To maximise monetisation, operators and video service providers need to be strategic with the FAST channels they add to their portfolio and leverage enhanced discoverability tools. They need to cater to the specific preferences of end users to enhance viewer engagement while boosting their ad opportunities. This article will explore some of the key elements to successfully launching a FAST channel offering.

How to implement a user-driven FAST channels offering

The proliferation of FAST (Free Ad-Supported TV) channels is undeniable. However, merely presenting hundreds of these channels to users can lead to a paradox of choice. This often results in viewers feeling overwhelmed, potentially not watching any channels, or even worse, turning off the TV or watching something on another service. Therefore, it’s crucial for service providers to curate a FAST offering that aligns with audience preferences, bolstered by effective discoverability tools. Moreover, considerations around distribution, advertising, and content alignment are paramount when launching a FAST channel.

For a distinctive experience, leveraging the niche content typically found in FAST is essential. It’s logical to assume that a viewer who watched Formula 1 content via a Pay TV channel might be interested in a motorsport-themed FAST channel. Similarly, a fan of ‘MasterChef’ would likely gravitate towards cooking channels. By tapping into viewer preferences, service providers can craft a compelling value proposition, target a specific audience segment, and subsequently boost advertising revenues. After all, tailored content often commands higher cost per mille (CPM) rates.

Advertising plays a pivotal role in the FAST ecosystem. With the surge in FAST channels, there’s an expansion in content inventory. Both service providers and advertisers need a streamlined strategy to match ads with appropriate audience segments, ensuring expansive reach. Advertisers aim to engage the majority of their target audience, making this a critical factor in their investment decisions. Furthermore, the relevance of ads to the audience is essential. To truly maximise revenue, a solution that consolidates demand from various sources and offers a broad audience reach is vital. This approach can package available ad slots to achieve optimal monetisation. However, service providers must tread carefully to ensure their audience data isn’t exploited by digital advertising behemoths. In today’s age, where addressable advertising is mainstream, there are numerous TV-centric solutions tailored to addressing this concern for service providers.

Personalising the FAST channel experience

The media domain is in a state of flux, ushering in a heightened demand for top-tier, user-centric TV experiences. Generative AI for content discovery, and increasingly, content creation, appears to be the solution the industry is leaning towards. Such AI-driven recommendations empower service providers to suggest FAST channels that resonate with viewer inclinations.

Looking ahead, the vision is for AI-powered personalised FAST channels. These channels would offer a bespoke experience, where each viewer, upon tuning in, encounters content curated to their individual tastes. This evolution promises a future where content aligns seamlessly with each viewer’s unique preferences.

Conclusion

Research shows that Europeans engaged in 50% more FAST content hours in Q3 2022 than the same quarter the previous year. The rise in FAST channel consumption has resulted in an explosion of new channels. To stand out in today’s highly competitive FAST market, content providers must deliver a compelling, user-driven experience to viewers.

By adopting AI-driven content discovery, AI-based personalised FAST channels, and targeted TV advertising solutions, service providers can drive viewers to the content they want to watch, segment audience data, and offer targeted ads.

The search behaviour habits now being leveraged can be combined with any of 1,000+ existing AdSmart attributes – from postcodes to life stage, or mosaic groups – to refine campaigns. Ruth Cartwright, Investment Director at Sky Media, believes that, “Being able to embrace the best capabilities of digital but in the brand safe, big-screen world of TV, makes campaigns more relevant and impactful.”

Sky says its latest advertising innovation is driven by industry demand to bring digital and TV campaigns closer together. “Search Behaviour attributes allows brands, for the first time, to target audiences based on specific online search behaviours, including frequency and intent,” the company explains.

Seven search behaviour categories are available at launch: Home & Garden, Travel, News, Job & Education, Arts and Entertainment, Games, and Pets & Animals. As well as mixing this knowledge with existing AdSmart attributes, it can also be matched to advertiser first-party data. “As an example, a custom campaign could see a holiday or insurance company target those who are actively searching for holidays or flights. This could be further refined or creatively adapted to those looking at beach, sightseeing or ski holidays in a specific area of the country,” Sky Media explains.

The Search Behaviour targeting capability has been developed in conjunction with Captify, which boasts of having the largest onsite search dataset outside walled gardens, harnessing 1+ billion searches a day on 2+ billion devices covering 6+ million websites from over 1,500 publishers (and all in five languages!). Captify emphasises how up to date its data is (real-time), demonstrating interests and needs right now. Captify talks of having “the first intent-powered audience platform for the open web”.

