Many of today’s marketers and advertisers are crying out to be able to plan TV campaigns in the same way, with all the benefits programmatic brings to digital campaigns. And to be able to link TV with other channels to create true multi-channel campaign experiences.

Defragmenting fragmentation

The problem is that the media ecosystem is still highly fragmented, and this serves to make it difficult for advertisers to plan and activate campaigns across multiple channels in this way. The fundamentals are so different it seems hard to picture an ecosystem where TV and digital could sit comfortably in the same process. Not even the metrics used appear comparable: TV advertising is about GRPs (Gross Rating Points), TRPs (Target Rating Points) and reach, while programmatic evaluates impressions, viewability and unique users.

The standards can also differ widely between countries. While many continue to bill using GRP, major Spanish media group Atresmedia recently began invoicing linear TV and BVOD advertising at CPM instead of cost per GRP. Although this could potentially be the standard adopted globally by media groups in the long term, it adds more fragmentation to the media ecosystem in the short-term. This lack of standardisation has helped to create an environment where TV is surrounded by high walls that have made it almost impossible for marketers and advertisers to easily link it with other channels.

The arrival of Connected TV (CTV) has started to make bridging this divide achievable. As things stand, most of the available CTV inventory is traded via programmatic deals or direct buys, as publishers look to retain the maximum control over their premium inventory. However, it’s widely expected that the market will start to gradually open up as accepted standards are established in CTV. It’s also expected that this will eventually facilitate the transformation of programmatic into a true omnichannel offering.

Improving the impact of advertising

A recent survey examining UK consumer attitudes to CTV found that its adoption has continued its explosive growth since the early days of the pandemic, which drove rapid adoption through 2020; so much so that today 94% of British adults are reachable by CTV. Furthermore, CTV is continuing to steadily eat away at linear TV, with 13% of people watching less linear TV compared to 12 months ago. On top of this, users are eager for a more user-friendly ad experience, with 78% of users preferring ads relevant to their interests and 71% preferring ads relevant to the content they are watching.

Bringing programmatic into the TV arena and enabling marketers to apply the same techniques across the board is a massive win for all those involved in the digital advertising ecosystem. Not only does it enable greater reach, it also opens up new target groups and brings the promise of greater advertising impact as brands start to benefit from increased relevance. it’s no surprise that advertisers are looking to get in on the action. This explains why the combination of TV and programmatic is expected to increase the number of advertisers using the format, and thus, the advertising spend in the sector.

Meeting new measurability standards

While it’s true that programmatic has some measurability standards that could prove difficult to transfer to TV advertising due to the fragmentation of the advertising landscape – this doesn’t mean that making them comparable is by any means impossible. If we look at things from a high level, a digital TV commercial is not really any different to an online video ad unit in a web browser. This means that in theory RTB, VAST measurement standards, and the OM Web Video SDK can all be applied to TV spots played on a smart device in exactly the same way they are for online video. Similarly, there are also opportunities to apply the IAB’s Transparency and Consent Framework and to tackle ad fraud. Once header bidding and the use of IDs on CTV become a reality, this lays the foundation for programmatic advertising, which in turn places true cross-channel frequency capping and integrated brand and performance campaigns comfortably within reach for marketers and advertisers.

Making TV omnichannel

The development and linking of other channels in the past gives us a clear historical indication of the evolutionary timeline for how we would expect CTV to develop over the next few years. We expect to see CTV turning TV into an integrated channel in the omnichannel digital media landscape in the very near future. This is a huge opportunity for advertisers, and one they need to get to grips with now, because as these previously siloed channels merge it will give both advertisers and users a much more desirable advertising experience. That is a powerful proposition as brands look to find new ways to reach and engage with their audiences.

In addition, with IAB UK recently forecasting UK CTV ad spend to double by 2026 to £2.3bn, it is understandable why CTV is regarded as the next frontier of digital advertising.

