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Marcus Johnson (00:00):

Take your brand to new heights with Inflight Advertising, powered by Viasat Ads. High engagement formats, targeted delivery and self-service tracking, make it all very, very simple. Reach millions of travelers across the leading airlines in a premium captive environment. Join their journey with Viasat Ads.

(00:24):

Hey gang, it's Monday, December 22nd. Jeremy, Ragu and listeners, welcome to Behind the Numbers, a new marketing video podcast made possible by Viasat Ads. I'm Marcus. And joining me for today's conversation, we have two gentlemen. First is our senior director of content living in New York. It's of course, Jeremy Goldman.

Jeremy Goldman (00:42):

Free to be with you. Excited for this.

Marcus Johnson (00:44):

Hello, sir. Same. And we also joined by a special guest, VP of media and monetization at Viasat Ads living in Connecticut. It's Ragu Kamakshisundaram. Hello.

Ragu Kamakshisundaram (00:56):

Hello. Great to be here.

Marcus Johnson (00:58):

Welcome to the show, sir. Okay. Whenever we have a special guest, we start, of course, with a speed intro. All right, so two rapid fire questions for you, Ragu. We have first of all, what do you do in a sentence?

Ragu Kamakshisundaram (01:17):

Thank you for having me here. I build digital products to make your in-flight experience more engaging and affordable.

Marcus Johnson (01:27):

Very nice. And what, second question, is your dream vacation?

Ragu Kamakshisundaram (01:33):

I'm actually planning one right now.

Marcus Johnson (01:35):

Yes.

Ragu Kamakshisundaram (01:36):

To me, vacation is when you meaningfully disconnect and connect with the people that matter most. For me, that's my family, my wife, and two kids, a teen and a tween. And we are planning to go to Greece to see Athens and Santorini. It'll be amazing to see kids visit places that they have learned about in school. So really looking forward to it.

Jeremy Goldman (02:04):

While they'll still hang out with you, right? I guess that's what I've heard is that after they get past tween level, then it's forget it. You won't see them for a few years.

Ragu Kamakshisundaram (02:14):

Actually, yeah. I mean, my daughter is a junior and probably will be with us at home for another year. So really want to make the most of this time.

Marcus Johnson (02:22):

Absolutely, yeah. I love that word meaningfully disconnect as well. Jeremy, how about for you?

Jeremy Goldman (02:27):

Oh my gosh, my dream vacation. I think probably it would have to be to get to Australia at one point. It's really hard when you've got dogs and you don't want to leave them for that long. And as a result, it's like I've never been to Japan, I've never been to Australia, and I've had options to do both and turn those down. And people were like, are you serious? And why are you turning this option? So one day.

Marcus Johnson (02:53):

Yeah. It's a dog parent, that's how it goes. But these are great choices, gents. So didn't think you could top Ragu's. And to be honest, you haven't, Jeremy, but you came close. Mine actually, one of them would be Japan. So I think we hit the nail on the head there. The other is I'm desperate to do this U.S. road trip from Missoula, Montana, and you go up through Glacier. We heard that Montana's one of the most beautiful states in the country, [inaudible 00:03:17]. You go from there up through Glacier National Park into Canada and then through Calgary and you end up in Banff. So that's what we're hoping to [inaudible 00:03:27] some point.

Jeremy Goldman (03:27):

And you can keep going through Canada, you can get up to Alaska if you keep going.

Marcus Johnson (03:34):

Maybe a bit cold, but maybe in the summer. Alaska, it's got I think three of the five largest national parks and just looks beautiful, so I wouldn't hate that either. It's Stuart who runs the team. I'm going to be off most of next year on vacation. Okay, this is my formal announcement.

(03:52):

So anyway, today's real topic, the next generation of in-flight advertising. All right, here we go. So research from Airlines for America shows that close to half of the U.S. adults have flown in the past 12 months. Even more have flown, obviously, if you widen that time period, but that is up from a third of people flying back in 1990. And if you look at folks who make over $50,000, or households who make over $50,000 a year, that number goes up to 75% of people who flown in the last year. So a lot of people in the sky going places and advertisements being sent to them or delivered to them.

(04:40):

It's looked different in the past, it looks different now, or obviously look different in the future. But I think to start us off, Ragu, where are we at with in-flight advertising today? What does it look like?

Ragu Kamakshisundaram (04:52):

In-flight advertising is nothing new. People have been advertising in-flight for a long time with logos printed on napkins or flyers or brochures on seat backs, or watching the same pre-roll video ad playing over and over again in front of movies and TVs on long haul flights. If you're on a long flight, you may be very familiar with this where these ads are not skippable, not targeted, not personalized, and [inaudible 00:05:22] annoying to the passengers. And it's not great for the brand that advertises either because they are not being associated with a good experience.