Total TV Measurement has been used with multiple GroupM clients already but was given its official go-to-market launch in June after receiving a stamp of approval from PwC, which conducted an exhaustive assurance review of the end-to-end processes and methodology used. This covered everything from data cleaning to data fusion, de-duplication and quality checks, with all nine categories of investigation passed.

Total TV Measurement first measures and de-duplicates addressable TV audience exposures across the entire Finecast supplier ecosystem, which includes linear broadcast addressable TV plus BVOD, AVOD and other ‘TV-like’ (i.e., high-quality, broadcaster equivalent standard) streaming. This is achieved by combining Finecast log-level data with measurement provided by AudienceProject, which runs its own viewing panel (complete with establishment survey). This cross-channel addressable audience view is then combined with BARB data via TechEdge to show de-duplicated reach and frequency across the addressable and classic linear portions of a campaign.

Currently the new product does not attempt to de-duplicate audiences between one streaming addressable source and another, with the focus on showing the difference a combined addressable buy makes on top of linear. This more granular de-duplication may come later.

The outputs from Total TV Measurement are: cross-channel addressable TV reach and frequency; linear campaign reach and frequency; overall de-duplicated reach and frequency; Finecast (addressable) and linear TV 1+ cover curves (with other custom cover curves considered).

Samantha Lister, Head of Marketing Science at Finecast, comments: “This is a solution for brands that want to understand how reach interacts across addressable TV and linear TV and how they can optimise reach across the two. It helps them consider the impact of budget allocation.”

She adds: “Historically, linear TV has been the most cost-effective medium when it comes to reach, but declining linear audiences and deflating [addressable TV] costs mean brands are leaning more into addressable TV. When we launched Finecast, it was ‘linear-first’ [on the plan] and then you added incremental reach [via addressable], but today it is not always linear first, depending on the audience you want to reach. There are some audiences where you should plan for addressable first or where you can invest less in linear before you move budget to addressable.”

As for the PwC verification to ISRS 4400 (Revised) standards, this was a proactive move, since the GroupM clients using the solution (and the GroupM agencies) were happy with the outcomes and their own due diligence. Lister wanted to get ahead of the curve. “As more budget shifts from linear to addressable, addressable comes under greater scrutiny. We are so proud of what we have done we wanted a seal of approval. There was no huge demand for an assurance review from our clients.”

One study for a GroupM client shows what they gain in terms of knowledge. It demonstrated +2.3% incremental reach into the 18-34 age group and +1.3% incremental gain across all adults when addressable was added to standard linear TV. Savings were also indicated – based on what it would have cost to achieve that level of incremental reach through continued linear buys. Total TV measurement is free on selected campaigns and the ambition is that it becomes standard practice for qualifying campaigns where linear and addressable are being combined.

The BEE solution (which stands for Brand Exposure & Engagement) harnesses data from 2+ million Bouygues Telecom set-top boxes plus existing Realytics technology to provide deterministic single-source measurement of national linear TV, BVOD and addressable TV. The exposure data can then be linked to downstream online consumer activity, such as website visits, app downloads, SMS responses and calls to a call centre (including incremental activity).

Realytics provides a platform that helps buyers optimise their media plans by harnessing a previous understanding of how TV advertising impacted business outcomes, and this is also wrapped into the BEE solution. Thus, advertisers are given a better understanding of the frequency needed to generate web activity, the number of impressions needed to deliver X% of incremental reach, and also the consequences of over-exposure of a household to the same campaign.

Guillaume Belmas, CEO of Realytics, believes the French market provides an outstanding model for how to deploy addressable TV successfully, due to the exceptional pan-industry collaboration that enabled rapid take-off. As we reported previously, his company has just authored the second edition of its ‘Addressable TV in France’ white paper series, outlining progress and next steps.

One of those next steps is improved measurement and attribution, and with a large part of French TV consumption still found on the set-top boxes of service providers like Orange, SFR, Free and Bouygues Telecom, operator partnerships carry significant weight. Discussing the market needs generally, Belmas says: “There are still improvements to be made on reporting addressable TV advertising.

“Everyone has been focused on making targeted TV a reality and signing deals, but in the last few months both the buyside and sell-side agreed that we now need more proof of the efficacy of campaigns.”

He observes that usage of smart TV sets and connected TV apps is low in France compared to the rest of Europe.  Catch-up TV and BVOD are overwhelmingly consumed via set-top boxes, and this means measurement efforts must include a core focus on the service provider set-top box.