A future advertising goldmine

CTV delivers incremental reach and targeting for advertisers, while also offering access to a TV experience at scale, with more flexibility and with lower minimum spend than linear TV. However, while it offers much promise, one key obstacle stands in the way of CTV becoming the future goldmine that the IAB’s forecasting suggests. As a relatively new technology and media platform, it noticeably lags behind other media channels in delivering the performance insights advertisers are increasingly demanding. This inability to prove return on ad spend by effectively gauging consumers’ reactions on viewing an ad makes it tough for marketers to justify long-term budget allocation to CTV.

Measurement is falling short

The good news is that there is clearly a desire to drive better measurement. In January, a Joint Industry Committee (JIC) was launched between U.S. media giants Fox, NBCUniversal, Paramount, TelevisaUnivision and Warner Bros. The purpose of JIC is to vet and certify the dizzying array of audience-measurement technologies that continue to emerge into the market. Meanwhile, Netflix’s decision to join the UK’s Broadcasters Audience Research Board (BARB) provides more evidence of the maturing of CTV, and the direction the market is heading.

The message from Netflix, that it intends to make its ad offering measurable, is admirable. The channel will be able to draw on its vast subscription data to offer precise, personalised and targeted advertising. BARB, meanwhile, is sure to prove useful in measuring who is watching, who they’re watching with, what they’re watching, and how and when. However, this does not hide the fact that currently, both the JIC and Netflix fall far short of what advertisers are accustomed to on digital channels: insight into what consumers do after viewing an ad.

In search of addressability

In a boost for CTV, one of the answers lies in the treasure trove of subscription data that channels like Netflix are built on. For many streaming services, accessing the streamers’ programming hinges on logging in with an email address or other personal information – meaning that user bases are 100% logged-in and addressable, and streamers are able to accurately understand their consumers, and how and when to reach them.

Harnessing this data in the right way, with the right technology, streamers could create highly personalised, consented ads that are served to the right consumers at the right time.  This helps to elevate CTV advertising to the granularity that other channels enjoy – making it easier for brands to effectively address audiences at scale.

Going beyond reach

Leveraging addressability and people-based marketing helps marketers to accurately track and attribute conversions to specific advertisements and destinations. Pairing this with advancements in data collaboration, marketers can resolve sophisticated business insights, such as whether a consumer watching a CTV ad drove the purchase of a product with a partnered retailer. By developing visibility into the business outcomes that matter the most, marketers can better understand the impact of their campaigns, and make data-driven decisions for future campaigns.

For longer established UK broadcasters, measurement is not new, and large customer data sets ‘matching’ to conversion data from partners and clients has already begun. The questions for many advertisers will be: 1) Is the measurement consistent? and 2) Does it work with our own frameworks, or will a fragmented measurement ecosystem join an increasingly fragmented targeting ecosystem?

Going beyond reach to prove outcomes should be on the agenda for every TV player/platform.  Making that measurement consistent across all TV and Video should be on the agenda for all advertisers, in order to keep TV, often the best performing part of the plan, at the centre of their marketing.

Justifying the hype

CTV is approaching a pivotal moment. It can only live up to its current label as the next frontier of advertising and the IAB’s forecast by harnessing the technologies that will enable marketers to quantify ad performance.

If advertisers cannot engage in people-based marketing on CTV with the same precision as other channels, brands are likely to prioritise other channels where they can gauge their ad spend with greater precision. However, if CTV integrates technology that enables measurement and attribution, it will give advertisers the evidence they need to justify spend, and in doing so, provide them with better returns than ever before.

In 2021, all forms of TV advertising saw record-levels of investment – reaching a total of £5.46 billion, an increase of 24% on the channel’s 2020 investment. However, ad spend predictions for CTV investment in 2023 overshadow linear considerably, with CTV spend expected to grow by 14.4% year-over-year, compared to a projected decline of 6.3% in linear. Looking ahead, marketers are certainly hedging their bets on an upward trend of digital viewing.