(05:30):

Now, that's the state of in-flight advertising today, and that's how traditionally in-flight ads have been bought and sold. At Viasat Ads, we are changing all that. We are bringing real time digital advertising capabilities to in-flight experience. And Viasat has been the leader in providing in-flight connectivity to airlines. We have over 4,000 aircraft equipped with Viasat connectivity today in the market. And we are enabling advertising using our connectivity pipes to these airlines. And we have been building a platform that brings real-time targeted advertising to in-flight audiences, both for their entertainment content or providing free internet connectivity while they are in the airplane.

Marcus Johnson (06:33):

So we've sponsored internet, we've got pre-roll video before film. There's obviously a bunch of different formats in terms of how folks are advertising in the sky. I'm curious to know a bit about how ads are being targeted on the planes. How contextual is it? Is it business versus leisure? Is it cabin class, membership program, by seat? What does that look like?

Ragu Kamakshisundaram (06:56):

Yeah, so we have several in-flight ad products. So you mentioned sponsored internet, we have pre-roll videos, we have live TV ads. Now, in terms of these ads presented to the passengers, so the sponsored internet video is a choice that the passenger makes. So they want to connect to internet and they have a choice of watching a video and then get free internet. Now, even the ads that they watch, the user experience has been pretty seamless and put the choice in the hands of the passenger, where the passengers can choose which brand or ad to engage with. And this results in much more brand recognition or brand recall of that ad. With pre-roll ads, we can show real-time ads targeted by the route of the flight, by the origin and the destination of the flight, by the type of content you watch.

(08:02):

Now, most of these ads are really targeting a traveling audience. I mean, just the context that you are traveling from place A to place B is in itself very valuable for an advertiser and you're engaging in this activity. And knowing that information, you're able to present the most relevant ad for that road, for that context, for that flight.

Jeremy Goldman (08:29):

I was going to say, the contextual component of it, to me, that seems like a major aspect. We're living in a world the last few years especially where the whole entire idea about using my personal data against me in some way, shape, or form, there's been some pushback to that obviously. And I think that the context of just knowing where somebody's going from point A to point B, I think that people are a little bit more bought in or advertisers are bought into the idea that context can be a major clue that can yield some significant relevance in the ads. So I'm wondering if you're finding that as well.

Ragu Kamakshisundaram (09:07):

Absolutely. We actually have several examples where just using this contextual data has been a huge driver of performance for an ad campaign. I'll give you an example.

(09:20):

So let's say you're traveling to an event at a particular location or a destination, like an industry event like a Con or a CES or any of these events where you know there is a lot of travelers going into that destination and obviously you will fly into that destination. So knowing that information, now a brand that may be promoting at that event can expose their brand to the travelers into the event while they are in-flight. We've also seen advertisers based on, again, the destination, there are local advertisers that can put their sponsored message in front of me passengers coming into that destination.

(10:12):

So just in this case, the context is the destination, and that can be used very powerfully by advertisers.

Marcus Johnson (10:21):

Yeah. I realize this example, it was the digital article that you helped put together. There was this example you had of running shoe brands and you say, might want to target flies in and out of Boston based on the timing of the Boston Marathon to which consumers where they're going to be most receptive to that type of messaging. I think the list is endless in terms of examples.

Ragu Kamakshisundaram (10:45):

Absolutely. I mean, B2B brands want to target travelers on business heavy routes. And there are instances where, yeah, you mentioned racing events, where an athletic brand is advertising when passengers are traveling to a particular sporting event like your contact.

Marcus Johnson (11:14):

Yeah. Is there a certain type of ads or type of destination, so to speak, or an event that you've seen work particularly well? Is there best in class examples of how advertisers have done this, which you would say, look at how well this went and that's something that could be replicated?

Ragu Kamakshisundaram (11:33):

One of the most common ones is the event takeover, which I mentioned earlier, where if you're a passenger flying to it at a large event, as soon as you get off the plane at your destination, you'll be bombarded with brand messages. But on your way to the event, when you are in-flight, you're not distracted by all those different messaging. And that is an opportunity for the advertiser.

(11:59):

And Viasat Ads is enabled across multiple airlines flying into a particular destination. So for an advertiser, they can effectively take over the entire event and target all flights going into that destination to really capture a high share of voice of passengers going to the event. So the example here is CES. We did an event takeover for a brand earlier this year, which was very successful for the advertiser.

Jeremy Goldman (12:35):

I think what's so interesting to me is that captive audience component of it, where you're stuck, especially if you're in the middle seat and you're like, "What do you do?" and somebody's sleeping next to you and you're watching the screen, and I feel like you have a captive audience in a way that has kind of gone to the wayside. If you think about in the world of short form video, now people are scrolling on their phone generally and you have three seconds to grab somebody's attention in an ad. And there are, I think, some stories that are just not well told within a three-second bit. So the ability to lean into a format that is a little bit more long form the way that you or I might've grown up, I think is very valuable for certain types of advertisers.