“The first goal of BEE is to measure exposure and reach, because one of the buyside priorities is to understand how they avoid audience duplication as they spread their money across advertising on linear TV, catch-up and addressable. Then there are questions about the performance of the different ‘channels’: does my linear TV perform better than my addressable TV campaign, and what about the BVOD campaign?

“Our history is as a TV attribution company, so we can show if campaigns are driving web traffic or other outcomes. One of the big questions for brands has always been, ‘How many impressions do I need to trigger an activity like a website visit or app download?’ That is a crucial insight if you want to fix the ideal frequency for a campaign. Before, we could not answer these questions, but now we can.”

Within its wider product portfolio, Realytics has its own TV detection technology that will flag in real-time when an ad has aired, using fingerprinting, but the focus with BEE is using set-top box data to determine exposure, and this is the basis for showing de-duplicated reach across the different ‘channels’ being measured and therefore the incremental reach that addressable TV can deliver.

“Some of the top questions that buyers want answered are: what is the duplication per channel, how do I optimise to avoid duplication, which is the second or third ‘channel’ I should buy [for example, adding BVOD onto a linear campaign first, or using addressable first and then BVOD], and what is the ideal combination of those channels?”

With BEE, buyers can focus on exposure to gain these reach and incremental reach optimisation insights, but there is also the option to investigate performance as a second stage, and this is when Realytics’ TV attribution solution is fired up. “Not everyone is concerned with ‘drive-to-web’ but everyone is concerned with reach and frequency,” Belmas explains.

Realytics expects to expand the footprint where its exposure and attribution technology can be used.

Realytics has a central role in the French addressable TV advertising market, especially through its work with Bouygues Telecom. In addition to providing enhanced capabilities for measuring exposure and effectiveness of addressable TV advertising with the telco, its Adkymia DSP is part of the TVMOTIK alliance and tech stack designed to rationalise buying of linear TV and catch-up addressable TV inventory from multiple broadcasters in Bouygues Telecom homes. This alliance also involves Equative, which contributes campaign development, ad decisioning and scheduling capabilities.

TVMOTIK is based upon the principles of technical harmonisation (including use of AF2M/SNPTV requirements for linear TV) and therefore interoperability, and is designed to rationalise buying across multiple channels for advertisers, providing a one-stop-shop. It includes technology services and sales support. It is viewed as a way to lower the barriers to entry for TV channels of any size if they want to make their inventory available for addressable advertising (on Bouygues Telecom STBs).

Last year, in another project, Realytics worked with SNPTV (the advocacy group for TV and audiovisual advertising media in France), to investigate the effect of using linear TV and addressable TV together. One of the main points of the study was to determine if addressable TV delivers incremental reach on top of linear.

As indicated above, the Realytics product portfolio spans ad detection, ad exposure confirmation, programmatic buying enablement and TV attribution. The Adkymia Demand Side Platform can be used to buy both linear and addressable TV campaigns programmatically and Realytics is also using eight years’ worth of data (and 7 million spot impressions in Europe) to feed AI processing that optimises media buying to maximise drive-to-web impact via this DSP.

Realytics helps advertisers to synchronise their TV and digital campaigns, like timing their paid search (and especially their bidding in order to reach top search spot) to coincide with television ads. This is viewed as a key optimisation that can help ‘drive-to-web’. Online impact can be attributed to TV at a granular level, including on a per-channel (TV distribution channel) or per-day basis. The key principle guiding this technology is the idea that the first impact of TV advertising is usually seen in search.

The company also supports retargeting of exposed TV audiences in digital, including on Facebook, and targeting of non-exposed audiences within digital. There is also the ability to find audiences in the digital space who are lookalikes for the TV exposed audience.

As part of smartclip and RTL Group, Realytics is taking a pan-European view of the cross-platform and addressable TV markets and Belmas believes that in markets where HbbTV is being used by broadcasters to enable addressable TV in free-to-air homes, via television sets, it is realistic to believe we can unify addressable TV planning and buying to cover this and the Pay TV operator STB inventory.

In terms of measurement and attribution, the data available from a telco/Pay TV home is much richer than anything Realytics can get from an HbbTV household, but publisher (broadcaster streaming) data would be one foundation stone for exposure, and other data sources including ACR could be harnessed.

The paper, entitled: ‘Addressable TV: Digitalisation of an offline media’, is available to download now. It is the result of interviews with key players in the French addressable ecosystem including executives from Mindshare, Altice Media Ads & Connect, Gamned, Novembre, Canal+ Brand Solutions, M6 Publicité, SNPTV, Values, Jellyfish, Bouygues and France Televisions Publicité. This is the first time the annual white paper has been published in English and it is a good read for anyone that wants to understand the French addressable market since the law was changed in 2020 to permit household targeting.