However, linear has long been a trusted source of reach and awareness for brands – and marketers should not turn their backs on the channel so hastily, especially when a total of 85.2% of UK individuals are reached by linear every week. To stay cost-effective and meet long and short-term targets, it makes more sense for marketers to implement incremental shifts in budget for a more balanced approach between the two channels. This is especially true when linear’s vast reach means it is still securing large budgets; a shift of 10 – 15% of current investment would represent huge value in the CTV space, making that redistributed investment extremely cost-effective.

The TV balancing act

Buyers that are simply sticking to linear because it is what they know could be missing out on shrewd CTV investments, particularly when justifying and measuring these investments. It’s true that linear TV does not provide the same granularity as CTV, relying on metrics like reach and frequency as proxies for demonstrating effectiveness – and understandably, budgets are shifting away from offline as a result.

With a likely recession ahead and inflation running high, it’s easy to focus overwhelmingly on digital solutions to satisfy immediate targets such as low cost per acquisition (CPA) demands and strong return on ad spend (ROAS). However, it’s important not to forget about long-term growth and the high-funnel objectives where linear adds value. It is a crucial platform for brand building, and overlooking it could be a wasted opportunity for individual brands, but also an over-investment in digital solutions on a macro level could lead to under-developed industries — especially in unconsolidated industries such as cryptocurrency or blockchain technology.

Marketers must also consider  generational viewing differences when balancing their channel investment: while younger consumers may opt for CTV, subscription video on demand (SVOD) or advertising-based video on demand (AVOD), older consumers still dedicate over two hours a day to watching broadcast TV (35-44 year-olds), which increases to over three hours for 55-64 year-olds. Missing entire cohorts – especially those who potentially hold a higher disposable income – may mean brands lose out on important leads.

Harnessing the power of digital

 While long term viability and high-funnel awareness should be a consideration, short-term success is equally important, therefore the results of budget decisions must be measured and accessible. Through robust and comprehensive reporting, CTV affords advertisers the ability to accurately evaluate, in detail, the return on every penny spent. As a result, marketers can activate, optimise, and dial-back campaigns quickly and effectively, facilitating agility in the face of economic uncertainty. What’s more, CTV has the added capability to target niche audience segments while simultaneously appealing to a range of demographics.

Further developments in measurement, supported by artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning, mean that marketers can now combine data from linear and CTV to provide omnichannel, comparable key insights such as cost and incremental reach by channel. Accurate customer trends reports allow companies to optimise prospecting and retargeting efforts away from low-scoring audiences and towards those with high purchase probability – this robust analysis can guide companies in strategic decisions that set them up for success. Core KPIs such as customer propensity to purchase and lifetime value allow for a more holistic approach to ad spend, where marketers meet both long and short-term goals in a turbulent economy.

While CTV is an incredible tool to reach highly targeted audiences and receive detailed measurements, it is by no means the only channel worth investing in. Instead, implementing an omni-channel, digital approach supported by a robust first-party data strategy and strong attribution model will bolster a brand’s long-term position.

A holistic approach towards long-term success

It’s true that CTV offers up extensive opportunities in measurement and attribution for brands, but focusing solely on immediate success can lead marketers into a fluctuating spend spiral as they switch between short-term and long-term objectives.

Overall, linear TV – delivering high view-through rates and broad audiences – is still a key performance driver and crucial component of brand building, and marketers should not forget the good value it can provide long term. By contrast, CTV’s ultra-targeted and traceable offering gives advertisers clear visibility of key metrics, leading to accurate analysis and insights to allow for informed investment decisions.

Instead of rushing to shift large amounts of budget to CTV, brands must keep a holistic view of their investment to optimise results, and bind together CTV and linear as a mutually complementary partnership.

To help us navigate this rapid expansion, let’s look at this through the lens of what it was like being a teenager.

Most of us will remember the highs and lows of growing up: the sudden (and sometimes severe) physical changes to our bodies; the onset of more advanced, often overwhelming, emotions; new social arenas and constructs leaving us with identity crises, and existential challenges. All of which one must endure and complete before reaching the promised land of adulthood.

It’s a tough age indeed.

