Earlier this month, the converged TV measurement and attribution solution provider, TVSquared, published a report which showed a growing consensus among marketers around a definition of TV which includes both linear broadcasting and streaming. In collaboration with third-party research firms Dynata and Advertiser Perceptions, it surveyed nearly 1,000 media buyers (including agencies and brands) across the U.S., UK, Germany and Australia, and has revealed that 75% of buyers subscribe to this holistic view of TV.
Across Australia, Germany and the United Kingdom, the proportion of buy-side marketers who adopt this holistic definition is 91%, 82% and 90% respectively, and a third of respondents said that between 16-25% of their current total TV budget is committed to CTV (with a quarter allocating between 5-15%). The report also indicates that the number of CTV platforms marketers advertise on will grow in 2022, with the number of marketers advertising on 6-10 platforms set to increase by 60% in the UK, as well as 91% in Australia and 42% in Germany.
Another notable finding is that advertisers conducting converged TV planning are managing linear and streaming campaigns in similar ways, with 40% of buyers measuring linear and streaming for performance/outcomes weekly, and 10-15% measuring on a daily cadence. 33% of marketers optimise their campaigns for performance across linear channels – only two percentage points less than for OTT/CTV channels – while the proportion of those optimising creatives on a weekly cadence are also very close – 32% for linear and 31% for streaming. TVSquared comments on the significance of this: “The frequency at which linear is now being managed shows a huge step forward for an industry that has long been known for lag times and little flexibility in delivering and accessing insights.”
The report makes it clear that advertisers wishing to increase incremental reach will need to consider investing in OTT/CTV. Analysing the data of billions of ad impressions across 20 converged TV ad campaigns through its ADvantage platform, TVSquared found that, on average, 70% of the audiences that campaigns reached through streaming services could not be reached if the campaigns were orchestrated through linear broadcasting alone.
Importantly, TVSquared has demonstrated that even big budgets deliver minimal additional campaign reach if those campaigns fail to also invest in OTT/CTV. Its data shows that brands that committed less than 1% of their media inventory to OTT/CTV were never able to garner more than 5% incremental reach. The report also notes that linear-run campaigns tend to reach their saturation point around the six week mark, while OTT offers the chance to extend reach over a longer period. Assessing these findings, TVSquared recommends that advertisers wishing to boost their incremental reach to at least 15% must dedicate 10% (or more) of their impressions to OTT/CTV, regardless of the size of their budgets.
With a significant majority of buyers now thinking of TV in holistic terms, and data showing the efficacy of integrating OTT/CTV with linear campaigns for boosting incremental reach, a key insights from the report is that TV needs to become easier to transact across linear and streaming channels – a sentiment affirmed by between 88-94% of respondents across the European and Australian markets surveyed.
When queried about the main challenges facing converged TV, 57% of U.S. marketers listed the “accuracy of cross-platform TV measurement and attribution”, while 38% mentioned “difficulties targeting audiences across linear and CTV platforms”. Additionally, 43% of marketers cited a “lack of accurate and scalable ad occurrence and viewership data” and 38% pointed to a “lack of standards for currencies, and across technology and buying platforms”.
More than 70% of marketers now agree that TV should be sold on an impressions based model. When deciding whether invest in converged TV, marketers (89%) consider holistic management of linear and streaming to be an relevant factor, with more than 90% registering that transparency of metrics across both mediums as another important determinant.
In the report, TVSquared concludes: “At the end of the day, TV now encompasses both linear and streaming, and reliable, transparent insights are the keys for ensuring that total TV media investment and allocation is both effective and efficient in achieving audience reach and business outcomes.”