The paper declares that, “Addressable TV has brought television into the digital age, sparking a renewed debate about its position in advertisers’ media mixes. This development allows the all-digital world to incorporate TV into its strategies, bridging the gap between a traditionally offline medium and the digital world.”

According to the SNPTV, the French TV advertising advocacy group, there were more than 1,300 addressable TV campaigns in France during 2022 – a three-fold increase over the previous year (the 2021 figure was 376 campaigns). Developments impacting reach include permission for prime-time ad substitution and the introduction of multiple targeted ads per ad break (in a market that opened with a rule allowing only one per break), while work is underway on a unified addressable TV solution that will get smaller TV sales houses into the game. Measurement is one of the big priorities ahead, and there is significant interest in what CRM onboarding (so use of advertiser data matching) can achieve and how that is implemented.

The paper, which is authored by Realytics and extensively quotes the interviewees, believes France now serves as a model for the rest of Europe when it comes to collaboration as the basis for addressable TV market growth. It points out that France is the only European country where all television channels and ISPs (telcos/service providers with Pay TV) have collaborated and agreed upon common specifications for addressable TV implementation. This includes clear rules and unified reporting for advertisers and agencies, and technology alignments to ensure a seamless viewer experience. SNPTV and AF2M have overseen the development of consistent standards. France has a standardised CPM buying method and uniform targeting, the paper observes.

Five of the TV sales houses (TF1 Publicité, France TV, M6 Publicité, Canal+ Brand Solutions, Altice Média Ads & Connect) have signed with Orange, SFR, and Bouygues Telecom. M6 Publicité is already in the process of signing with Free. Addressable TV can be bought direct or programmatically. Third-party players are heavily involved in this ecosystem to support data (e.g., LiveRamp), performance measurement (e.g., Realytics) and programmatic buying (e.g., Adkymia and TheTradeDesk).

The paper outlines how addressable TV is being used in France today, with targets based on geolocation, household characteristics (e.g., income, family with children) and consumption (heavy to light TV users). By 2021, half of all campaigns used geolocation (and the figure was 52% in H2, 2022, and is expected to be 50% in 2023) with one-quarter based on household characteristics or TV usage.

Rapid growth has been recorded since 2021. Olivier Roberdeau, Head of Multiscreen at Mindshare, is quoted from the previous year’s white paper as he recorded how substitutions grew from 0.5% in January 2021 to 10% in January 2022. By 2022 addressable was gaining traction among traditional TV advertisers as well as new-to-TV advertisers, as witnessed by Isabelle Vignon, General Delegate for Marketing at SNPTV. One executive says the priority is to bring more of the 2,000 existing TV advertisers into this new market. Half of addressable TV advertisers in France are still new to TV, as of 2022.

By 2023, half of addressable TV advertisers came back for more, according to Nathalie Dinis, Deputy Executive, Director of Trade at France Télévisions Publicité. Five sectors stood out as addressable TV users in 2022, the paper says: tourism, retail, services, culture & leisure, and automobile. Beyond geo-targeting, use-cases include reach extension beyond linear TV (including into light TV households).

The white paper notes the importance of measurement. Since March 2021, Médiamétrie has been re-evaluating the corrected Gross Rating Points of broadcasted advertisements that were impacted by addressable TV spots. This recalculation is based on the number of impressions served during these spots.

Mindshare’s Roberdeau is quoted saying: “Advertisers treat addressable TV like digital media and anticipate receiving data similar to digital campaigns to maximise their investments across campaigns. In this regard, the BEE measurement study developed by Realytics presents an excellent opportunity”.

As the paper explains, with BEE, Realytics can deterministically measure the performance of national linear TV, addressable TV, IPTV and Replay TV campaigns in households with Bouygues Telecom TVs. The purpose is to show how complementary different TV-activated devices are, in terms of both audience and online engagement. This includes measurement of audience conversion into website or mobile app activity. In 2022, BEE measured the effectiveness of addressable TV campaigns, including when combined with either a national linear TV campaign or an IPTV Replay campaign.

The white paper suggests that the effectiveness of addressable TV will come under the microscope in 2023, with most sales houses focused on demonstrating the impact via test campaigns conducted near the end of 2022. TV sales houses and ISPs (Pay TV operators) are collaborating in these tests.

Another focus for 2023, and looking ahead, is the use of advertiser CRM data to enhance targeting and personalisation. This first-party data matching comes with both technical and legal hurdles (including the need for new consents), and one executive points to the need for large customer bases to even begin this journey. Additional costs, and therefore higher CPMs, may also need to be factored in. Nevertheless, the paper reports that 2022 saw a significant increase in discussions around this subject.

