Media Buying Briefing: What buyers expect out of this year's upfront marketplace

"Outcome. Defined as "the final result, consequence, or end product of a process, action, situation, or series of events." It's a perfect word to describe the hopes of sellers and marketers in this upfront marketplace, who through their agencies want to get to that holy land - embodied as the latest buzzword in media planning and buying."

"Outcomes-based deals move the broader video landscape from buying audiences generally to finding ways to prove that the advertising purchased had an affect on the consumers reached. "Premium content is being redefined around outcomes, not just scale," said Jessie Schwartzfarb, evp and head of video investment at Dentsu. "Premium IP is going to continue to remain central, but making those high attention environments more measurable and optimizable is a key message that we saw ... Premium media must now deliver cultural impact, but it also has to deliver business results. You can't just be one or the other.""

"Standing in the way of the successful execution of outcomes deals, primarily, is the lack of cohesive measurement tools to prove those outcomes. AI and all the talk of agentic abilities that are currently getting layered into the buying and selling of billions of dollars of ad time, will offer some assistance in reaching those conclusions."

""The entirety of the industry is focused on how to better measure outcomes, and how can they get better with measurement, not just in video but across the board, and I think that's not settled," said Cyd Falkson, svp of strategic accounts at media con"

Outcomes-based deals target the final results of advertising purchases in the upfront marketplace. The goal is to shift video buying from focusing on audience scale to demonstrating that ads affect consumers reached. Premium content remains central, but high-attention environments must become more measurable and optimizable. Premium media is expected to deliver both cultural impact and business results. A major obstacle is the lack of cohesive measurement tools that can reliably prove outcomes. AI and agentic capabilities may help, but the industry still lacks settled, consistent approaches to measuring outcomes across video and other channels.

Read at Digiday