How Media Placement Value Quantifies Attention for Streaming Apps with Lucas Bertrand, CEO of Looper Insights

Tim Rowe: 00:00
As much as $1,500 a year. That's what USA Today found. I have as much as $1,500 a year to watch the NFL. And earlier this week, additional research was presented about Major League Baseball costing as much as $1,200 a year. Imagine that. Paying $1,000 a year or more just to follow your favorite team and turn on your TV to find no sign that the game is even live. That's why today we're talking to Looper Insight CEO Lucas Bertrand. We're talking all about the invisible shelf of streaming, where even massive events like the F1 Melbourne Grand Prix can lack a simple live now signpost on the on major US platforms. We're diving into why these merchandising errors lead to a staggering 60% piracy rate in major sports markets and how streamers are struggling to manage the aggregator paradox. Whether it's March Madness or Major League Baseball subscription traps, we explore how the industry is fighting to quantify every pane of glass to ensure that fans actually find the content that they're paying for. If you want to know why your premium sports package feels like a scavenger hunt, this is the episode for you. Enjoy.

Speaker: 01:23
Well, g'day Tim. Good to see you. Thank you for having me. So Looper Insights is a merchandising solution at its core. The analogy I use to describe to friends and family and investors and the like is back in the day, you if you're in physical retail, you pay a company to go down the aisles of Walmart and take pictures of all the shelf space and tell you how much shelf space you've got, how your product looks on the shelf, is it standing out or getting lost? How the product is priced on the shelf versus your competitors. And then if they were good, they would then tell you what types of campaigns you could run within the store to sell more stuff. And what Looper does is really two things. So firstly, where's my stuff? Like the old Amazon piece, right? I'm trying to find my product. I spend 20 billion a year making this amazing content and I'm distributing on connected TV devices around the world. I need to be able to track that and understand where it is. And then secondly, I want to understand the value of the placement that I'm getting. Like, am I on the good part of the shelf or am I in the boondocks? Right. That's important. So we're we're basically auditing all of these connected TV devices, and that's from mobile, smart TVs, set top boxes, games consoles, streaming devices, dongles, pucks, you name it. Any way that any pane of glass that you might use as a consumer to access content from a broadcaster, a streamer, a fast channel, an EPG, any of that, that's what we're tracking. And we audit that and we value those placements. And then we provide that data to streamers like your Prime Videos, your Hulus and Disney Pluses and Tubies of the world, as well as uh local broadcasters, people like BBC and ITV. We also work with some of the regulators like Ofcom here in the UK or other regulators around the world to help them measure how much prominence different apps or different broadcasters are getting versus others. So that that's really the in a nutshell.

Tim Rowe: 03:36
Cool. So we are trying to understand skews. We've got lots of skews. If we think about each of these titles, whether it's a show or a movie or an episode within a series, it has a skew. And we want to understand where are all the places that that skew shows up. Maybe there are places where I have a custom skew because it's bundled uniquely, it's a curated collection. There's probably lots of different ways that the skews have variability, but I want to understand where those skews are. Maybe they could be sold in, I'm going to use that retail example, but maybe they're just sold exclusively online through a D2C store, or they're only available in retail, or you can only get this special edition by ordering online and picking up in the store, or it's a vendor cart at a street fair, right? Like when you really start to extrapolate, how do I quantify this SKU universe across all of these retail places? You mentioned pucks and CTV hardware and apps, and these are all different storefronts. Yeah, they all operate differently.

Speaker: 04:37
They do, they do, and it's a very complex world. So we we cover 25 countries, 250 different platforms. So we say a platform is like an OEM, like an LG or Samsung, or it's an MVPD like an Xfinity or a Cox or a Charter. It's a games console, Xbox, PlayStation, or streaming devices, you know, Roku, you know, pucks and Fire Sticks and all of those types of things. So uh as well as mobile, right? iOS and Android, very important as well, certainly for onboarding and signing up to these services. And then there are aggregators. You know, I read your article recently. You're talking about Roku and Amazon. I thought that was really fascinating because yeah, there's this now there's this aggregation layer that sits on top. Both of them are aggregating other third-party 

Speaker: 05:30
services, and bundling those and selling those is also part of the strategy. You know, we see the Disney bundle, for example, very powerful, very sticky. We see competitors getting together to also bundle. Where I'm slightly surprised, I haven't seen more of, and I'm I'm I think it's starting to kick in is the stickiest bundle in my perspective is just bundle it with my broadband.