Ragu Kamakshisundaram (13:19):

Absolutely. I think the captive nature and the relevance of, how relevant it is to you based on what you're doing, and the format, all of these come into play.

Marcus Johnson (13:31):

I like this idea that you can target every plane coming into a certain destination as opposed to saying to an advertiser, "We can give you things on this route just from this airline." By being able to basically say every plane, a lot of planes are arriving at this destination when this thing is happening, when the Super Bowl is going on in a certain city or a big conference, maybe there's a concert happening, I don't know, whatever it is, I think is quite powerful.

Ragu Kamakshisundaram (13:59):

Absolutely. And that's one of the advantages of Viasat Ads because we work with multiple airlines. We enable this for multiple airlines. That's very different from traditionally going to a specific airline, buying ad spots with them or a specific event organizer and buying ad spots there. So we essentially can aggregate everything at a destination.

Marcus Johnson (14:23):

How personalized do you see this getting? Will it be the case at some point where I'm sat in a seat and having different ad served to meet than the person next to me or the cabin upfront?

Ragu Kamakshisundaram (14:34):

So there is a balance between personalizing for the passenger versus personalizing for the context of your journey. I think we are more on the end of, hey, context is more important. And the difference here is compared to on the ground advertising, let's say it's a hyper targeted search ad, you're trying to convert a person into doing something, versus you're not sitting in-flight and buying a product, but this is a great opportunity to raise brand awareness. So it's not necessarily one-to-one targeted, like being hyper personalized using consumer data. And data and privacy are also very sensitive topics where if you, especially in the context of an in-flight environment.

(15:28):

So we are very sensitive to that and what we enable is more on the contextual end. So it's really the journey, the origin, destination, the region, the time, like the airline gives you a wealth of information. And you can infer data like, okay, hey, is this like a business heavy route or is this like more of a leisure route? We can also infer information about the cabin classes and target people too. So it's again, more contextual than personal.

Marcus Johnson (16:09):

So just like, is there something as the VP of media monetization at Viasat Ads, is there a challenge that you are seeing that you are facing that you think is also a challenge that the industry is facing in terms of taking in-flight advertising to the next level, so to speak?

Ragu Kamakshisundaram (16:26):

Certainly, right? I think of in-flight advertising as one of the last areas where that has not come into the modern way of advertising, buying and selling ads. And the biggest challenge there is, I mean you need to be connected. So the aircraft has to be connected, the passengers have to be connected, and so connectivity is a foundational component that you need. And the airlines have to, first of all, enable connectivity to even bring this type of experience to their passengers.

(17:03):

And two, even if you get connected, how do you account for some of the challenges with like being, hey, you're in-flight and it's not as close to a real time advertising as it could be on the ground, and you need to really have capabilities on the aircraft that would show the passengers within the aircraft. It's almost like having your own servers that manage the media and content and ads to these passengers, compared to like doing everything from the cloud like you are more used to experiencing at home. And that is an aviation specific challenge.

(17:53):

There are also constraints around what type of content or ad that you can present in front of a passenger in-flight and how do you manage that and curate that, right?

Jeremy Goldman (18:09):

Yeah, I was going to say, I thought what was so interesting, I thought you were going to go with like measurement, because for the most part, you're not giving people QR codes to scan, right? Since they've got no connectivity necessarily that they're paying for let's say on their mobile device. So I wondered, and obviously like your whole goal, I would imagine, is getting people to come back and anniversary their spend and keep coming back, so is measurement at all like a challenge or how do you try to address that?

Ragu Kamakshisundaram (18:38):

Measurement is a challenge as well as an opportunity. So for us, we provide very detailed measurement and insights to our advertisers because we work in a connected environment where we are able to track those ad impressions. Now in aggregate, so in a lot of environments where you're not able to track the individual impression level data, then it becomes harder. I mean, you need to do some approximations of like how many people or what type of profile of the people were on the flight to understand who saw it. And also I think like you're pointing to with the QR code comment, how do you attribute this exposure to a certain action?

(19:24):

And these are not unique challenges for in-flight. I mean, these are challenges in generally with digital advertising. And we can solve for that in some unique ways in in-flight because you may have multiple screens, right? So you have a device in hand, you have a seat back. And say for example, you can show a QR code to scan that, I mean to connect who that person is sitting in a specific seat and be able to attribute and track the performance of ad exposure for that person.

(20:03):

So these are all some of the things that we are thinking about and starting to experiment with, but certainly measurement and insights is a challenge for most airlines, but we are trying to solve for that with our indirect tracking of impressions and attribution data.