These same challenges, in their own way, are on show in the streaming industry as it endures its own adolescence.

The growth spurt

Kicked off primarily by the Covid pandemic, streaming video’s growth spurt has tripped up many players in the industry, with a substantial and unexpected rate and size of change.

CTV is forecast to take over one-third ($38 Billion) of ad spend by 2026. This is double the growth from 2022.

With a Compounded Annual Growth Rate of nearly 20%, this is gold rush stuff. Very few in the industry would have predicted this prior to the pandemic.

But, much like a teenager’s gangly limbs, it’s far from a uniform expansion. Growth is coming not from new households spread out evenly across the country, but from adoption of new devices – and younger demographics. This introduces significant technological and operational complexities.

So, it’s not just a matter of needing to be ‘in it to win it’. Publishers and advertisers alike need to join the dots, and discover ways to connect their audiences and their goals.

They need to work smarter.

Relevancy, context, and attention are all new words entering the trading lexicon. Growth will require adoption of automation in all manner of workflows, moving humans from the operating seat to the supervisor’s chair.

One way this could manifest is programmatic trading. Contrary to what you might have heard, data from our platform tells us that programmatic deals still make up only a fraction of CTV ad sales. Much like pre-teen children, there is promise in programmatic, but it’s yet to live up to its potential.

The in-crowd

Audiences for streaming channels are fickle. They are easily influenced by online icons, and more loyal to the content they like than the provider of that content. As increased subscriber churn has shown, lose viewers and it’s unlikely that they will come back anytime soon.

Talk about trying to be part of the ‘in-crowd’ at school.

Publishers are not only competing with their usual contemporaries and suffering costs that are ‘shooting through the roof’, but also a new wave of streaming natives that produce content from ‘inside their platforms, out.’ They are attracting larger and larger audiences that, while watching their content, are not watching yours.

Everyone wants to be their friend. Everyone wants to be invited to their party.

One advantage the big streamers have had to date has been extraordinary production values. But with a squeeze coming for commissioning budgets, it looks like even that is under threat.

Helicopter parents

And just as things couldn’t become more challenging, many publishers and advertisers have to answer to their helicopter parents – their shareholders.

Playing out in a dystopian ‘Mother-and-Father know best’ style, shareholder activism (like that underway with Disney) further destabilise businesses. It casts doubt, distracts and introduces second guessing across their business while they try to grapple with new regulatory, technological and operational paradigms.

For the next 2-3 years the industry will continue to grow before reaching adulthood. During this time it will likely be a bumpy and tumultuous road. We’ll trip over our own feet a few more times, and experience growing pains as we adapt to new formats, behaviour and technology.

Publishers and advertisers will both need to continuously evolve all aspects of their business to fully capitalise on the potential wins, and become fully functioning adults.

Cameron Church is CEO and Co-Founder of Watching That. Here he is on LinkedIn.

Reinforcing this trend is the entry of major brands into the AVoD market, including Disney+ and Netflix. With these services offering access to a huge variety of audiences, advertisers can now reach more people than ever before through AVoD. Therefore, Connected TV (CTV), as one of the most popular ways to watch this type of content, has become an established part of the TV marketing mix.

Targeting the right audiences

CTV enables brands to deliver ads to people that no longer watch linear TV. Far from only reaching niche streaming audiences, this has fast become a sizeable chunk of the population. In fact, research from Rakuten Advertising finding that 41% of viewers globally prefer streaming over traditional TV.

This presents a sizeable opportunity for brands to integrate more contextual targeting into their TV advertising strategy. CTV platforms provide media planners with the opportunity to identify their target audience’s content preferences – purchasing inventory and upweighting ad spend accordingly.

The power of contextual advertising on CTV, in comparison to linear TV, is in enabling brands to engage with a target audience alongside content where the message is most likely to resonate. By leveraging this context, media planners can minimise the chance of turning their audience away.