Tim Rowe: 05:56
How how how how are you seeing that show up in the data?

Speaker: 05:59
Well, uh, so the churn on broadband is lower than than churn on on SVODs. So here in the UK, for example, Disney Plus has just been included in the Sky bundle. So I get Sky Broadband, I get Sky TV, I get plus all part of that. HBO Max is launching, and I think in a week or so, we'll be tracking that very closely. So all of those are going part of that bundle. Well, that becomes something that's like it's cheaper than getting them all on their own. I got it with my broadband, I've got it with my TV. It just becomes a really sticky proposition.

Tim Rowe: 06:39
I can definitely see that, and it's something that I'm constantly doing the math on. In fact, recently we were talking in the lead up. I I recently caught that I was paying for multiple subscriptions to streaming apps I didn't even I wasn't using. And a few you're paying twice. The same app literally, and it it was ESPN specifically, is the one that I'm thinking of. I was paying for it both through the prime ecosystem and also directly through ESPN. Yeah, which that feels like coming back to the aggregator paradox, that's a trend that we're seeing and hearing more about, which is signups through Prime than out to the apps. Are you are you seeing anything trend wise that that supports that?

Speaker: 07:23
Yeah, I mean, prime video channels, or now called Prime Video Subscriptions, is the biggest acquisition channel for most of the apps, right? I mean, there there are there are those who can afford to go direct to consumer, you know, the Disney world, and there are those who can't afford to do that. It just requires such big marketing budgets to you need real massive horsepower to be a pure D2C, like you know, like a Netflix or a or a Disney. Kind of everyone else has got to go where the audience is, you know. We we used to have an old rule in digital distribution that just put the content in front of the audience wherever they are, like it doesn't find it and and give them the model that they prefer. And that's what's happening now. Obviously, those who said they'd never sell do an ad-funded model are because sure, that happened pretty quick. You know, there's a bunch of eyeballs that that will will sign up on that case, right? And that really is true. So you've got to use to your analogy around retail, the omni channel. You've got to use whatever channels are available to get in front of that audience because no one owns the whole ecosystem. It's so fragmented, as we know, right? I might have a Samsung TV at home, I might have a Roku device, a Skybox here in the UK. You know, these are different audiences. And, you know, if you're HBO Max or Disney Plus launching in the UK, you want to be on that skybox because they've got 10 million households that you're not going to get into otherwise, right? Right, but it's a lot easier to put your marketing bucks behind one channel, get your team focused, and importantly, make sure that you're getting promoted on the home screen, true above the fold, on that Sky device. That's

Speaker: 09:23
 how you're gonna get those signups.

Tim Rowe: 09:25
And thinking about that, actually, the the home screen and quantifying attention, if we if we equate this to a retail environment again, understanding the value of each of those placements and how that relates to the SKU that I put there, that seems like an important part of the equation, no?

Speaker: 09:43
Yeah, hugely important. And, you know, it's one of the things that's been lacking in the industry is just having a consistent metric that everyone can use, right? I mean, we understand numbers of devices sold, we understand engagement of those devices, how many times do people turn it on on an average day? We understand CPMs in local markets as well. And so when you look at all of those things and then you look at the makeup of the user interface, you can actually calculate the value based on the number of eyeballs that are likely to land on that home page. And that's a real value metric that everyone can use. We we we call it media placement value. We've been building that and rolling that out with our big partners. And that's a really helpful way for the partner marketing teams to go, okay, I can compare Samsung to LG, and I've got a common way of measuring how many eyeballs are likely to be on both, whether it's paid or earned, and earned media being the best bang for buck that we can all get, um, right? No one can afford to buy all the home screens, right? I mean, even Netflix couldn't afford to buy the home screens, not that they do. They get it generally as an earned media deal or a YouTube even. So you've got to be really careful about how you're planning to promote the launch of that new title or that new sports event and which devices are gonna give you the best bang for buck. You know, I can give you a bit of money, I want to get some earn placements with that as well. And then I need to measure it and quantify it to make sure that I got it. And then I'm able to use that metric to improve on it. You know, measure what matters. Well, if I'm measuring it, I can now improve it. And if that measurement is the same across all the platforms, then as a team, we can work together to invest in different platforms to drive the results we're after.

