Adweek: VideoAmp Hires Cameron Meierhoefer as First Chief Product Officer
He aims to help build a ‘next generation’ currency for TV measurement
A month after raising $75 million, VideoAmp has brought in former Comscore executive Cameron Meierhoefer as chief product officer, a new position at the television measurement company.
VideoAmp is one of a handful of measurement companies building new technology for marketers and programmers who are adapting to changing TV viewing habits as consumers spend more time streaming content.
Meierhoefer, who spent 17 years at Comscore and served as chief operating officer, is tasked with building a “next generation” measurement currency that would allow TV buyers and sellers to make guarantees against advanced audiences across screens.
“The main shift in the marketplace is the convergence of different types of buying,” Meierhoefer told Adweek. “So, the big change is blending reserve buying with more real-time optimization. That’s really been the norm in digital, but it’s been elusive in the television space.”
Data, TV and a shifting marketplace
Los Angeles-based VideoAmp, which has just over 200 employees, is at the beginning of a hiring spree more than a year after undergoing layoffs caused by the pandemic. It brought in former Omnicom Media Group executive Jonathan Steuer to help build a new measurement currency last September, and it hired former Trade Desk exec Paul Ross as chief financial officer in May. A VideoAmp spokesperson said the company is looking to double headcount over the next couple of years.
Meierhoefer left Comscore in 2018 to become CEO of data company SignalFrame, which PricewaterhouseCoopers acquired in March. He now reports directly to VideoAmp CEO and co-founder Ross McCray, who said Meierhoefer’s experience “perfectly lines up” with the company’s direction.
“After decades of defaulting to a legacy monopoly, we are redefining the way media is transacted upon, enabling a more sophisticated and flexible advertising marketplace that benefits everyone,” McCray said in a statement.
TV measurement upstarts are looking to win market share in a space historically dominated by Nielsen, though the company has recently come under fire for undercounting viewership numbers during the pandemic.
“I don’t see this as necessarily trying to replace a legacy currency solution but rather develop the right solutions that are required for the next generation,” Meierhoefer said.
VideoAmp is part of the TV Data Initiative, a consortium formed in April along with Dish Media and TransUnion to bring more digital-like ways of ad buying to TV. The group is led by VideoAmp’s chief strategy officer Nick Chakalos, who said the goal of the initiative is to document the complex state of data-drive TV buying and propose a framework for broader collaboration across the industry.
Source: Adweek