Targeting a collective of individuals who share similar viewing behaviours provides the opportunity to buy ad inventory more strategically. For example, media planners can align their ad inventory with viewing peaks: new boxsets and the latest blockbuster drops bring an influx of viewers eager to indulge in that content, so buyers should act accordingly and upweight ad spend here.

These moments are concentrated periods where the target audience is most engaged – so, it’s best to act on it. Placing ads at the right time and place means they won’t jar or intrude and can be more seamlessly integrated into the viewing experience. This is what drives resonance and action.

Connect viewing with shopping

Once media planners have identified their target audience, mapped out their CTV inventory, and aligned it with the right content, the next question is how this will drive impact and engagement.

There is a correlation between consumers who have a secondary device to hand and those searching for and engaging with brands advertised on CTV. According to Rakuten Advertising, over half (55%) of viewers in the UK have their mobile phone with them while streaming content. Additionally, 69% of Brits surveyed in the same report stated that they purchase or occasionally purchase products or services they search for, having seen it advertised on CTV. This is a clear purchasing pattern that media planners must lean on to make the most of their CTV advertising strategy, applying contextual targeting to increase the chance of action that will eventually lead to a conversion in the future.

Moreover, brands should connect viewing with shopping, through the use of actionable, interactive, shoppable ads. For example, brands can use location services to tailor ads based on where the viewer is, such as giving them a QR code pointing them to a nearby sales event. By bringing multi-screen to life, brands can encourage viewers to research and purchase in a personal and relevant way. In this regard, the content that people watch on CTV has an unrivalled power to drive behavioural change. This presents huge opportunities for brands to shift awareness from the biggest screen in the house onto a smaller secondary device, to browse and make purchasing decisions.

Integrate CTV into a wider strategy

With this in mind, the integration of context through CTV will encourage action through greater resonance and interactivity. CTV has become essential to modern media planning as a result, but integration is the key word here. CTV has the power to deliver action without relying on individual or demographic data points, but it can’t be siloed from the wider TV advertising strategy.

CTV is the perfect supplement – rather than a replacement – for buying traditional TV inventory.

Building CTV into a wider strategy which incorporates traditional TV advertising is the most effective way to drive brand awareness. Brands cannot afford to miss out on this growing audience that prefers streaming over linear TV. With contextual targeting complementing a broadcast ad strategy, advertisers can reach the audiences that are most likely to remember and buy into their brand.

In advertising, we have long known this to be true. The media environments best able to produce metrics and establish effectiveness invariably attract those in charge of managing spend.

Just look at the rise of digital over the last two decades. The decline of traditional media, such as print and TV, directly correlates with the rise of digital channels, and the growing ubiquity of smartphones. Marketers, faced with tightening budgets, want to be able to clearly demonstrate ROI.

But how we measure things in digital is changing. As privacy rises up the agenda, and tech giants respond to new consumer concerns, the world is moving away from behavioural targeting through third-party cookies.

Within this change lies opportunity for advertisers – as ITV’s results earlier this year illustrate.

CTV to the Factor of X

In March, ITV posted its largest advertising revenue growth in its history. The broadcaster saw advertising revenues rise by 24% YoY to reach almost £2bn – with its AVOD revenue up by a significant 41%.

“Our ’More Than TV’ strategy, sets ITV up for digital acceleration,” said Chief Executive Officer Carolyn McCall. “Our strong balance sheet and cash flows enable us to invest behind our strategy to build a more valuable digital media and entertainment company and deliver returns to shareholders.”

Or in other words, building on its success in CTV thus far, ITV is pressing its advantage and launching ITVX later this year, a new streaming service that will premiere new content before traditional linear broadcast. And they aren’t the only ones keeping busy.

There is a lot of movement in the UK’s CTV space: platforms like Pluto TV are running big outdoor campaigns around London – and brands like Disney are considering a move into AVOD.

The wider socio-economic context adds credence to these moves. As inflation bites and the cost of living rises, the pressure on household finances is growing. This could see consumers opt to reduce their active subscriptions and move from SVOD to AVOD in order to save money.