As of 2022, France Televisions Publicité was offering more addressable TV inventory than BVOD, and between H1 2021 and H1 2022 the French addressable customer base grew by 54% to 6.3 million households, the paper reports. Free’s entry into addressable TV could potentially add 6.9 million more subscribers to the audience pot.

The white paper is 71 pages long, so this summary barely touches the surface. If you want to get the deep-dive, you can download the English language version here. It includes full interviews with all the contributors, in addition to analysis of all the research. The paper argues that ‘addressable TV is strengthening the convergence between TV and digital advertising. The brand-safe environment and high completion rates with digital metrics are reviving the TV medium. TV is positioning itself as a valuable complement to video strategies.”

Clarissa is deployed as-a-service and supports other business insight systems at Vodafone. It provides a holistic view across all video and TV data, and complies with GDPR and local advertising standards.

Vodafone and its partner AdScanner TV use event data from Clarissa to measure advertising viewership, while taking into account how viewers’ interactions with the GigaTV service affects the effectiveness of an advert. Vodafone and its partners can also use the viewing insights to identify new audience segments of interest to advertisers and agencies. Insights also support Vodafone’s use of Synamedia Iris for addressable advertising.

Vodafone is using Clarissa to inform data-driven decisions such as the development of STB features, and how to update services to increase consumption. In one example, Clarissa took under 24 hours to uncover how many concurrent recording streams Giga TV viewers were accessing. This helped inform decisions about the capabilities to include in Vodafone’s next generation of STBs.

Wolfgang Zeller, Head of TV Architecture and Development at Vodafone Group, says, “What felt like mission impossible became mission possible thanks to Clarissa. It gives us a ton of information on the customer service usage so we can make really data-driven decisions. Integration with our existing infrastructure and third-party solutions was seamless and painless, with minimal disruption.”

“With Clarissa, we’ve created a single source of truth for Vodafone Deutschland to use across the organisation, and ensured it was GDPR compliant from the get-go,” explains Amruta Shankar, Director of Data and Analytics at Synamedia. “By normalising all the data into consistent video-aligned metrics, Clarissa offers Vodafone a treasure trove of insights.”

Vodafone has a multi-year contract with Synamedia (announced in April 2020) that includes other solutions, including set-top box software and security.

“ITV has managed to create a direct link from data to profitability and sustainability, not just for the organisation, but for its partners,” said Izlan. “We use value as a means for prioritisation among many data use cases, as a method for feedback and learning, and as a way to measure success.”

Many areas of the business are said to be improving their use of data: ITV’s own marketing campaign performance, increasing the choice and speed to market of new addressable advertising products, and the empowerment of product experimentation to drive viewer engagement.

Izlan, however, was excited for the next frontier: “We are using data as the connective tissue between all the various touchpoints, or as I like to call it, the ‘viewer value chain’. This means we can start informing and optimising the decisions we make in a much more interconnected way, so we can grow our streaming business. An example of this is data driving content positioning. It enables optimisation and experimentation, and we link that to marketing activity — so how we use data to attract new users as well as re-engaging audiences with first-party data activations across all marketing channels.

“We then link that to the product experience. By using data to personalise experiences on ITVX, we’re giving viewers what they want to see, we’re telling them what they might like to watch next, and driving engagement and time spent on the site. That, in turn, increases the advertising capacity, which we then link to commercial opportunities. It’s how we drive reach, and how we drive more addressable advertising options for advertisers.”

By incorporating everything that Izlan mentioned, ITV has created a feedback loop mechanism to continually optimise its decision making and grow its streaming business.

“It’s been a journey to get here. Over the last 18 months we’ve kept our procurement team busy. We’ve implemented a new cloud data platform, clean room technology, and a customer data platform. All that is coming together to power Flex, ITV’s first data-driven platform that offers insights and the activation of data, ” Izlan revealed.

She also told the London audience that by introducing these new ventures, ITV has recognised that digital transformation is not only about the technology. “It’s also about people and process”, she said. “We knew we needed an enterprise-wide cultural shift for this to deliver the value we want for the business. So, in parallel, the data team is transforming the operating model by moving away from centralised, back-office style data functions to a fully decentralised model where we are embedding data capabilities into the business. These align with each business area’s way of working and strategic objectives.