Tim Rowe: 11:48
Excellent. I'm I'm realizing, Lucas, that there's one part of this. If we're using that the retail metaphor, we understand the SKUs, we understand the shelf space, but these are digital goods with infinite quantity, and those apps don't necessarily talk to one another or share data. So the piece that we're missing from the equation is how many people are going into the store, how many people are picking it up off the shelf, how many are people are putting it in the in their cart, taking it to the checkout counter and actually watching the thing, how many minutes consumed against that SKU and then reporting those things back?

Speaker: 12:26
Yeah, exactly.

Tim Rowe: 12:27
Is is

Tim Rowe: 12:27
 is that still a gap?

Speaker: 12:29
It is, and and you know, that's really one of the key issues here is that if I'm an OEM, I've got the audience coming into my device. I want to be able to monetize them, of course, as best I can. I've then got commercial deals with the app owners, and but I'm not going to tell, I'm not telling the app owner how that user found their app. Right? That's the problem, is the app owner is like, okay, I've got this piece of content here and my app here and this piece here. I don't know which thing they actually clicked on, unless it was a paid campaign, to open up my app. So that's where there's this disconnect. And that's part of the reason we exist is to help fill in that gap and provide data and insights to help clients understand that if you can promote your title here, you're going to generate this amount of impressions and this amount of traffic. And then you can connect that data to your performance data to see the correlation. And so, like an 80% plus correlation between placement and performance, which basically means you can promote something pretty crappy in a great spot and you'll still get performance. And you can bury a really good title and no one will find it. It's not rocket science, but it's, you know, the the there's a logic to that and that retail analogy, right? If I'm down on the bottom shelf and no one can find me, no one's gonna buy it. Right.

Tim Rowe: 13:60
It's it's why we pay for that premium shelf space, and it's why we pay for people to go in and make sure that our products are faced and in stock, and it's why merchandising is the the the fundamental to use your word, horsepower that powers retail is merchandising, and and we're doing the same thing here in

Tim Rowe: 14:21
 streaming. What do you see in the free streaming space? What are you seeing? I know there's a lot of conversation about free ad supported TV. How does this dynamic come into play? We see um all sorts of different convergence between apps coming into free ad supported TV. We had some news out actually in the aggregator paradox about some of the versant content that they're then piping through prime videos free pipes. Uh just what do you see on the free TV side? What should we be paying attention to?

Speaker: 14:53
Well, look, traditionally, you know, free is like 40% of the whole industry, you know, ad-supported. Subscriptions being like 40% and transactional was 20%, you know, when you look at theatrical, T body ST, all of that together. So it's got to be part of the mix. Like we were saying before, you've got to put your product in front of the audience, number one, and within a model that works for the audience. Because if you don't, then piracy rates go up, right? Because that's that's the best business model, right? It's super free, no ads, right?

Tim Rowe: 15:30
So you're failing on the user experience. So we're just gonna take it and we'll solve it ourselves.

Speaker: 15:36
Exactly, right? You're gonna you're gonna get done if you don't give it to them in the way that they need it. So it's so important to have a mix of uh you know pricing strategies and you know, free or ad supported, nothing's really free, is just you know critical to that. So I totally agree with that strategy of what Burson are doing, you know, roll it out. You've got to have your fast channels, have an ad-supported version. And also from a format perspective, right? I've got long form, I've got short form, I might have vertical. I mean, you know, there is all the there's all of those ways of consuming the content as

Speaker: 16:15
 well.

