important things for us as we think about content buying is: how do we show up in everybody’s prime time moment? Because there’s no longer channel-based buying by day part.”

The confectioner’s Reese’s brand collaborated with ad-tech company TripleLift on a native advertising campaign. The idea is to engage viewers with other formats than the 15- or 30-second spot.

“As you start standing out or stopping, pause ads have become really important. Home screen takeovers have become really important,” Rinaldi said. “How do you start to insert yourself in different moments on that screen is going to be really important in the future.”

Retailers are evolving into media outlets, their relationships with consumer packaged goods companies that fill stores with products also are changing. Brands are demanding that retailers show results in the same way that traditional publishers do.

“We have a ton of great retail partners, and those retailers sell chocolate, something Google doesn’t or Facebook doesn’t,” Rinaldi said. “They don’t sell chocolate, but they help me sell chocolate. How you marry those two things together in the future is going to be really important to connect holistic planning.”