Understanding households

The UK is still behind countries like the U.S. when it comes to CTV and CTV advertising; however with companies like ITV creating more opportunities for streaming content and advertising on its platforms, CTV has the potential to be fast-growing across UK households.

Modern audiences exhibit both the habits and the devices required for effective CTV advertising. Over 78% of European audiences regularly watch CTV – and 42% of households now have two or more Smart TVs. In the UK, 89% of consumers use a streaming service at least once a week and 74% use AVOD at least once a week.

These figures are naturally attracting advertisers. CTV benefits from being driven by real-time data, providing an opportunity for precise targeting at the local, household or even device level.

Brands aren’t going back to appealing to undefined audiences en-masse. Login and authentication steps empower advertisers to target individual viewers, while digital attribution helps identify the link between ad exposure and engagement.

And this data melds with other first-party data sources. Marketers can use their own customer relationship management (CRM) and transaction records, online data such as website visits and available digital segments indicating, for example, kids at home or occupation type, to identify when and where to reach their desired audience.

The media landscape is changing. But people aren’t. As Drucker noted long ago, the stuff that gets measured, gets managed. As CTV offers consumers increasingly appealing AVOD options, and offers brands the detailed metrics they crave through household targeting, more interest and investment will naturally flow through the channel.

The rapid growth of streaming TV consumption makes it imperative that networks, studios and MVPDs have a ‘grown up’ connected TV offering – one that allows them to compete for every eyeball and ad dollar that migrates into the premium digital video environment. This means:

• Holding onto audiences, and attracting new viewers, by ensuring a consumer-friendly ad experience with modest ad loads, frequency capping and relevant ads.
• Enabling ad insertion (and targeting) at huge scale with total reliability, so that mega-events including sport and breaking news can be fully monetized.
• Maximizing the value of inventory by carefully managing direct sales with multiple programmatic demand sources.
• Effectively using audience data to achieve better targeting and a personalized ad viewing experience, even in a cookie-less world.

The pandemic accelerated all digital behaviours, including TV viewing. Mass-scale connected TV was tomorrow’s opportunity and challenge, but tomorrow arrived early. Join us live to hear how networks, studios and distributors can rethink the ad-supported TV model and ready themselves for connected TV primetime.

Register here.

This webcast explores:

• What a holistic ad performance and revenue strategy looks like, and how you find the sweet spot where ‘audience + avails = best possible yield outcome’, and how you avoid the one extra ad that loses you money, as viewers ‘tune out’.
• The potential for greater integration and synergies between SSAI and audience data and targeting capabilities –and how this could be implemented.
• How to manage ad frequency in a multi ad server (direct, programmatic, affiliate) environment and so ensure ad repetition does not degrade the ‘premium’ TV experience.
• The next steps in dynamic ad insertion, including the benefits of server-side ad insertion and client-side ad insertion, and how these can be used successfully in a hybrid model.
• The potential for a multi-DAI vendor strategy (similar to multi-CDN strategies) and how this could influence ad delivery performance and costs.
• How to manage multiple inventory owners within the same video session using an understanding of who has the ‘right to sell’, plus the ad routing and decisioning processes that support sales business rules.
• The special considerations when streaming ad-supported content into MVPD set-top boxes.
• How to monitor and diagnose the causes of ad errors, and so increase ad delivery reliability.
• How organizations are managing ad insertion for very large scale events, including the implications for ad insertion infrastructure

In Part One of our Future of TV Advertising event preview, we list some of the sell-side innovations you can hear about, what leading buyers are discussing, and the leading research that will be revealed. We also highlight the addressable TV advertising sessions. Look out for Part Two at the end of this week.