Tim Rowe: 16:15
Lucas, something I would love to get your take on. It was a big story. We covered it on state of streaming is the shutdown of illegal streaming networks. It was it was a big story that came out of the UK about a month and a half ago. How are illegal streaming networks disrupting all of this? We're talking a little bit about the black market, but what does the data show related to black market piracy? Do you have any insights there?

Speaker: 16:41
I have a little bit. We were working actually looking at at the well, not the UK market, the Brazilian market around football. So we were having discussions with Canter, and uh I think the number was like 60% of all viewership was through pirated dongles and stags.

Tim Rowe: 17:01
Whoa, yeah, and 60% of the most popular sport. I mean, most popular global sport for sure.

Speaker: 17:09
And it was just like crazy. Like, okay, well, you know how do you how do you deal with that? And we're actually thinking from our perspective, because we track the UIs, we're like, we should be tracking that, right? We should be actually we should onboard those dodgy sticks and start tracking their UIs and showing clients where they're positioned. I mean, not that they're necessarily going to be buying placement with the with the pirate, but at least know that, well, are you in front of Netflix at least? You know, are you you know, where where are you at the UI? I mean, if that's where the audience is, you should probably know about it. So that was like that that was pretty mind-blowing. I I think look, there's definitely a lot of work that's been doing. I know in the UK there's a lot of work going on to reduce that. But you know, I still hear of you know people down the pub going, oh yeah, if you need that, I've got a mate, he's the engineer, he'll come around 120 bucks a year, 120 pound a year, and he'll hook you up with uh with the stick that will give you access to everything, you know. And I'm just like, oh my god, you know screwed, aren't we?

Tim Rowe: 18:22
La la la la la. My son came home the other day. Uh, obviously, March Madness is going on here, and that's a that's a big draw. My son came home, he's 13, he's in seventh grade, and dad, dad, I gotta show you this website. You can watch all the March Madness games. You can just and I'm like, first of all, that's super impressive because I remember doing exactly the same thing that you were doing. Also, I don't know if this is something I should write about on state of streaming or or something that I should just pretend I didn't even hear. So it's definitely something to be aware of. And I think for for advertisers, we can't we can't bury our heads in the sand and pretend it's not there because our fans are there, our viewers are there, it's how a percentage, 60% in that case that you mentioned, it's how they're consuming the product. So it's something to have visibility and awareness into.

Speaker: 19:15
To your son's point, the content's not in it all in a single place, it's not in the right business model. So he's searching. And there's a whole bunch of people who are doing that. You know, I was speaking with Rick out, so he was saying that it was a thousand dollars to subscribe to, I think it was all the for his team, watch all the games across all the different networks and subscription services in a year, which is insane, right? A thousand bucks. I mean, I was like, it's yeah, you may as well go to the game.

Tim Rowe: 19:50
You might as well go to the game, just just buy some tickets and have a good time.

Speaker: 19:55
Or hang out in the tailgate area and you know, at least hear it. I mean, that's you know, that's the reality. So that's where you open it up for piracy is you've got really high-value product like that. It's difficult to find, you know, you're frustrating the consumer. And so that's a problem, you know, and that's something that we as an industry really need

Speaker: 20:17
 to address.

Tim Rowe: 20:18
Couldn't agree more. Lucas, what are you most excited about? We've got nine months left here in 2026. What's on the roadmap? What what's got you uh got you looking forward to the rest of the year?

Speaker: 20:29
I I would say live events for us. This is it's just becoming more and more evident. You know, we're seeing all the streamers who are really going in in a big way, smaller streamers as well, you know.

Tim Rowe: 20:40
Um Scripps just launched a sports fast channel this week.

