From film-making to advertising technology, EDO Co-founder Edward Norton sits at the intersection of creativity and AI — and he believes we're entering a golden age for both industries.
"We're on the liminal edge of a societal revolution," Norton said about AI's impact during his fireside chat with Wall Street Journal reporter Megan Graham at the IAB’s Annual Leadership Meeting (ALM) earlier this year.
While audiences know the award-winning filmmaker for his work on acclaimed films like A Complete Unknown, Fight Club, and The Grand Budapest Hotel, Norton also boasts an impressive background in technology and business. He worked in finance after college and later became an early investor in Kensho, a pioneering AI company focused on financial markets. Edward co-founded EDO, the TV Outcomes company to help marketers more accurately measure advertising effectiveness, and serves as the company’s Chairman. This deep curiousity and multi-faceted expertise provides a distinct lens on how the thoughtful application of tech can transform both creative expression and marketing measurement.
In this wide-ranging discussion, Edward highlights the unique moment we are experiencing, in which the convergence of AI, streaming platforms, and outcome-based measurement is creating unprecedented opportunities for marketers and creatives alike.
- Watch the full interview at the bottom of this post, or read on for key highlights from Edward’s talk.
AI enhances human ingenuity, not replaces it
Though he acknowledged that potential to outperform humans at a number of cognitive tasks, Edward remains confident that it will ultimately be used to enhance human ingenuity rather than replace it. And by taking on our most tedious tasks, Edward — and the team at EDO — believes these new tools will improve our relationships with our jobs.
“There is simply no way our company could measure 10 trillion impressions and the outcomes they drive working solely with humans,” he said.
In the advertising and entertainment worlds, Edward sees AI as instrumental in empowering marketers to more effectively measure the real impact of TV advertising and optimize performance.
AI-powered outcomes are bringing confidence to a fragmented streaming TV ecosystem
The streaming revolution has brought increased fragmentation to a TV advertising ecosystem that was once fairly straightforward. When there were only a few networks and a single tool for measuring media in the Nielsen days, both sides of a media transaction had a shared confidence in what they were buying and selling.
With so many new platforms and channels, reach has become a less useful signal for media value — leaving buyers and sellers alike with less confidence in their transactions. From Edward’s perspective, AI-powered outcomes measurement is creating the foundation for a new level of confidence in media transactions.
“In the new streaming world, outcomes are not only king. But they're all that's needed,” Norton said. “Panels, demographic, and identity data, the streaming platforms have all that. So what everybody wants is finance-grade, efficacy measurement, or what we're calling outcomes.
By clearly measuring a brand’s ad-driven impact on online engagement behaviors that are highly predictive of future sales — like brand searches and website visits — TV outcomes provide the investment-grade signals that the marketplace has been missing. With TV outcomes, we can achieve greater trust and clarity in media value.
How streaming TV outcomes are fueling better, more diverse storytelling
“The world of streaming has represented an unqualified and unequivocal golden age for creative people… There’s never been more opportunity to tell stories in more diverse ways by more diverse people, ever in the history of film and entertainment.” – Edward Norton
The streaming revolution has given advertisers access to the best of both worlds: the finance-grade data and targeting tools we’ve come to expect in digital advertising and the premium content of television.
When combined with outcomes-oriented measurement and targeting, Edward believes that streaming TV enables advertisers to unlock new levels of effectiveness. And as a result, it’s enabling these brands to sponsor more diverse storytelling from more diverse creators.
Edward Norton is many things — a filmmaker, an entrepreneur, and a leading creative voice in Hollywood. But his belief in the combined power of creative and technology are part of what inspires EDO to be the trustworthy measurement leader for the advertising industry. See the full video of his conversation from the IAB Annual Leadership Summit below.
To learn more about how EDO's AI-powered outcomes measurement can turbocharge your advertising effectiveness, get in touch with our team today.