World-class innovation from the sell-side

• Rhys McLachlan, Director of Advanced Advertising at ITV, will discuss how a programmatic planning and buying system can ensure broadcaster sovereignty and maximise inventory yield. You can learn more about one of the most advanced broadcaster programmatic solutions anywhere (Planet V, which went live recently).
• KC Sullivan, President & Managing Director of Global Advertising & Partnerships at NBCUniversal will give more detail about the ground-breaking One Platform, which is a strategy to reach all audiences across every screen. The aim is to create a more relevant advertising experience for viewers and greater impact for brands. With One Platform, there is an opportunity for a better premium video marketplace that helps advertisers reach the audiences they need to drive better business results. You will hear how NBCUniversal is building an advertising division to reflect global consumption as well as harnessing the power of its international assets, including Sky.
• Australian commercial broadcaster Nine explains how it enables brands to match their customer data against its registered users so that, among other things, they can target known customers or find ‘lookalike’ consumers. This addressable solution uses a DMP integration and is fully automated and privacy compliant. It does not rely on cookies and every ad impression is linked back to a person. You will hear about the technology, the use-cases for buyers, how it impacts the efficiency of campaigns and the role of TV within omnichannel campaigns. The speakers are Ben Campbell, Director of Advertising & Data Products at Nine, and Michael Stephenson, CSO, Nine.
• Kevin Arrix, Senior Vice President at DISH Media Sales, will reveal how one of North America’s leading Pay TV providers has made its set-top box VOD advertising inventory available for private, real-time programmatic trading. This interview explores the key lessons and results from the implementation, which means STB VOD can be bought through the same programmatic demand sources as other owned digital inventory.

Up-to-date advertising research and fresh thinking

• ‘The Value of Attention, and How to Measure and Trade Upon It’ with Karen Nelson-Field (Centre for Amplified Intelligence)
• ‘Advanced TV Uncovered: European Landscape’ with Virginie Dremeaux (Executive Director, Product and Sales Marketing International, FreeWheel)
• Orlando Wood, Author of ‘Lemon’ and Chief Innovation Officer, System1Group, on maximising creative effectiveness by examining the features of successful online video advertising.
• James Fennesey, Global CEO, Standard Media Index, on understanding AVOD – the big players, their catalogues and their audiences.
• ‘How Broadcasters can Improve Share-of-Time with Young Adults’ with Tom Harrington (Senior TV Analyst, Enders Analysis)
• The future of viewing and ad-supported TV – what the numbers say. This panel looks at the VOD market, content investments and ad budgets with: Maria Rua Aguete, Executive Director, Omdia; Richard Broughton, Research Director, Ampere Analysis; Duncan Stewart, Director of Research, Technology, Media & Telecommunications, Deloitte.

 What the buy-side is thinking (from interviews or panel discussions):

• Kate Rowlinson, CEO at Mediacom, discusses advertising in the age of Covid, and especially the agency lessons we can carry forwards.
• Steve Bignell, CEO at PMX UK (Publicis Media Exchange) explores the unification of broadcast and digital advertising.
• Benoit Cacheux, Global Chief Digital Officer, Zenith, considers how we can better understand identity, behaviour and context
• Carl Bratton, Head of Effectiveness at Direct Line Group, looks at how we judge and prove the value of television.
• Jean-Paul Edwards, Chief Product Development Officer at OMD, gives his views on connected TV as a new audience and new data opportunity

How the industry scales addressable TV advertising

• ‘The Path to ‘turn on’ Addressability in Europe’ with Marcien Jenckes, President, Advertising, Comcast Cable
• ‘Unlocking Advanced TV in Europe: The Marketers’ Perspective’ with Tim Willcox (Managing Director at Amnet Programmatic Experts, Dentsu), Emmanuel Crego (General Manager, Values.media) and Emmanuel Josserand (Brand, Agency and Industry Relations, FreeWheel) (confirmed speakers).
• There is also a panel focused on ‘What Pay TV brings to the addressable TV party’.

You can see all the confirmed conference speakers here.

The conference agenda is here.

You can register for this online event here.

The Internet is fundamentally changing the way audiences interact with their TVs, and this in turn is providing new opportunities to the advertiser who can now apply digital metrics to TV. The promise of a platform that can deliver on both long and short term goals concurrently sounds like a dream come true, right?

However, the challenge for this still nascent platform is: how can we work together as an industry to effectively turn this promise into a reality.