Speaker: 20:44
Yep. You know, you the AMC with it, you know, with the wrestling, the TNA wrestling. There's a whole bunch of different angles to this, and it makes a ton of sense, right? You know, it's you know, you've seen the playbook from the likes of Murdoch over the years of you know, get the biggest sport and then build the business around that. You know, it's the thing that keeps a big chunk of the audience coming back every week, and they won't unsubscribe, they will keep paying for that premium package because that's where you put it. So that just makes a lot of sense to us. And we are started tracking both from a compliance and evaluation perspective. So we're looking at events in the lead up to the event and actually looking and seeing whether the signposts are there and they're correct. You know, I was looking, we we were looking at uh the biggest OEM in in the US and F1, uh Melbourne Grand Prix, my home Grand Prix. And there was no signpost in this is in the US, there was no signpost to say what time it was on or when it was actually on that it was live now. That seems important. So it just looks like another, you know, it looks like another tile, like whoopy doo. Do I There's no like, oh my God, I've got to stop and watch that now.

Tim Rowe: 22:04
And YouTube does a great job of that live right now, which in different news, we'll have to do a follow-up conversation. Obviously, the ruling just coming out, and potentially maybe down the road, uh, some corrective action for YouTube and some of the engagement mechanisms that they use. But also, hey, if they're getting in trouble because it's working too good and then other people aren't doing it. Actually, that that is a piece that we have out. This episode will be out first week of April. But looking back a week, and we'll link it in the show notes, we have a piece out about that case and what it could mean for YouTube down the road, YouTube part of the Australia social media ban under 16, which also impacted Meta. So certainly uh a developing storyline there, but coming back to exactly your point of hey, it's on now and I want to see it.

Speaker: 22:50
Yeah, help me find it.

Tim Rowe: 22:52
Help me find it. And I want to buy it. Jeff Bezos has a great quote that uh we don't make we don't make money when we sell something, we make money when we help a person make a purchase decision.

Speaker: 23:02
Yeah, that's right. And look, we see 1.3 errors in the US on every platform for every event that we're tracking at the moment. And what do you mean like like tens of events, right? Every you know, every week. So that's unbelievable to me, right? That is like the signpost isn't there, you know, watching 8 p.m. or it's not live, or it's got the wrong logo. Oh no, I mean, we've seen some some massive sports rights holders who were pointing to the other sports rights holder, like a different league, a different sport, right? I mean, that's that's right. That's not good at all. We've had uh promotions that went live 20 minutes and 40 minutes after the game started. How does how does the consumer find that?

Tim Rowe: 23:56
Like it's it's it's pretty crappy. And if a consumer can't find it, then the advertiser is certainly not getting what they paid for. Well, that's right.

Speaker: 24:03
So think of it from a sponsorship perspective. I'm a sponsor and I'm sponsoring, you know, that match, that game, that car, that race, whatever it is. If people, if the eyeballs aren't going in at the top of the funnel, then the value of that sponsorship drops. Not from any other issue, except that the signpost wasn't there as it should be. Basic, basic merchandising stuff, right? Put it on the shelf with the right price and say what the brand is and make sure people can find it. I mean, it's it's really not rocket science, but there's a lot of problems, a lot of issues. And it's because I think the streamers are now taking on sport as a big driver and they're learning it, right? And we're gonna we're gonna help the ecosystem, you know, we're gonna surface these things up, we're gonna show we don't want to embarrass anyone, of course, but we're gonna strike better exists because ultimately it's a poor experience for the consumer. Yes, and we are we are here to root for the consumer, help them find what they want to watch when they want to watch it at the right business model. We are the consumer.

Tim Rowe: 25:11
I'm here for it, we're here for it. Lucas, if folks want to get in touch with you, learn more about looper insights, where should they go?

Speaker: 25:16
Uh well, you come to looperinsights.com. Uh, you can contact me at hello at looperinsights.com. And uh, you know, if you're ever in London, yeah, look us up. We're we love meeting with people. And uh we also spend a lot of time in LA, New York, and Seattle.

Tim Rowe: 25:35
Brilliant. We will make sure that is all easy to find, Lucas. I can't thank you enough for being here. Thanks, Tim. Pleasure. Thanks so much. And if you found this conversation to be helpful, please share it with the colleague or a client. We'll see you all next time.