“We’re allowing our users to self-serve by building data, training that data, then releasing it. We want to democratise data across the business, so the data activation team sits in the same place as the business positions at all levels of the organisation. ITV knows that developing data capabilities and culture are powerful drivers of value. It also makes advertising better for end consumers and a more profitable and strategic investment for brands wanting more enduring business outcomes.”

This creates fierce competition for the multi-billion Euro TV advertising business that was previously dominated by big broadcasting groups. Despite the rise in competition, broadcasters are still in a leading position and remain the driving force shaping the future of TV advertising.

Competition for TV budgets is coming from different angles — and different players

There are three main areas in which new and existing players are refocusing their efforts to provide TV-like offerings — many of which have already become part of the regular mix seen in successful big screen advertising strategies. The combination of scalable reach, data-based targeting opportunities, and digital delivery of big screen video ads are key success factors. In addition to this, social media apps like TikTok, Facebook and Instagram aim to take part in TV advertising budgets with TV-like offerings for the small screen and younger target audiences.

Hardware manufacturers such as Samsung, LG, and Roku are heavily investing in free ad-supported streaming TV (FAST) offerings, which they embed into their user interfaces and thus integrate seamlessly into the TV browsing experience. This method allows them to overcome the boundaries between traditional TV viewing and online video streaming.

Most services are focusing on the aggregation of content, but some are beginning to invest in exclusive content as a way to create unique selling propositions. In addition, automatic content recognition (ACR) technologies embedded on the platforms allow the aggregation of data points, which form the basis for exclusive targeting products within these services.

Some manufacturers use white-label offerings of existing globally active video content aggregators such as Pluto TV and RLAXX.tv that offer their content independently and compose bouquets of local and global video streaming content. FAST services offer newly created linear video channels independent of platform and distribution. These services are available on most devices but are mainly consumed on smart TVs. The growth in this segment can be attributed to FAST’s ability to achieve decent traffic volumes and create an attractive environment for advertisers.

Established VOD services are following suit with ad-supported offerings (i.e., AVOD). In the past, most leading global SVOD services focused mainly on subscription-based business models, but have begun to extend their offerings to include ad-supported services. Recent announcements from Netflix, Disney and Amazon are prime examples of a shift towards ad-supported on-demand streaming services.

Although we are seeing this shift, we should acknowledge YouTube, as it has always focused on advertising-funded content distribution. Additionally, all platforms will continue to attract TV budgets by adding exclusive content rights such as live coverage of major events.

There are also several streaming services focused on one genre of content, which they mostly produce or licence for this specific purpose. These services also fall under the FAST or AVOD labels and are primarily available to viewers free of charge. Music streaming services like Vevo, Xite.tv, and Qwest.tv are available on most major mobile and TV devices but continuously face the challenge of generating relevant traffic volumes. This challenge results in services like these partnering with streaming content aggregators.

For broadcasters, full addressability is key

Many European broadcasters have defined “addressability” as one of their top strategic priorities. Transforming the traditional TV advertising business model towards addressability – with its granular targeting capabilities – is a critical factor for a sustainable long-term product and commercial strategy.

There are numerous methods broadcasters are using to achieve the goal of shaping the future of the TV advertising industry. We have seen broadcasters attempt to optimise targeting methods across different devices and audiences by developing products that enable the unique collection of TV viewing data. Another way that has become very popular in recent years is the growth of external initiatives such as mergers, acquisitions, and strategic alliances between broadcasters, media sales houses, and adtech companies. It is through these methods that broadcasters hope to accumulate a large share of TV advertising budgets.

Three core areas of addressability

There are three main areas of what we call “addressability” in the European TV advertising landscape.

1. Addressability in broadcast TV via HbbTV

 Most relevant for linear TV is addressability within the broadcast TV stream via HbbTV and the emerging HbbTV-TA standard. For most major broadcasters, traditional television still holds the largest share of consumption and thus the largest share of advertising revenue. Therefore, broadcasters are heavily investing in solutions that take advantage of the massive reach traditional TV provides.

In Europe, one of the key drivers is the HbbTV standard. This allows for the combination of traditional TV distribution (e.g. cable, satellite, terrestrial) and insertion of digital ads into the broadcast stream. In markets like Germany, Spain and Italy, insertions of display ads have been the key driver behind the success of Addressable TV advertising. As HbbTV has traditionally been somewhat limited in the quest to substitute the ad break, the development from HbbTV to the new HbbTV-TA standard is a groundbreaking advancement. HbbTV-TA now creates the basis for frame-accurate substitution of ads within the ad break in combination with granular device-specific targeting.

