Jeff Green, CEO of The Trade Desk
Scott Mlyn | CNBC
Trade Desk CEO and co-founder Jeff Green says last year was a wake-up call to the advertising industry as consumers stopped watching traditional TV and started streaming and video online.
“2020 was a wake-up call for the advertising industry with regard to TV,” Green said in the company’s fourth quarter earnings conference call on Thursday. He said the company’s connected TV business, where it sells ads on streaming platforms, doubled in the fourth quarter from a year earlier.
Trade Desk, which has a thriving business in the area of connected TV, has a lot to gain as ad revenue moves away from traditional linear television. With more people in their living rooms broadcasting programs and movies during the pandemic, The Trade Desk saw more opportunities to show them ads on streaming platforms. Green said the pandemic has accelerated a shift in this direction and in other areas.
“We talked a lot in the past 12 months about how the pandemic accelerated the trends that were already underway, but we couldn’t have predicted how sharp that acceleration would be.”
The company’s shares fell about 1% in after-hours trading, even after reporting $ 319.9 million in non-GAAP earnings and earnings of $ 3.71 per share, easily exceeding expectations. The company’s technology helps brands and agencies reach audiences across all media formats and devices.
Green also cited a recent presentation with Procter & Gamble brand director Marc Pritchard. “He and I believe that we are moving towards an inevitable future where all advertising is, and I quote using his words, ‘digital, programmatic, data-driven and automatic.'”
Green echoed Pritchard’s sentiments about the traditional TV buying process, in which advertisers typically commit much of their annual TV spending to businesses during the spring upfronts season. That’s when networks make presentations and parties to show media buyers their programming, audience data and advertising tools. Pritchard criticized the process last September, calling for a starting market later, along with more flexibility in buying ads near the display.