Marcus Johnson (20:24):

Makes sense. I want to look a little further into the future, a couple of days before on Christmas and [inaudible 00:20:34] so looking forward to 2026. I'll start with this more specific question and then I'll broaden up later and ask what you're thinking about. But I wonder if, when you think about advertising, particularly the advertising on screens, the back of the seat for passengers, are you thinking that the future here is more branding focused, we want to show you the advertisers and make you aware of them? Or do you see that there's a world where passengers would feel comfortable taking an action, scanning a QR code if they've got wifi connectivity or something, or maybe clicking a button to say, yes, I would like a discount code sent to my email for a place that I'm going to be eating at later that day because I'm arriving in a certain destination? What does the future of it look like for you?

Ragu Kamakshisundaram (21:25):

Yeah, it's a combination of all those. I think brand ads are probably the most common, if you will, in-flight environments, especially because of the measurement challenges and attribution challenges, et cetera, as well as the lack of real-time delivery capabilities like traditionally in this environment. But now with more and more connected device coming on, we can actually track and attribute better. And we can also experiment in partnering with the airlines, like when putting a QR code or integrating the loyalty data with advertising and be able to get better insights. So those are some of the things that we are already working on to expand beyond brand advertising and into more of that focused conversion-based advertising, especially if you're going to a specific destination.

(22:37):

Another area of opportunity is also in transactions in-flight. That requires connectivity of course in-flight, but if you remember the old days of people selling duty free goods within the flight, with a catalog that [inaudible 00:23:00]-

Jeremy Goldman (23:00):

I was just thinking about that. Could that be an opportunity to almost bring that back in a meaningful way?

Ragu Kamakshisundaram (23:05):

Absolutely. And we have capabilities where we can onboard our own partners that provide such onboard retail or other transaction based capabilities in-flight, because it's not just connectivity and advertising that we have in-flight, but we can also enable any kind of transaction with the passengers, right? So really turning the in-flight experience into more of not just awareness, but also retail transaction experiences in-flight. In addition to of course, the entertainment and content that's available in-flight.

Marcus Johnson (23:54):

I think final question for me is thinking about specifically 2026, and you've covered it a fair amount just in that last answer, but if I asked you for just one thing that you're thinking about with regards to in-flight advertising in 2026, what comes to mind for you?

Ragu Kamakshisundaram (24:10):

So I think in-flight advertising is one of the last remaining areas how ads are bought using the traditional method, if you will, but that's changing fast. And in-flight ad inventory, I mean, today most of this is not bought through the digital ad ecosystem. But that's going to change, especially with connectivity becoming ubiquitous. And we expect this trend to accelerate in 2026. We see this firsthand, Viasat Ad enabled airlines and ad inventory is expected to grow dramatically in 2026. And we are also bringing more real time access to this ad inventory at scale across airlines to all advertisers. And passengers will also come to expect the same level of relevance and personalization that they expect at home when they see ads in-flight, right? And the airlines will actively work towards meeting that expectation and building the capabilities to do that.

Jeremy Goldman (25:21):

That'll, I think, be really fun to see, because I think that there are so many advertisers who are thirsting for, how do I reinforce whatever I'm telling in one channel, the story that I'm telling in other channels? I'm kind of interested in this inventory, but I don't really know how to buy it and making it more accessible. We've seen that as a trend throughout the last few years. And I think if you look at our programmatic ad spending forecast, you see that's just continuing to expand.

Ragu Kamakshisundaram (25:52):

Absolutely. And in fact, programmatic is another aspect of bringing real-time advertising into in-flight. If you look at, I mentioned Viasat has connectivity installed on about 4,000 plus aircraft in the world, but Viasat Ads enabled airlines, which is a subset of our entire install base, we are able to reach more than quarter of a billion passengers annually. And being able to reach those many passengers at scale and doing real-time decisioning on what ads to serve will require integration to programmatic type capabilities. And that's all part of the foundation of bringing in-flight advertising into the digital or integrating in-flight advertising into the digital ad ecosystem.

Marcus Johnson (26:43):

Well, that's what we have time for unfortunately. Thank you so much to my guests for hanging out with me today. Thank you first to Jeremy.

Jeremy Goldman (26:48):

Yeah, pleasure as always.

Marcus Johnson (26:50):

Yes, sir. Thank you, of course to Ragu.

Ragu Kamakshisundaram (26:53):

Thank you very much for having me.

Marcus Johnson (26:55):

Yeah, it's very nice to have you on the show. Thank you, of course, to the whole production group. And to everyone for listening to Behind the Numbers, a new marketing video podcast, made possible by Viasat Ads. Make sure you subscribe and follow, leave a rating and review. If you have a moment Wednesday, you can hang out with Susie David Kenyon on the Reimagining Retailer Show. She goes to our 2025 Retailer Awards.