[The HbbTV-TA specification was introduced by HbbTV.org in 2020 and includes specific capabilities that allow advanced targeting advertising (TA). The major benefit for broadcasters, platforms, and operators lies in the opportunity to create a seamless substitution of video ads within a traditional TV ad break. smartclip has already successfully introduced the substitution of the ad break based on HbbTV-TA in Germany. More details on HbbTV-TA at hbbtv.org] 

2. Addressability in broadcast TV via managed platforms

Another form of addressability within the broadcast TV stream is through collaborations with managed platforms. Broadcast distribution in markets like France, Benelux and Nordic countries is mainly executed through proprietary ecosystems of telcos and operators. Another example is the addressable TV solution enabled via the Sky AdSmart platform in the UK. Broadcasters are closely collaborating with telcos and operators to enable addressable TV solutions. In markets like France and Belgium these collaborations have already led to successful ATV advertising propositions.

3. Addressability in linear live stream and BVOD

Given that the big screen remains the preferred viewing method of video content consumption, the final area of addressability is linear live streaming and BVOD. It is no secret that the demand and usage for content consumption on digital platforms is constantly increasing. As consumer habits continuously change, broadcasters are responding by expanding their services on digital platforms. Services may be offered on all digital devices, but the big screen remains king. This is illustrated by a large share of viewers using BVOD and linear TV streaming apps via smart TVs.

These owned digital offerings put broadcasters in a unique position to combine their linear programme with on-demand functionalities and exclusive access to locally produced content. Advertising within these offerings can be delivered via pre-rolls, mid-rolls, or by substituting ad breaks in linear streams through Server-Side Ad Substitution (SSAS) technologies.

Conclusion

As the TV and digital advertising industry react to the momentous news regarding digital SVOD players moving towards advertising-funded business models, we need to keep in mind who the true advertising powerhouses have been and still are. European TV broadcasters generate billions of euros and remain the clear leaders in advertising revenues — providing the perfect position to drive a shift in TV ad budgets towards digital.

Achieving addressability on all distribution platforms is not an easy task, but broadcasters have already proven that their advancements and investments in addressable TV products are paying off. Our sister company and tech partner, smartclip, is already providing major broadcasters like Atresmedia and RTL Germany with comprehensive addressable TV products throughout all their distribution platforms. smartclip’s recent acquisition of Realytics adds the power of TV data analytics and TV data attribution to the product mix.

In the shadow of the public focus on the advancements of Netflix, Disney, and other streaming services towards ad-funded “TV-like” offerings, European broadcasters have already done their homework and secured a head-start in the race for big screen advertising budgets.

References:

^[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/799762/tv-ad-spend-in-western-europe/

A bespoke linear channel schedule can be created for each viewer based on recommendations intelligence, with an EPG created to accompany it – stretching maybe six hours into the future. The channel is created from a succession of VOD assets stitched seamlessly together. The two companies believe personalised linear channels solve the ‘paradox of choice’ caused by the vast volume of VOD content now available to consumers.

A spokeswoman for Viaccess-Orca (VO) says the VOD content that is assembled into a linear channel is still covered by a VOD licensing deal – so this capability is a new way to surface content within the VOD window.

Viaccess-Orca (which provides OTT and TV platforms, content protection and advanced data solutions, among other things) contributes its content discovery solution, using viewing behaviour and preferences to drive recommendations. The VOD-to-linear channels do not have to be completely personalised: they could be assembled according to mood, genre or even trending topics.

Ateme (known for its video compression and streaming technology) contributes its NEA solutions for streaming, including the origination of linear channels from VOD and catch-up archives. NEA also includes the server-side ad insertion (SSAI) that enables replacement ads to be inserted into the VOD content. NEA draws upon cloud-native and containerised technology and the VOD assets do not have to be moved ahead of processing.

NEA is integrated with the VO content discovery solution and also with Viaccess-Orca’s Targeted TV Advertising Solution. This provides the advertising decisioning – who should be served which ads (based upon the audience profile an advertiser is looking for and the audience profile VO can determine from operator first-party data – notably viewing behaviour within a household).

The new VOD-to-linear channel capability was demonstrated at IBC in September, where VO reported good traction among visitors. The solution is aimed at platform operators and, as with any addressable advertising, it requires the collaboration of the content owners (unless operators own the content themselves).

“We’re thrilled to team up with Viaccess-Orca and redefine the linear TV experience,” said Ahmed Swidan, Director of Personalized TV at Ateme. “One of the greatest challenges for viewers today is finding what to watch.