Creating lean-in experiences for consumers

Being connected to the Internet, Smart TVs now offer advertisers the ability to lean-in and engage with a consumer through the use of tools like branded apps and micropages.

During MediaTel’s ‘The Future of TV Advertising Global’, I was speaking to Melanie Rupp from SEAT Germany and Annika Woerder about from PHD about the brand’s new CTV campaign. SEAT wanted to showcase interesting and engaging content about a new car to build brand equity, whilst giving consumers the opportunity to actively engage when watching TV, which was measured via targeted performance metrics. SEAT invested in a microsite rich with video content showing features of the car, whilst also giving viewers the opportunity to shop via a QR code leading them directly to a test-drive form.

The brand also created a smart TV app to give consumers the opportunity to find out more about the product whilst watching TV. The results so far has been a more sophisticated campaign that uses Samsung Smart TV data to extend the reach of traditional linear TV campaigns; showcasing CTVs versatility to be not just a TV but also a content hub, a browser and a place to discover more.

TV advertising goes beyond the 30 second spot

 Our latest first-party Q2 data analysis shows that, for the first time, Samsung Smart TVs in the UK are showing more streaming content than linear TV – where linear TV is defined as TV consumed on a set channel at a set time of day –  constituting over 55% of total TV viewership time. Of that group, the majority are accessing subscription-based, ad-free services, creating a challenge for brands to reach large audiences with commercial messages via linear TV campaigns alone. It’s therefore important  for brands to consider other methods to engage with TV audiences that complement, but also reach beyond, the traditional 30 sec ad spot.

Effective data is vital to give a sense of how the landscape is changing  to help engage with audiences in new ways – ones that complement linear brand-building activities by engaging with the consumer more through data-driven targeting. For example, using a combination of deterministic data points we have access to at Samsung Ads, brands have the ability to understand which TV devices have been exposed to their linear TV ads, as well as those ads served within on-demand streaming services on devices connected to our TVs. We can also understand the audience profile of those exposed audiences, such as when exposed audiences are more likely to watch TV, what other programmes and channels they watch, the types of connected devices they have attached to their Samsung Smart TV and more.

This enables advertisers to target those unexposed TVs using new ad formats, giving them incremental reach – providing the ability to reach those that would have been missed by a traditional linear campaign, whilst preventing duplication of reach.

Discussing how data helps define the wider TV strategy, Annika Woerder from PHD said, “The audience insights from Samsung…[allow us to] measure incremental reach… which is a helpful KPI to measure the success of a campaign….During our last campaign we reached about 73% incremental reach, which is a great number. Gaining insights from the Cupra campaign [means] we have the possibility to point out the users who visited our app [which] is a good way to optimise with data and…gives us the possibility to learn about what [our audience is] interested in and what they are doing, so this data is powerful.”

Making the most of CTV for effective brand performance

There’s still some way to go to perfect the balance between brand and performance. The key to this is developing data and measurement tools that helps us improve TV campaign planning iteratively.

Consumers always want good content at their convenience and advertisers can contribute to this by curating ad experiences that create a more active and engaged TV experience. This isn’t a matter of replacing traditional TV campaigns, but extending them, enabling brands to reach relevant audiences wherever they’re viewing their TV content. Brand building is still the most important driver for growth, and with the increase in Internet usage over the past ten years it has given advertisers new ways to fulfill this job. The digital revolution has made TV advertising more effective, not less. It’s an exciting opportunity to engage with viewers and tell the brand story in a different way, connecting both linear and CTV to improve overall brand campaign performance. There’s never been a better time to start testing and learning what CTV can do for a brand.

Related content

You can see the full panel discussion featuring Samsung Ads, SEAT Germany and PHD Germany, giving more detail about the innovative SEAT and Cupra campaigns and a detailed look at the benefits of Smart TV as an advertising platform, here. From the collection of videos, look for: ‘THE NEXT GENERATION TV EXPERIENCE: FROM LEAN BACK TO LEAN FORWARD’ (Second row, middle).