TVOT SF 2025 - Contextual Advertising: Lessons from the Field

Contextual advertising, which presents CTV viewers with ads that are tailored to the programming they are currently watching, is intended to provide an efficient and effective way to reach a targeted audience, while avoiding the privacy and brand-safety concerns that can be associated with other forms of data-driven targeted advertising. A major factor in its recent growth has been AI, which enables increasingly granular and sophisticated analysis of programming content, metadata and viewer behavior, and thus allows advertisers who employ contextual campaigns to target increasingly nuanced audiences.

This session will bring together representatives of companies that have been at the forefront of contextual’s rapid growth, in order to share best practices and lessons from the field; identify any emerging challenges that could impact the medium in the coming months and years; and provide insight into how contextual might evolve going forward, as well as into how its evolution could impact media-buying, creative and other elements of the advertising ecosystem at large. Panelists include:

• Ashwin Navin, CEO, Samba TV

• Daniel Church, Head of CTV, Seedtag

• Gary Mittman, CEO, KERV

• Matt Weinman, VP of Product Management, Advanced Advertising, TelevisaUnivision

• Rohan Ramesh, VP of Data Science, Vevo

• Sarah Bolton, Principal, Sarah Bolton Media Consulting (Moderator)