“With this new service, we’re enabling viewers to discover the most relevant content in a live watch mode, keeping them watching longer and increasing monetisation opportunities for our customers. Viewers can sit back, relax, and enjoy several ‘For You’ live channels with their favourite shows back-to-back. No doubt these personal channels will increase loyalty to the service.”

Dror Mangel, Director of Data-Driven Product Management at Viaccess-Orca, adds: “The Personal Live Channel service is an innovative step forward for video delivery. Collaborating with Ateme, we have solved viewers’ paradox of having too many content choices. And we have offered service providers and content owners many more opportunities to display ads, giving them higher revenue potential.”

Then, you hear all the reasons why this holy grail is so elusive. You hear the measurement isn’t quite there, or the technology is still far from where it needs to be… but due to viewer behaviour, there are necessary and effective applications that can enhance and complement’ business as usual’ TV campaigns.

Many brands and agencies are striving for elusive perfection in the execution of CTV advertising. They want to run campaigns through one demand side platform. They hope for some universal identification techniques or perfect data matching solution, but it’s just not realistic right now, or in any near future.

CTV is merely an Internet-enabled means by which to watch content, so the content itself doesn’t come from one all-seeing source. Broadcasters, new apps, YouTube, and more are all part of the addressable TV inventory pot that’s bubbling with opportunities for savvy marketers and modern media buyers.

Agile approach or bust

Embracing a more cross-platform approach to TV advertising is how the media industry unlocks the power of addressable TV. Media buyers must be agile to realise the full targeting and performance potential of TV – to be in front of a viewer at their convenience, around quality content and how they want to watch TV.

We need to employ a different approach to what is ultimately a new ‘TV any way consumers want it’ advertising medium. Respect the fact this is TV (ensuring the consideration of content is as above), and then, recognise it can be supercharged by the power of digital. You’ll find there are effective targeting methods that can be employed to pull this world together and make the most of the new capabilities right now.

I’m not advocating for marketers to cut off traditional TV or saying that the medium is the place where every single viewer can receive a perfectly customised and targeted ad every time they flip on the TV. However, brands and agencies striving for the aforementioned perfection must consider every TV endpoint. Before they fully utilise the burgeoning digital side of this medium, they must acknowledge that they are sometimes missing out on opportunities to talk to harder-to-target traditional TV unreachables, which actually still use the TV screen, but through streaming and Internet-based means.

There are highly scientific, strategic ways to employ addressable TV at scale that can make a major difference in a brands’ business today. We just need to get past this idea of what we think CTV should be able to do and examine where it already excels.

CTV may be complicated, but it is also unique

Alas, as many of us are experiencing, even as CTV is growing exponentially, it’s already become quite fragmented and complex. Media companies, TV manufacturers, streaming device makers, as well as legacy programmatic firms are all staking a claim – and many of these contenders have their own ad technology and unique data assets.

CTV is also fundamentally unique when compared to classic TV and digital media. Co-viewing is common, and accelerated through the pandemic. While some viewers are ‘logged in’ or identifiable when streaming their favourite shows, many are not, and others share accounts. Thus, one-to-one targeting is inherently challenging.

Which is why today, we have a range of third-party research firms and technology start-ups scrambling to find new ways of tracking these cross-platform viewing behaviours. Unsurprisingly, no one firm has got it completely figured out, but there are a number that are close and shedding all-important light on the opportunities that exist.

The audiences are there – and so are the tools

While measurement is often cited as a reason to delay moving forward with CTV, here’s one thing that all companies and researchers agree on – audiences are shifting. The numbers are undeniable. Ofcom data shows that only 32% of time spent with video content by 16–34-year-olds in 2021 came from broadcast TV. What’s more, this is down from 50% in 2017, so the momentum of travel has been quite dramatic.

The good news is there is scale in CTV that can help offset this decline in traditional content viewing, as long as marketers appreciate that viewers don’t actually care about the platforms by which they view. Addressable TV only realises its potential when we as an industry buy agnostically. Buyers must monitor the viewing behaviour everywhere, with all the tools at their disposal, and be willing to place ads on the TV screen in front of quality content at the viewers convenience.

Fragmented viewership should dictate buying strategies, not complex buying mechanisms, or a preferred choice of DSP. In almost all instances, being beholden to limited point solutions can become a limiting factor, severely constraining both audience and quality. This means finding ways to pull together broadcasters, new CTV suppliers and other tech platforms, like YouTube, as long as there is due diligence about content standards.

The marketers that move forward with a cross-platform strategy, utilising all the advanced tools at their disposal, will be far ahead of the curve as more targeting options emerge, and even more sophisticated creativity arrives. Developing these muscles and this expertise today will have a huge payoff.